NASA SURE OF MIR DUMPING SUCCESS








VIENNA, MARCH 7. /RIA NOVOSTI CORRESPONDENT BORISLAV PECHNIKOV/ -- The American National Aeronautics and Space Administration is sure that the dumping of the Russian orbital station Mir will pass smoothly. 


	The chief of the NASA mission planning and preparation department told journalists in Vienna that "Russians know their job". 


	He said that "it is an art from an altitude of 240 kilometers to send Mir to an unpopulated area in the Pacific". Yes, this area is large but Mir is large too, said the NASA official. To him, most of the space station will burn but 25 tonnes of its fragments will be "thrown into the ocean". 


	Russians have already dumped in this region over 100 rockets and hardly anything extraordinary will happen with Mir, the American specialist said. 


	There must be no room for hysteria in Austria, Germany or another country, he stressed. It is the Japanese who can be afraid a little bit--the Country of the Rising Sun will be the last one to be overflown by Mir. 


	But, Russians are skilled astronauts and engineers and their calculations can be trusted, reiterated the NASA official.