[FPSPACE] The MirCorp soap opera continues (fwd)

[Dwayne Allen Day]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/475645.asp


Mie's backers
report a rise in
station's fortunes


In an apparent turnaround,
they say Russia is open
to the idea of letting Mir live

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 — The private company
leasing the Mir space station for commercial use
has received informal assurances from the Russian
government that the craft will not be taken out of
orbit as long as money keeps coming in, a board
member and key investor told MSNBC.com
Friday. The formal announcement, however, isn’t
expected until January, when a multimillionaire
“citizen explorer” is scheduled to take a trip to the
space station, said MirCorp board member
Chirinjeev Kathuria.

THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT is expected to
announce that Tuesday’s launch of a crewless Progress
cargo ship to Mir is intended only to stabilize and boost the
space station’s orbit — without mentioning any plans for
deorbiting, a decision that would have sealed the space
station’s fate.
“We’ve received assurances [from the Russian
government] that as long as we continue to fund the launch
vehicles and continue launches Mir will continue in orbit,”
Kathuria, an Internet entrepreneur who has provided millions
of dollars to keep Mir going, told MSNBC.com.
That position appears to represent a stunning 24-hour
turnaround: On Thursday, MirCorp Chairman Yuri Semenov
doubted whether there was enough time left to save the
beleaguered space station.
[...]
Mir has been hammered by unusually high solar activity,
knocking it into an unsustainable lower orbit. However, there
are currently only two suitable launch rockets left in the
Russian inventory: One would be needed to boost Mir’s
flagging orbit so that it didn’t fall out of the sky, while another
would handle the controlled plunge into the ocean. 
Semenov met Friday morning with MirCorp officials and
was briefed on the IPO plans. News of the IPO had leaked
in the media before Semenov could be fully briefed on its
details, Kathuria said.
“He [Semenov] understands the IPO plans much better,
and he said he’s going to work with us,” Kathuria said. “He
says he’s definitely on our side. … He says we just have to
convince the Russian government that it’s a viable plan.”
>From Kathuria’s perspective, that task has been done:
On Friday he received a call from MirCorp President Jeffery
Manber, who was in Moscow lobbying the Russian
Parliament, saying he had received assurances Mir would not
be deorbited as long as the cash continued to flow.
(Meanwhile, Space.com reported that Russian
lawmakers came up with a plan that could fund Mir’s
continued operation with money derived from patents on
government technology.)


A WILD RIDE 
The fast-moving story line of Mir reads almost like a spy
novel, with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line,
international intrigue and the fate of a national icon hanging in
the balance.
Although the Russian government is paying up front for
the Oct. 17 Progress launch, MirCorp will reimburse the cost
of the flight with a $10 million payment in November,
Kathuria said. 
Kathuria indicated that “citizen explorer” Dennis Tito, a
former space engineer who made millions in the financial
world, would make a journey to Mir with two Russian
cosmonauts in January. Tito is paying in the neighborhood of
$20 million for that flight, and MirCorp would spend that
money on further repairs as well as another orbital boost,
Kathuria said.
Those two reboosts would give Mir enough time aloft for
additional launch vehicles to be built, Kathuria said. Semenov
told MSNBC.com on Thursday that the procurement and
production cycle for those rockets is 18 months. 
By that time, Kathuria said, MirCorp’s IPO would be off
the ground and additional money would be flowing in.
MirCorp is due to receive millions of dollars for its part
in making "Destination Mir,” a reality-TV series set to air on
NBC during the 2001-2002 prime-time season. (MSNBC is a
Microsoft-NBC joint venture.) And there are rumors about
others who may be interested in following Tito’s lead as
“citizen explorers.”
[...]
However, if what Kathuria says is true, MirCorp
has convinced Russian officials that the IPO is viable and will
indeed provide the cash needed to keep the craft flying.
“Analysts told us we had an asset worth billions,”
Kathuria said. And unlike the deflated IPOs of
revenue-starved dot-coms, MirCorp has $50 million to $100
million in revenue waiting to come in, he said. 
The accounting firm of KMPG has assessed the value
of Mir at $1.3 billion, Kathuria said. Several investment banks
have already signaled a willingness to handle the IPO,
Kathuria said, but none has yet officially signed on to
shepherd the stock launch.