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New Russian Space Station 'Real Possibility'
su-geek writes: "BBC is reporting that the Russians are looking into the feasibility of a commercial space station. The Station would be used to promote space tourism and would help pay for future supply missions to the ISS." I think they should get into the business of crashing space stations into the Pacific, and bringing tourists on boats to watch the fireworks.
Hey barely have the money for what they are supposed to do for the ISS. I don't think the US would let them get away with it after all the financial problems they have caused us already. This is just politico's talking it up at best.
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
...this one will be built of 60% duct tape and 40% bailing wire, instead of the 40/60 split Mir was made of.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Thanks for the intelligent commentary Hemos. It really adds to the discussion.
This isn't actually that bad of a plan, assuming there are that many people willing to pay ~$20 mil to go orbital.
At least this way the tourists get shunted off somewhere they can't screw serious research up. And if people with way too much money for their own good want to spend it taking trips into space, why stop them?
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
There is no way Russia can afford something of this magnitude in their current state...
-------------
Andy Tomaka
Unfortunately, the end of the Cold War has hastened the demise of space exploration, probably because of the suits have overtaken the uniforms as the patron of the techie budget.
What the Americans and Soviets could once do, a whole league of nations now struggle to do.
{ahem}There was that User Friendly cartoon about "a new erosive force" on Mars{/ahem}
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
Those numbers are highly speculative I would have to say. Energia is saying they can have it in orbit by 2004 at a cost of around 100 million dollars. If this was the case, instead of buying a trip on Mir (ended up being ISS) for 20 million I think Tito and a few friends simply would have bought there own space station in the sky. I remember Hilton Hotels were backing there own initiative to build there own hotel in space. Maybe these folks could get together and buy one together. Heres a link about Hilton Hotels discussing building a hotel in space.
All that said, when the opportunity presents itself, I'll be up there!
bbh
seeing as how they don't seem to warmly welcome the idea of Russia bringing tourists onto the ISS every couple months. If Russia can build a commercial space station to cater to those who want to buy their way into space, it aleviates NASA from having to deal with the issue of tourists on the ISS. Like the article said, the ISS is for science, the new space station will be for vacationers.
I posted to
Actully make money out of it. Hey no stupider than forming a linux distribution company.
Space tourism is clearly ready to become real. But I wonder if something a little less ambitious -- like, say, suborbital flights -- might not be a better place to start. And these "space hotel" stories have a history of being vapor.
On the other hand, the ISS is so screwed up, it's hard to believe that someone couldn't do better.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
The sad thing about space travel is that it is currently being used for science. Don't mistake me here though - I happen to think that science is the best possible use for space programs, if anything there is not enough money to go around for scientific research in any field.
Currently, the only real "business" in putting things into space is in military hardware and communications satelites. If "big business" gets involved in space tourism, (and here is the key!) and space tourism becomes profitable, more advancements into space travel will be achived. It is ironic really, that profit will create a drive for better space accesability than research does.
The more trips that there are into space, the more the process will become streamlined - and the greater the economic drive to make it less expensive to get people into space.
And finally, just like the article mentions - space tourists coule cover much of the cost of space missions. This would allow for more research to take place in space.
All in all. It is about time.
Now if we were only able to put nuclear powered spaceships in space (such as the "Orion" design mentioned by Carl Sagan in Cosmos) and have craft capable of 1/10 the speed of light.
Perhaps someday.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I'm amazed that a country with NO money continually spends their debt on failing space programs, whereas a country with a high level of affluence and world influence shows continuing dis-interest in what its very own citizens realize as important, if not somewhat boring these days.
Father: "I grew up in the space age."
Son: "You mean that use to be a big thing? Ohhh..."
Russia SHOULD rather be focusing on rebuilding their ruined country. A place where doctors are paid in trade by the government (salt, cow dung, whatever -- and no i'm not kidding). A place with an unstable government and a weak military. What is in space that they are after, exactly?
Meanwhile, America should of course be embracing space more, but we're barely willing to increase NASA's budget beyond annual inflation.
On the other hand, it looks like we won't even be able to afford a valuable education bill without dipping heavily into social security, so maybe space can wait.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Newsflash: intriguing new results of a survey indicate that /. audience is not at all uniformly white, protestant, and american, as it was being envisioned by the editors.
"It was a real eye-opener," says Hemos, one of the members of the editing staff, "to realize that some of my dumber comments can be perceived as offensive in some other parts of the world."
"Of course," he added after a bit of thought. "Not like we care about those unwashed filthy pigs in their silly little countries, anyway."
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Eventually many people see the price of air space travel lowering to a point where it will be feasable for not just the filthy rich. If they can fly 3 people to the station up to 20 times a day, what impact will this have on pollution?
We have riots with the WTO over countries that cause all the pollution but reap in the profits. I cant see the *other countries of the world standing for this, unless their part of the action as well...
Considering all the attention the concord jet has attracted, I really dont see this happening anytime soon.. The concord is known as a gas guzzling pollution machine, not too mention the sonic booms...
