[FPSPACE] The MirCorp soap opera continues (fwd)

[Woods, Dave]

Dwayne's message got a little scrogged, such that some of our readers
may not have been able to read it:		

This message uses a character set that is not supported by the Internet
Service.  
To view the original message content,  open the attached message. If the
text 
doesn't display correctly, save the attachment to disk, and then open it
using a 
viewer that can display the original character set.  <<message.txt>>

Here is the message in a readable form:		

Dave

****************************************************************************
************************


Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 09:58:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dwayne Allen Day <wayneday@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
Subject: [FPSPACE] The MirCorp soap opera continues (fwd)
To: fpspace@friends-partners.org

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.  =85 He says we just have to convince the
Russian government that it's a viable plan."  =46rom 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.