Today we should all salute Valery Polyakov, who spent 438 days aboard Mir from 1994 to 1995, the longest stretch in space by any person. Everybody got off Mir alive, and now it's safely down. Congratulations to the Soviet and Russian engineers, workers and cosmonauts who built a miserable Moscow flat in space, using the equivalent of steam-engine technology and manual labor. The solar panel array is the largest structure ever built in space. The food's okay, and the sleeping hammocks are comfortable.
Environmental controls are flawless.
Alpha is to Mir what the Four Seasons is to Motel Six. The trouble is, about all either the Four Seasons or Motel Six are useful for is a place to eat and sleep, and the same is true of Alpha. Essentially all the scientific experiments they will conduct could be done far more cheaply on satellites, aboard automated space probes or from the ground. At least Mir was done on the cheap. Why Texas in D.C. is worse that Texas in Texas.