One thing that I havn't seen mentioned recently in regards to the idea of space tourism is saftey. Obviously, there is inherent danger in shooting oneself into space, but how long will it be before the FAA is the FASA (Federal Air and Space Administration)?
USA should be doing this. this could be a big business. the plan looks pretty feasible (not sure of the numbers though) but there are many ppl out there who're ready to pay huge amounts of money for a visit to the stars.
Instead of depending on the govt for grants, NASA should also start a commercial wing to cater to space tourists and use the profits for further exploration. This way they won't have to stall or cancel their projects just cuz the govt doesn't like it or doesn't want to fund it.
Ya know, lots of people will say (and are saying here already ;-) that Russia can't afford it. Well, they are probably right.
But, damnit - I wanna see it happen! I want to see tourism in space, I want to see commerical enterprises get a chance to really have some room to try and make use of a space station. Movies made in space, what have you. I want to see it ALL happen.
Why? Because if one group - ANY GROUP - shows that it's possible to make a profit putting people up in space either through tourism or what have you, it's going to open up so many doors*. I'd love to see VC's getting as excited over space travel and space stations as they did DotComs. Granted, the stakes are probably a bit higher, and not as many VC's will be able to afford the investment. But if it gets started, there will be those who innovate, and find better ways of getting from 'here' to 'there'. The leap to things like colonizing the moon (yuck - not THAT attractive, but kinda cool) becomes a lot shorter.
(* - Yes, I know. Even if they put something up there doesn't mean it's going to be profitable. But if Russia can dream of putting up a station and mostly supporting it on tourism and such, well, I can dream of the idea of it actually being PROFITABLE :-)
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Do you editors have any idea how much better Slashdot would be without your fucking smartass comments at the end every goddamn story?
Why all the negativity about this? So what if they're considering it.. At least SOMEONE is considering SOMETHING. We may not have mastered all there is about going into space, even if it's not far out from our own atmosphere, but at least a group of people is giving thought to this. I do not care if they've only considered it purely for greedy financial reasons or what not, but this is something good. It's been many people's dreams to go out into space, and really, it's their own choice to make that risk (again we haven't mastered everything) So accept that Russia may create a commercial space station, fulfilling the dreams of many, and also raising money to possibly -advance- in the 'space' discovery. I think it's great that someone's finally come forth and expressed their ideas and possibly plans for something that could be wonderful and even educational to many.
I tried submitting information on just this issue several hours ago and it got rejected. Anyway here's the scoop I had.
MirCorp, despite the ditching of their namesake, is still in the business of space tourism. They have proposed a new space station dubbed "Mini Station 1", which would house 3 space tourists for upto 20 days at a time. They hope to make a commercial venture of it through corporate endorsements and giving clients with ultra deep pockets an out of this world vacation. This news story gives additional response from the Russian Space Agency and the spacecraft builder Energia.
I think they should get into the business of crashing space stations into the Pacific
But next time Taco Bell should use a 400x400 MILE target instead of 40x40 foot.
This is all about some yahoos in Russia looking to get their hands on a pot of money - not money from "space tourists", but contracts to build such a space station.
Of course, $100 million can't build a space station. But lots of people would love to get their hands on a percentage of $100 million.
Therefore, the Russian advocates. But let's be real - except through gross mismanagement, this will never ever happen. It could only happen in the US, where corporate interests dictate government spending. Of course there is no need for such a project in the US - the government hands out thousands of $100 million contracts to "defense contractors" every year.
The runway at Baikonur has just been refurbished, this is the runway that was built specifically for the Buran and AN225.
Reportadly Buran is virtually ready to fly with very little work, strap on an Energia and boosters roll her out to the pad and jump on in.
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Sex and technology just plain go together. Videos, Cdrom's, DVD's, and the internet itself have all had their substantial infusion of cash flow from the porn market. And when people get bored with the idea of having sex in 0 g's we can start promoting sex on the moon -- acrobatic sex with only a fraction of the earth's gravity.
Hey, if you think Russia can't get the money to do stuff like that anymore, you are mistaken.
There's an endless supply of rouge entities more than wealthy enough, and certainly willing enough, to purchase every old and dusty Russian rocket or jet [or warhead] that Putin decides is expendable.
Russia doesn't want or need another MIR. But considering the flippant way in which Dubya keeps yapping about missile defense systems, abolishing the START treaty, and testing nukes again [etc.] -- I'm sure Putin would love watching Dubya's reaction to such an announcement on CNN:
[Dubya scratching head] "Hell, I guess they need another one, right? That other one --the uh, MIRROR orbital-- didn't even come close to hitting the Taco Bell thing floating out in the Atlanta Ocean! [haha]"
<---[singularity sig]
Did anybody else read "on boats" as "on board" the first time? I was starting to think Hemos was a little sick in the head when I realized it was myself. To much IRC has tained my thought process I guess.
