Purpose of this trip. Fiji was chosen to be the staging area for the Mir deOrbit Expedition which had attracted world attention. My 'involvement' in this extraordinary trip stretched way back toward end of last year. On Oct 26 2000 Bob Citron posted a message on See-Sat-List Oct/26/2000 of which I was a list member for almost more than 2 years. He was asking who would like to come around for his plan to Mir de-orbit on Feb 2001. I wrote back immediately and expressed my desired to join.
   My reason to join is simple: rather than wait for a piece of the space debris to deorbit in your backyard ( have not take consideration of the poor Singapore sky condition), I decided I want to go out and view it. No doubt space debris falling to earth is not uncommon. But this isn't any day-to-day space debris. This is Mir. She was huge - radar cross-section of xxx m2.  

DEPARTURE DATE KEEP SLIPPING...

...Early this year I posted another mail to Bob asking about what's the plan. As you probably Mir deOrbit was delayed again and again. Things developed quickly I was soon added to the list of a handful of participants which you can inferred from the mail cc list. The actual date of deorbit was never know in advance even on my departure date. The date keep slipping, first it was Auckland and Chatham  Is. ( off coast of Wellington), then it was Papeete, Tahiti and then Fiji was chosen. I followed Bob must have a huge task trying to arrange for chartering of aircraft.