Moscow approved Thursday a five-month mission to keep Mir -- which was to have been consigned to the cosmic scrap heap last August -- in orbit while Earthlings find the cash and the clients to make the bid commercially viable.

Mir's operator, Russia's Energiya corporation, has taken a majority stake in the newly-created MirCorp set up to attract investors to the project, which will run Soviet-built Mir along resolutely capitalist lines.

"Here is a project started by the Soviet government, and now it's a joint international project," MirCorp President Jeffrey Manber told AFP in a telephone interview from the United States.

"We think it's going to capture the attention of the world."

Manber said final details of the deal should be available by mid-February.

Venture capital outfit Gold and Appel (eds: correct) had committed "in the 20s of millions of dollars" to the project, which would offer opportunities to the pharmaceutical industry, satellite repair, satellite manufacture, he said.

Military research will be banned, he added.

Firms interested in beaming live images to Earth for cable and the Internet could also be attracted by the project, as well as travel agents keen to attract a new generation of tourists known as citizen explorers.

So how much would a cosmic ticket to the final frontier cost? "A lot, anywhere between 20 and 40 million dollars," said Manber.

"Energiya has a history, it has sent several people to space," he said, citing the example of Japanese journalist Toiohiro Akiyama, who took part in a mission on the Russian space station Mir in the early 90s.

Manber said Mir would not rival the International Space Station project. "We believe in the private sector. We believe that we can find markets that the governments will never look at," he said.

"We believe the Mir will have a wonderful place fulfilling the dreams and excitement of people world-wide by being a commercial station. Mir is the stepping stone to opening space up to everybody," he added.

MirCorp will be seeking 200-300 million dollars in services over the next year, he said. "We will be looking for corporate sponsors, just pure corporate sponsors, soft drink companies, we've had some discussions with a travel agency ... with other folks," including the film industry, he said.

Adverts have already been filmed on Mir.

Gold and Appel's cash injection will go a long way toward meeting the 750 million rubles (26 million dollars) that Yury Koptyev, head of the Russian Space Agency, said would be needed to finance the new mission to Mir.

A resupply vessel will be sent on February 1, and "a crew will follow in late March or early April, to stay on Mir until August," Koptyev said after a cabinet meeting here.

The government has asked the finance ministry to find "non-budgetary resources" for the mission.

Russia's cash-strapped space programme was forced to abandon Mir last year because it could not cover its operating costs and at the same time participate in the multi-nation International Space Station project.

But while no longer this year's model, Russian space executives insisted Mir remained viable despite a string of problems which made the veteran orbiter a byword for accidents.

Manber said MirCorp, which is to be based in the Netherlands, hoped to revamp Mir through a series of tie-ups and investment deals.

"If we can raise sufficient corporate partners and capital, we can undertake a renovation of the Mir," he said. "It's not easy, but we think it's do-able."

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SPACE TRAVEL
MIR To Get New Supplies
Moscow (AFP) January 12, 2000 - A Russian supply rocket is to blast off for the Mir space station on January 31 in preparation for what may be a final manned mission, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported Wednesday, quoting space agency officials. Yuri Koptev of the Russian space agency RKA said a decision on a 45-day manned mission would be made January 20, with the cosmonauts' launch scheduled for March 30.