You know, honkys
Shouldn't that be "honky muh-fuhs"?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Didn't their last station stay up longer than ours? And weren't they able to make some money off of it? Geez, NASA should be happy to have such a track record.
The Russians have forgotten more about practical long-term space travel than NASA ever knew. Considering all the factors working against it, Mir was a huge resounding success for remaining functional so long past its original design specs. If NASA is truly dedicated to being "faster, cheaper, better", then they would do well to study and learn as much as possible from Russians designs and techniques.
SpaceDaily's story
They explain some of the logistics, such as making the commercial station a stopover point for soyuz taxi flights to the ISS to save launch costs.
Go Lakers!
"I think they should get into the business of crashing space stations into the Pacific, and bringing tourists on boats to watch the fireworks."
If you're talking about the MIR station, let me tell you it excedeed it's time of service, and the last thing I heard, it outlasted the Skylab, now that's a failure.
Stop adding this kind of "humor" to the articles, it demeans the audience as stupid in history. At least I hope there are not many who thinks about MIR like you...
----
On the other hand, I hope this news is not true, the people of Russia has more pressing things to worry about. But if they want, they can pull it off, I'm sure of it.
how is this on-topic?
Go Lakers!
are they going to not let americans on or only when supervised? I think it is childish to think that we can't just get along with Russia.....
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, not just chemistry, reality!
...is breathtaking to watch. All the little slash-weenies lining up to attack the idea. How dare those damn Russians do anything that isn't being done in the United States! Somebody should stop them in case they're better at it than we are!
It's a pretty revolting spectacle, really.
I think that maybe starting off a little bit Slower is a more sustainable plan. Unfortunatly alot of the people in my generation look to the generation before us As the ones that were the ultimate in selfish... "there parents gave them the moon, and they didn't care". Few people realize hoe much the space program has benifited us. How many times do we watch the news and wonder "GEE how can they forcast the weather like that", Or use our GPS units and wonder WOW how did that happen?.... I think that having a space station is great But lets show BIG corp's that there IS MONEY in space (if nothing more than /.'s running fron katz) And make it sustainable. A GREAT fiction novel was written about this possibility. http://www.panix.com/~dgh/Flynn_FIRESTAR.html
Frankly I think Russia might just be able to afford this one. They're keeping the design very simple. The picture shown on spacedaily.com shows one module that's smaller than the ISS Svezda (zvezda?) service module (not the FGB).
I think making movies in space is overrated. Movie sets require actual open space to film, and staff on hand. For Ministation 1 we're talking three people max, at least one of which has to be a Soyuz pilot, a max of 20 days, and habitable volume comparible to a minivan. That just doesn't sound realistic for making movies to me.
But space tourism, fuck yeah I'd go. Hell, I want to do it badly enough to try out what that guy in oregon is doing. Don't laugh at me, I was born and raised in Oregon, so maybe it's the air and greenery that implants insane desires.
Go Lakers!
QUOTE>>I think they should get into the business
crashing space stations into the Pacific, and bringing tourists on boats to watch the fireworks.
If space is ever to be a real business, rather than a gold-plated, national vanity project, the craft are going to have to be built cheaply, and last a long time. And, to ME, all the MIR experience of trying to keep an old craft in the air, with repairs, and fungus and all that will be invaluable in the future. That is to avoid new stations with the same problems, and to develop a sense of how to deal with these problems.
I say, the Russians should go for it. This is a big project and expensive and ambitions, but I think it might be just what they need -- to get a little sense of national pride back. And, it's a way to build some national pride, without building bombs and armys. It is just what they need.
http://junglevision.com -- Shamus for Gameboy
I started out with a good laugh, but finished by scratching my head and wondering if they really could do this.
The Russians are cash-strapped and they have always been short of certain technologies, like up-to-date computers. They are, however, masters at cost-effective space programs and re-using hardware for different purposes. Think of the Progress cargo ship, which is little more than a re-arranged Soyuz.
Big-dollar NASA could never pull something like this off. Years of "making do" might enable the Russians to succeed.
But next time Taco Bell should use a 400x400 MILE target instead of 40x40 foot.
It would also be cool if the target were housing as many Chihuahuas as they could fit on it.
Hemos, do yourself a favor and stop adding pithy comments to stories when you obviously have no clue what the fuck you're talking about. It's embarassing to everyone who does.
Many others have pointed out that MIR has outlived everything we put up so far. Please keep ignorance to yourself and keep this a pure news site, OK? Thanks.
-Legion
This is decidedly not your middle-class family's average day trip. I'm thinking more along the lines of wealthy, old retirees, who feel the need to spend millions on space tourism. Perhaps this would be a better idea after designing cheaper space travel.
user 999dkmmqkdjjakl,dm is taken? whatever. anyway, what is up with this:
This account or IP has been temporarily disabled. This means that this IP or user account has been moderated down more than 4 times in the last hours. If you think this is unfair, you should contact pater@slashdot.org. If you are being a troll, now is the time for you to either grow up, or change your IP.
this is unfair, and nothing short of censorship. I am a valuable asset to slashdot and would please like my account re-accivated. The message says something about talking to someones peter, what is all that about.
please help in any way you can...
losers
MOM
In the former Soviet Union, access to space is for sale to anyone who can cough up enough cash. Meanwhile in the capitalist stonghold of the USA, space is restricted to an elite corps of individuals deemed "worthy" by the government.
