REGARDING the concern of Mrs T Earp (Letters, February 22), could I put her mind at rest?

Don't panic - the Russians aren't coming!

The mirror they have placed up in space is just an experiment.

There are no sinister plans to melt huge snow fields for mining purposes.

Due to many Russian cities being above the Arctic Circle, there isn't much sunlight for several winter months.

The mirror was sent up to see if, in the future, they could send up an array of mirrors to shed light on these cities during the dark months, just to alleviate the monotony of their dark days.

The experiment failed and, due to a lack of funds at the Russian Space Agency, the plans will not be carried out.

The light transmitted back to Earth would have been less intense than that reflected by the moon, so they couldn't have melted an ice cube, never mind a huge expanse of snow.

COLIN HEANEY (Mr), Fouracre, Mellor, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.