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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.
...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?"
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.
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
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.
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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.
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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.
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"Of course," he added after a bit of thought. "Not like we care about those unwashed filthy pigs in their silly little countries, anyway."
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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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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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
>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
And what would the US do about it exactly ? Cancel russia's membership in ISS and dump russian modules ? yeah right
Let me think, what did they do again to try to prevent them from sending Tito to the ISS ?
Oh yeah, that's it... they used -political pressure-... that worked so well.
laughable.
lonedfx
--
go ahead, I deserve that troll moderation, come on!
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
When Nasa called for design projects for the ISS, they got a few proposals, and they reduced the thing to basically two options: 1) building ISS at sea level, pack it up and ship it in 2 or 3 shuttles flights to deploy it, OR, 2) send it in kit using a hundred shuttle flights and build everything in orbit.
The scientific advisors gave their opinion, option 1 was MUCH easier to do and MUCH cheaper, for the same result.
BUT.
It didn't justify a space shuttle.
ISS (or more to the point, the way it is built) is solely a justification for the space shuttle. I have NO doubt that, if the russians were indeed going to make Mir2 (or whatever they call it), they would not make that kind of mistake precisely because they cannot afford it.
In 10 years, Mir2 might be operational, and ISS might still suffer from budget cuts.
Don't dismiss the idea just because they can't afford an ISS, that's like saying you cannot afford to buy a cesna because a boeing jumbojet costs so much.
lonedfx.
The hope is that this thing might, just might, start turning a profit, and quickly. Considering that Tito was willing to fight to spend $20M on his trip, I imagine they'll find some heavy investors to help.
Dyolf Knip
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
It is quite obvious that ISS is several orders of magnitude larger than anything the Shuttle can lift in its payload bay. To be specific, just MPLM alone - "a moving van" of the ISS - occupies most of the payload bay, and that MPLM is tiny compared to the rest of the station.
Plan (1) is not technically possible - not because of weight but because of geometry of modules. Each of them is bigger than the Shuttle.
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...
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
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.
"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
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.
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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 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.