Of course, congressmen like John Glenn can hitch a ride whenever they like. It makes for great footage on CNN. The Proles just eat that stuff up.
user 999dkmmqkdjjakl,dm is taken? whatever. anyway, what is up with this:
This account or IP has been temporarily disabled. This means that this IP or user account has been moderated down more than 4 times in the last hours. If you think this is unfair, you should contact pater@slashdot.org. If you are being a troll, now is the time for you to either grow up, or change your IP.
this is unfair, and nothing short of censorship. I am a valuable asset to slashdot and would please like my account re-accivated. The message says something about talking to someones peter, what is all that about.
please help in any way you can...
losers
MOM
It's great how americans have this image of russia in their heads that is made up mostly of american-government propaganda, how everyone in the country is poor, yada yada yada. So...I presume almost everyone here thinks that siberia is a big plateau with ice and eskimos on it too?
Advice, before covering a place in crap, do some research on it or visit it. Then you can talk, because face it, the US isn't the shiznit either.
test
Salshdot no longer seems to be interested in a true open forum. Sure they don't want this degrading to a free for all but when someone has an opinion don't slap them down just because you don't agree. Even an offtopic post could be insightful. I guess the slashdot moderators are so afraid someone might be distracted by even one post that is not strictly on topic. For example this post will certainly get slapped down, because it has nothing to do with the Russian space program but it does have quite a bit to do with what is going on here.
test2
I was watching a pbs special about how the russian airforce allows tourists to fly thier planes, so pilots can get in basic air combat training. 1K a pop, and you too can fly a mig.
Hell, even Chuck Norris even owns a chain of casinos in Russia.
The idea of using spent Space Shuttle fuel tanks is not new. It was once considered by Nasa as the basis for its own space station. However it was discarded as being too simple.
Now that's an engineering point of view if I've ever seen one.
"Ideas anyone?"
"Hmm we could just use the spent fuel tanks from the Shuttle."
"Yeah that would be great, and really easy!"
"I don't know, it's pretty simple."
"Yeah I agree. Any other, more complicated, ideas?"
(From this article, posted here earlier.)
It would be a hell of a lot cheaper to fudge it with a few old ICBMs. And with the added accuracy, they oculd bring them down anywhere they want! Just think of the possibilities- they could have themed space station-crash cruises all over the world, not to mention all the murchandising rights, etc. And when someone blows it, they could find a way to sue them under the DMCA.
Maskirovka
I wonder if anyone here knows about this.
How's this: Cosmic Golf.
The Russians sned up a whole lot of satellites that have some maneuvrability, then let people control their descent back to Earth.
There would have to be limits on this, or otherwise private school playgrounds could get nasty.
e.g. "My Dad can drop an asteroid on your Dad, so nyah!"
I'd certainly like to comment about SkyLab - although noting someone else has made the comment, I feel more should be said.
It's wonderfully arrogant to make fun of something that not only lasted three times longer than it was projected to because your country can afford better - but then to happily forget your attempt at a space station was a complete embaressment?
Mir falling into the Pacific?
How about SkyLab screwing up, the evac of Astronauts and then falling out of the sky and landing ON Australia (in fact, missing a pub by 25').
When America can do it, they can comment. Until then, buck up.
(And no, I'm not Russian in the slightest.)
You are a fucking genius!
Someone recommend this guy for a nobel prize!!
[puts pinky finger in corner of mouth]
I shall call it... Mini Station!
"The dead do not shoo-bop-aloo-bah." -- Kai, 'Lexx'
I'm all down for the commercial modernization though, like having 8 space port doors to pull up some space busses, like a big Boeing 877 space bus, and the McDonalds and Wendy's module.
When we get tired of doing research, take a quick spin (literally) to the Blockbuster Module and rent some DVDs. I'd like to see how they keep the movies on the shelves from spinning. They could also have night clubs and stuff to party and get yo' groove on.
They could even build station interconnects, so that you can link Russian and US stations together. So you can vacation on the other station when you run out of entertainment. But definitely, they should have some type of "shell" module that companies could buy to run their own consumer businesses in space.
Museums, hotels.. all the stuff to make an interesting time. And you'd have to have some satellite TV to watch (can you get DirecTV from the space station? guess you'd need a special dish) No casinos, because you wouldn't want to be broke on a space station. Pay up or Vinny will shoot your ass out the bathroom hatch.
OK, I guess I'll lay off the crack now.
-Pat
I think this is rather sad news. ISS is up there, I don't see the need for Russia to give away more money for it's own space station.
They should get the country back together first. They are still recovering.
