Mir

Mir is short for the Russian word 'mir' which means "peace" or "world". It was the name of the first space station used by the Soviets. It was launched in 1986 and stayed in orbit until 2001, when it burned up on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. The space station had a crew of up to six people at a time, who lived and worked in the station for months at a time. They did experiments and studied the effects of being in space, and even did repair work on the outside of the space station. Mir was a very important part of space exploration, and was responsible for helping the world understand more about living and working in space.