RUSSIANS WON'T SALVAGE FRAGMENTS OF MIR STATION FROM OCEAN BED








MOSCOW, MARCH 6, 2001. /RIA NOVOSTI CORRESPONDENT EDWARD PUZYREV/. Specialists say they do not plan to raise any of the wreckage of the Mir orbital station from the ocean bed. This was disclosed Tuesday to journalists by a leading specialist of RKK Energiya, ex-cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev. All in all, he spent 748 days in space aboard the Mir station and performed ten space walks. Nobody has surpassed this record yet.


	Only 25-40 tons out of the 130-ton station will reach the ocean surface. Most likely that 19 gyrodynes - the devices to orientate the station in space, some heat-resistant elements of booster-rockets and other constructive parts and devices of the Mir station may fall into the ocean, Mr Avdeyev said.


	Of course, designers applied some secret high-techs to construct these materials and fragments. But these elements are unlikely to be found in the ocean silt and subsequently  retrieved, Mr Avdeyev added.