42 + 1 = 42
I thought they would call it the Satellite of Love? Besides, what are the tourists going to do on their 20 day stay asides from watch movies, and play with Manos, the hands of fate?
They are holding us back. If NASA had half the gumption of the Soviet space program it might be feasible to get humanity into space in terms of tourism, mining and exploration in my lifetime.
We're using something that has hardly changed in decades to do the job. Sure they had a contest for a reusable spacecraft but I havent heard anything about that in a while.
And that one woman astronaught that said Tito gave a bad name to astronaughts because he went there as a tourist needs to be shot in the head and tossed into a wood chipper. It's attitudes like hers that will keep us grounded on this cesspool of a planet.
Down with NASA, they served their purpose and now are nothing but a bloated inefficient government leech, siphoning off the potential of the human race.
100 mil is realistic considering the cost of the hardware. Plus the fact they will not need to use the bigger and more expensive proton booster. This looks small and doable.
I seem to remember from high school science class that there are some products that can only be made in space. I'm surprised they are not trying to make products to sell. There would be a larger market it seems.
But not right now or even in a near future. Russia is too poor and too unstable to achieve something like this. They should concentrate on getting their eceonomy and society in working order before they even consider spending any money they don't have.
Will work for bandwidth
So...we have the Russians who want to make a buck with the space program and the US which is using
money from where exactly?
We dont believe in socialized education or medecine but corporate welfare whether it is a new ballpark or sweetheart deals are ok....
Just checking.
It would be great if they sent up a replica of the Russian refueling station in the movie Armageddon, complete with dirty walls, leaky plumbing and cigarette-smoking fuel attendant who doesn't give a rip. I'd pay big rubles to visit an attraction like that.
I think they should get into the business of crashing space stations into the Pacific, and bringing tourists on boats to watch the fireworks.
/. so they can post about how much they hate it? Just about every discussion thread on here in recent memory has been filled with comments about how the site sucks, the editors suck, the readers suck, the moderation sucks (speaking of moderation sucking -- flying off the handle on Hemos rates an "Insightful"? *wonder*), the story submissions suck, VA Linux sucks, blah blah BLAH blah blah, yet all of you whiners are still here, reading day after day.
Hemos, do yourself a favor and stop adding pithy comments to stories when you obviously have no clue what the fuck you're talking about. It's embarassing to everyone who does.
Didja ever think that maybe he's just making a non-sequitur about the spectacle of Mir coming down in the ocean?
Many others have pointed out that MIR has outlived everything we put up so far. Please keep ignorance to yourself and keep this a pure news site, OK? Thanks.
OK, since we're dealing with ignorance and not knowing what the fuck one is talking about, please point out where in Hemos' comment he was disparaging the Russian space program.
Tell ya what; since you're a logged-in user, use your user preferences and block any stories submitted by Hemos, so that your oh-so delicate sensibilities aren't damaged any further by his "ignorant" comments.
Or better yet, stop telling Hemos (y'know, the Jeff of "Rob and Jeff, the Slashdot founders") how he should use his own creation and take your eyeball impressions elsewhere.
My God, but the whining has been turned up to 11 on Slashdot recently. Are people's lives so vacant that they really have nothing better to do with their lives than reload the front page of
The code is available, the audience is there, maybe some of you should stand up and lead the way instead of being armchair quarterbacks; roll your own Slash-based site (or Scoop-based site, if that's your thing) and show us how it should be done.
Jay (=
Other people have already made the point about Russia needing national prestige again. This would certainly help and it sure beats developing and selling military hardware.
Lets just wait and see, whose spaceship deliver tourists there first. :-P
...I begin to think that Slashdot is finally growing up, some idiot editor like Hemos makes an assinine statement just to prove that I overly optimistic. Just what in the hell is funny about killing cosmonauts, and what does it have to do with space tourism?
Grow up, Hemos.
All about me
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one strange honeymoon, but one hell of a holiday
Russia needs to build up her economy, what better way to invest in a field in which Russia is an acknowledged world leader - durable space station construction.
Just because NASA can't or won't build it doesn't mean that it won't be profitable. The only way I'm getting into space (and let's face it, many of us would like a shot at seeing the Earth from a new perspective) is as a paying customer, and there are enough people with enough money to afford it.
Russia needs capital to build it's economy. If they charge $10 million a trip (monopoly prices), they can send up a few tourists at a time and their profit margin is pretty high. Do you realize the quantity of vodka they have to export to earn that much foreign currency?
No sig for me - too lazy to fill one in...
Old russian technology makes you laugh, but still there's nobody that beats russians in space station experience. The fact that MIR had such a long life should make clear that maybe MIR wasn't pretty, but it worked, and lasted!
ass?
The main difference between a Soyuz and a station seems to be a new ventral docking port right below the main port, for the Progress.
This would be ludicrously cheap and easy to build and put into space, but if three people are to live there it would be awful cramped.
That said... I'd go!
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
This "mini station" could be actually be constructed quite cheaply, say $100Mil. The russians could even use some of the old Almaz station shells that they have stored in a warehouse somewhere. (They had hoped to sell them off as big, unmanned radar imaging stations, but that didn't come to much). There not as big, but since all they need are 3 bedrooms and minimal life support, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
For short missions, they shouldn't need all that bulky excerise equipment either.
Since there wont be many things docked to them (unlike MIR), they can save money by only having 2 or 3 docking ports and mechanisms, instead of the 6 that were on the MIR core module.
Since they will only be used for short missions, (3 people at a time for less than 20 days), the life support systems can be fairly minimal. They won't really need water recyling systems since they can carry enough water with them. They can also bring their own oxygen supply (either compressed, or in perchorlate form), so a oxygen generator ("Electron") wont be needed. (Which needs a lot of power)
They can also bring enough Lithium Hydroxide Canisters with them to scrub the carbon dioxide, so they wont need the "Vosduka" C02 scrubbers either.
Since there wont be any power hungery science equipment on there, (or the "Electron" oxygen generator), the electrical drain will be lower, so there wont be as much need for acres of solar panels or huge heavy batteries.
So, Budget another $50Mil for a proton launch, and there's your economy size station.
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
NASA has shown a total unwillingness to assist private space ventures in any way shape or form. While one might be tempted to ask why, considering it would be in the agency's best interest to "spread out the load" so to speak/ It is because allowing someone to do what they have done would be a disaster for them.
Right now, nobody else is launching manned spacecraft or space stations. When NASA does, they ask for tons of money. It takes them forever to get anything done and they still cut corners like crazy - not in saftey, mind you....NASA have thankfully become safety freaks....but instead, they cut features, missions, R&D, etc.
Look at how crippled the ISS is and compare it to what was origionally proposed and how much what we have cost us.
Then, consider what a private consortium could offer for much, much less. A station that can have inhabitants who are not full time maintence workers, who have no time for any other meaningful activity (as with the ISS) can encourage further development in space (unlike the ISS, which will be the permanent space facility for the next two decades if NASA has their way) further exploration (unlike the ISS, where the upper regions of Earth's atmosphere can be explored again and again) can encourage further research (unlike the ISS, which will invent remarkable crystals and that's about it)
NASA would have a hard time justifying its budget once a 3rd party station became operational. People would stop assuming "space costs that much" and start asking how effectively NASA spends their money and why the other guys can strech a buck much futher than the more experienced organization
Wasn't one of the real big drivers of the
early Internet PORN? I remember reading
many articles saying up to 1/2 of the traffic was porn related. This was before MP3's and broadband took over. And, of course, before the widespread availablity of ISO images of Linux and 20+M kernels every other week. Anyone remember a kernel that fit on a single floppy disk? Anyone remember loading Linux from floppies?
Why can't PORN be the big driver for space too?
With a capacity of 3, it could include the commander and some newlyweds. Or it could include the commander and two actors. If the commander is taught how to run a camera, well.... Didn't the last Russian crew (the one that took Tito up) film some commercials on the ISS? How is this different?
Also a question for you Internet millionares: why not give some of it back in the form of investing in space?
Should venture capitalists :
A Dump their money into web sites run by people with absolutely no experience at anything other than Quake, with no financial plan other than "we will make some money someday" and absolutely no means of generating revenue, or any ideas about how to go about doing so and no particular motivation to figure one out...
Or
B Invest in a new field, where along with the considerable risks and investment needed, people are making serious cash already and their are limitless oppertnities and significant demand?
As a small, only temporary manned outpost, this station could actually be used to produce better science, at least in the area of migrogravity crystalography or metalurgy. The main requrement for this type of research is the best possible microgravity enviornment. MIR was ok, and the ISS will be better but the problem with these stations is that they are manned, and people make noise and vibrations. The crew have to excerise for hours each day, pumps have to run for the life support, thrusters have to fire to maintain a favourable orbit, and other ships are docking and undocking to bring supplies and take away trash. Not to mention astronauts/cosmonauts drifting into the walls and flushing the toilet!
However, this proposed small station would be unmanned for most of the year, hence no people moving around and less need for fans and pumps to be running to clean the muck out of the air. The station could be left in a 'free drift' mode for months on end, avoiding the need for thruster firings. If the solar panels are big enough and there are enough batteries, it wouldnt be as critical to keep grinding the solar panels around to catch the sun all the time.
So, what the scientists could do is give the 'visiting crew' some equipment such as a microgravity metalurgy furnace (or send it up beforehand in a progress cargo ship). The visiting crew would then spend their 2 week holiday or whatever looking out the window, then set up the equipment and experments and leave. Once they hade left (and moved to the ISS or back to earth or wherever), ground control would power down the nonessintial, noisy equipment on the station and activate the experment. It would be left running, quietly, for several months during which it would grow perfect crystals or whatever the experment was. The next visiting crew would then retrieve the results, and bring them away with them (possibly droping them off on the ISS for a smother ride home on the next space shuttle).
Incidently, the original plan for the european space station module, the Columbus Lab. was very similar to this. It would undock and dock to the ISS, so it could run its experments quietly well away from human noise. Of course, cutbacks and politics killed that idea.
Unmanned spacecraft will almost always give you a better science enviorment, once you have good remote control and robitic systems. They are also much cheaper. NASA knows this, but it's raison d^etre is manned spaceflight, nothing else really gets the tv coverage, and unfortunaly even that is minimal at the best of times.
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
This could be better for science than ISS. Think about it, you can go to ISS and spend half your time maintaining the stupid thing, but the odds of Nasa selecting your project to go are pretty low. (Assuming you go with, or it is big)
alternativly you buy a ticket from the russians from your grant, and spend all your time on research because the hotel staff is taking care of maintance. And because they want to make a profit and be touristy friendly you are likely to get up there within a reasonable amount of time.
There is an article on space.com.
The picture shows a really *tiny* space station with a progress and a soyuz docked. The station seems to be derived from the soyuz craft, but it will probably offer more room because it will not have a propulsion system. But it will still be really tiny. The habitable space will a cylinder about 2m in diameter and 4m in length. The crew will sleep in the soyuz, so this is not as bad as it sounds. I guess there is a huge window in the "base" of the space station.
The good thing is that this thing will probably be small enough to go up on a Soyuz launcher, so the price tag of 100M$ is quite realistic. If they can raise the money, they will build this.
Seriously. Because of all the budgetary SNAFUs, Russia and other ISS partners are getting ceded a lot of crew time in order for some cash now to pay for Station components. The shell game is that we will then buy or rent the crew time back from the International Partners when the time comes to do real research on the station.
The rub is this, though: Russia [and other IP's] can gleefully tell us to go piss up a rope or pay the market rate for such services, because they can offer that crew time [as available, as trained, within reason, etc.] up to the highest commercial bidders. For example, I'm sure there's some rich fella who wouldn't mind being trained as an actual crewmember and really run things up there. He'd probably pay a pretty penny, and the IP's can flip NASA a big ol' bird until they ante up some coin.
I think the idea to be a bit insane from NASA's end--they knew this was going to be hugely expensive in the first place, and they haven't done a good job of selling Congress and the White House on increased funding. [Thanks, Clinton and Goldin, for those years of level funding, which now have NASA thinking about life support.]
Sure, NASA's done a lot of dumb things and could stand to out-source a bit of their work to return to the "promotion of useful arts and sciences", but ... -sigh-
-- Geof F. Morris
I for one would feel happiest and safest in a Russian space station - they have proven that it will stay inhabitable under very serious conditions of damage and failure which is exactly what you want for a metal box speeding through orbiting debris.
Also, space travel and exploration should be funded by business - who have a much better incentive to get costs down and safety up in the pursuit of the magic profit -> Must attract those tourists/manufacturers/science companies etc etc.
Governments just have far too much in the way of personal agendas.
I can think of nothing I'd like better than to spend a month in a hotel on the mars, say. Sorry to sound daft, but how cool would that be, eh? Standing on another planet has got to be a step along the way to expansion ever onward, and governments aren't necessarily going to want that - businesses will!
"I think they should get into the business of crashing space stations into the Pacific, and bringing tourists on boats to watch the fireworks."
A: Russia had a station there for twice the projected lifetime.
B: Russia produced the first true "permanent" spacestation - Salyut 7. Mir is in fact the second such station.
C: Russia had several spacestations. The first was Salyut 1 and was set up in the beginning of the 70's. America only one of its own...
D: To bring up Alpha, after years of rumbling with Congress, funds and a failed spacestation, NASA had to recur to Russia to bring up the backbone of the future station.
E: When new/old NASA administration started to show that they may drastically cut funds for ISS, Russia came up with the purposal of getting the main bulk of development.
Yes Russia is short of money and had many oops in its space development. But even having its pockets rotten, it does not quit Space and tries to keep things up. In fact Russia has been always living with rotten pockets. However, it sent the first stuff and people to Space and it was first on reaching other planets. Besides it is the ONLY ONE country having a permanent presence on what concerns spacestations. Don't forget - Alpha lives thanks to the Russian backbone...
Its not the Russian state space agency that is considering building this, it is MirCorp. Not the same thing. MirCorp is a private corporation, based in the Netherlands. Basically, they had an agreement with the Ruskies to keep the money rolling to bankroll Mir and keep it in orbit, but didn't make the cut.
Now they're talking with Energia about a cooperative, commercial space station for tourists. MirCorp would fund it, not the Russian state.
This is real funny though. NASA is sitting with its thumbs up its arse. If NASA won't talk with private industry about doing these sorts of innovative, adventurous, GROUNDBREAKING projects, then the Russians will. More power to the Russians. Go, comrade.
Derek
...wait a minute. p.s. Watch The Tick
If I remember we where able to lauch out last space station in one launch with one. Why can't we one to put up the rest of ISS that sitting arround KSC next week.
:)
BTW Loc of remaining Saturn V's: KSC, JSK, and Huntsvill better the use then and save then till we notice we left something on the moon
Once again Slashdot falls for news-by-press-release. You'd think they'd learn, but Nooooo.
... just a study ... comes to anything, it will be once again a way to funnel Western hard currency to Energia, money that will never touch Russian soil, but be held safely in European banks. Sadly, there's probably a heavy kickback/corruption component as well, as numerous investigations have shown that Western aid to Russia doesn't, well, all get there. NASA and the US have (unfortunately) no interest in pursuing corruption in ISS monies because of the political fallout (all they could do would be to punish Russia by closing the spigot, but given current dependence on Soyuz lifeboats and Progress supply runs, that would mean shutting down ISS).
The Russian government is not spending money on a new space station. The Russian space agency RSA is not a party to this new agreement, which is between Energia (think the Russian Boeing) and MirCorp (an Energia front based in Europe). RSA has agreements with NASA (not worth much, to be sure) that ensure certain levels of service, module completion, and station resupply. This agreement casts doubt on those agreements largely because RSA is a powerless liaison office compared to the mighty Energia. This may well put pressure on Russia to meet its ISS agreements, which will be solved by more creative accounting to funnel money to Energia, but make no mistake about who's in charge here.
If this study
I'm sure that Energia will do whatever it can to stay alive, but nobody should mistake Energia's interests for anybody else's but Energia's. They're a hard-nosed corporation, closely held, probably endemically corrupt at the highest levels. This will keep the technicians and engineers all of us here admire from selling their shoes at a street market, but it won't enrich them.
IF any of this happens. Given previous vaporware from the steam baths that are MirCorp, I'd put money down that it won't.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
The station is said to be for tourists. Then we already know where the G8 submit will take place in 2004. No more 'red zone' in Genoa or Washington DC.
Someone can rate this message as 'Funny'. But I'm not kidding at all.
Its only flown once and never manned. On paper it's a better design but 20+years of operational experience counts fo alot. We are on shuttle 1.6 and they are on shuttle 1.0
The russians lost 2 protons before launching the station core last summer.
With the exception of the Delta III fiasco, the americans haven't lost a comercial payload in years. The Atlas and DeltaII series have an extreme sucess rate in the high 90%. The Titan 4 is back on track but it is an exclusively military launcher(except for some NASA probes)
The Europeans just botched an Ariane 5 launch.
The most reliable launcher in the world with a significant track record (over 50 missions) is the US Space Shuttle with a rate exceeding 99%. This is unmatched and only approached by the Russian Soyuz.
The most reliable launchers EVER were the American Saturn Series with ZERO mission failures (Apollo 13 was NOT the boosters fault) but they had a very limited operational lifetime.
Go to www.astornautix.com if you want to learn something.
The real big deal is not the possibility of the Buran shuttle flying again, but rather its launcher, the Energia.
The biggest difference between the design of the Soviet shuttle and the American shuttle is that on the Soviet shuttle, the main engines are not located on the back of the shuttle, but rather on the bottom of the main fuel tank. Thus, the main fuel tank is actually a standalone heavy-lifter rocket that can also have a shuttle and up to 8 liquid-fueled boosters strapped to it. This heavy-lifter rocket is called Energia.
The interesting thing is, you can use Energia without the Buran shuttle. In this configuration, it can lift 100 tons into orbit in one shot, which is five times the payload of the US space shuttle. If they chose to do so, it could lift their station in one shot.
If one uses Energia without the boosters, it also qualifies as a single-stage-to-orbit rocket, though I'm not sure what its payload would be in that configuration. This is more of an interesting piece of trivia than anything important, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I think that the russian's are using there new technology to one expand there knowledge of space and how people can survive up there, also to make so money. I think it might not be sucessful though because , russia in general is a poor country , no one in the country will have enough money to actually be able to afford a ride into space and to tour, but perhaps many people of elite status if they have the oppurtunity to go up there ( meaning they have enough money ) they will take it. This means more money for the russians. More money for the russians means they are able to learn more make more money and once again continue there studies of outer space.
-=Death_Dj_2600=- (bres6486)
Look at the pictures, doesn't need a proton or even a Zenit, just three or four soyuz launches.
I have one of those $40.00 Apollo Program pens, and it's a thing of beauty. All brass construction, no plastic, hard-chromed on the outside. As soon as you take it apart, you can tell where the money went. And, it writes really well, too.
Figure it falls into the same category as a Mount Blanc pen or some such thing. I'm happy with mine. It goes better with a suit than a Bic would when I have the need to dress up.
Oh, and in 1967, how much did a car cost? $6,000.00?
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Judging by the size of the mini space station core in the MirCorp picture, the module seems to be of the same class as the gamma free flying spacecraft, first proposed back in 1965 or so.
This craft would be small, weighing about 7 1/2 metric tonnes, and therefore light enough to be launched on one of the cheaper Soyuz family of rockets (as opposed to Proton). Habitable volume would be quite small though, about 4 meters long by 2.2 meters diameter
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights