Russia Working on Soyuz Replacement

Buran writes "The Associated Press is reporting that RKK Energia is starting design work on a new manned spacecraft able to carry a crew of six (or more) to the International Space Station. The vehicle may have a reusable crew module (current Soyuz TMA and Progress vehicles are disposable) and would theoretically finally allow ISS crew size to increase, as the current limiting factor is the capacity of the Soyuz spacecraft, designed in the early 1960s for manned lunar flights. (While Soyuz never flew to the Moon, its Zond circumlunar variant did so several times, and Soyuz and Progress craft have been resupplying various space stations for over three decades.) It will be interesting to see how this develops, as at present ISS crews spend more time maintaining the station than they do performing research, due to the fact that the station wasn't designed to operate with a crew as small as two or three people."

Comments

The problem with the ISS

[ObviousGuy]

It's not that it isn't big enough to accomodate extra astronauts. The problem is that it is not attached to the moon or tethered to the Earth.

A moon base or space elevator would be infinitely more useful than a space station.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[VanillaCoke420]

It should in any case be in a higher orbit, and it should be expanded so that it can be used to assemble large interplanetary spacecrafts. Also, build a station on the lunar surface and one in the L1 (between earth and the moon). Not a bad first step towards a good infrastructure in space.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[cujo_1111]

What we really need is a space station that encircles the earth like in Starship Troopers... Pity it would probably exhaust all natural resources on earth.

We might have to delay that project until asteroid mining becomes feasible...

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Popageorgio]

You mean this space elevator?

Re:The problem with the ISS

[bm_luethke]

"A moon base or space elevator would be infinitely more useful than a space station."

Well, I agree 100% there. Unfortunatly this is like saying "zero emmesion unlimited power is much more useful than what we now use".

I am sure that more than just NASA would LOVE to have said elevator. I am also sure they would like a permament moon base. Those are currently either impossible or the cost is so prohibitive to be impossible. Though I am betting that a moon base is MUCH more expensive than the ISS as you have many more variables and more more gravity to overcome, though it is probably more usefull.

As is, if a permament space platform is wanted (not needed as it is currently not - and yes I agree with the funding and think it ought to be raised - I'm not knocking space exploration in that statement) then the ISS is probably the best mix of possibility and funding. But the best may not be a easily workable solution.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[moro_666]

space elevator ?

>do you know how many chinese dudes run around ?
>about a billion !
>if you pile them all up into a huge mountain
>the top will be in space (we need only 200 km to go,
>every chinese man is about 1.5-1.7m of height, it makes
>uh-oh , about 150 000 chinese dudes ?) so there would be
>a minor loss only in their population :) , they have a
>politics for loosing people count anyway ...

no ok, seriously now, i actually am a deep friend of the
space elevator idea too, only that i aint quite sure if it
should be a long line from some mystic material
which is attached to something very big and heavy object
in space and would work like the 'elevators' in
skiing sites in the mountains.

or should be it a large pipe which could "upload" stuff
in itself ?

there was a movie i saw on tv, maybe even a serial
where people used the inside explosion of a planet to
travel on it, the explosion caused a big hole of vacuum
which dragged all the objects near the holes into it
and they flew out on the other side. physically i think
it's not impossible ... but probably the "method"
would IRL just crush people to death in the flight.
cool idea though..

Re:The problem with the ISS

[ThroatwobblerMangrov]

The ISS was designed to perform scientific experiments in microgravity, a condition which is naturally not present on the moon. A space elevator is totally infeasible at the moment. It is absolutely safe to predict that none of us will see such an installation realized in her or his lifetime.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Docrates]

The ISS WAS a good idea, provided that everything NASA was putting on Press Releases at the time was true: That they had a Shuttle that actually worked like a shuttle, that there were plenty of missons planned that would benefit from the "pit stop" (they even were considering adding refuling capabilities), that the ISS wouldn't be a destination, but a waypoint, etc...

Of course, you add international and domestic politics to the formula and you get the mess we have today: They had to settle for "the ISS destination", they added low imapct, easily replaceable scientific work to justify it, they moved the orbit to where it was mostly useless for anything else to accomodate the Russians (whom are worthy of admiration), and now that we need that "pit stop" to comply with the CAIB and save the Hubble, it won't do.

Will a moon base fare any better? I don't know. I couldn't have possibly predited the mess the ISS turned out to be when the first idea for "Freedom" came along.

The space elevator, now THAT would be a breakthrough.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[spongman]

That's mostly true, but as a contrast: how many prople born in the 1890's thought they'd live to see live pictures of a man walking on the other side of the planet, let alone on the moon...

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Bi()hazard]

First, many of you are probably wondering what L1 is-the first Lagrange Point where an object can enter an equilibrium orbit that matches the moon's motion.

It could be useful if we want to come up with a plan similar to this one for colonizing Mars. Due to Earth's immense gravity, weight and aerodynamics are critical in spaceship construction. However, once the ship is in low gravity these considerations are totally irrelevant. Given a good space station we could have three sets of spacecraft: a true space shuttle for lifting things up to the station; transportation craft designed to move things between planets and moons, and explore new areas; and landers designed to reach planetary surfaces. Assuming we'd be establishing actual colonies on the moon and eventually Mars, this is probably the only cost-effective way of doing it.

In space you can do a lot of cool things with something as simple as a piece of string - provided, of course, that your "string" is made of high-tech materials, has an electrically conductive core, and measures many kilometers long. Tethers have electrodynamic applications - for example, a tether in Earth orbit to which electricity is applied will interact with Earth's magnetic field and climb to a higher orbit without using propellant. Allowing ionospheric electrons to move through the tether via plasma contactors at both ends causes the tether to slow down and drop to a lower orbit. Tethers also have momentum-exchange applications. Physically linking high- and low-orbit objects with a tether forces the object in lower orbit (for example, a spacecraft) to travel slower than dictated by orbital mechanics, while the higher-orbit object (for example, a payload) travels faster. If the tether is cut, the payload will jump to a higher orbit while the spacecraft will drop to a lower one. Hoyt and Uphoff propose a Cislunar Tether Transport System for shipping cargo between low-Earth orbit (LEO) and the lunar surface using minimal propellants. Their work is described by "Cislunar Tether Transport System," AIAA 99-2690, R. Hoyt & C. Uphoff; paper presented at the 35th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit, Los Angeles, California, June 20-24, 1999.

That's just one example of the stuff we could try if we had a serious space program with good infrastructure. Once a moon colony starts to have practical value (mining, manufacture in decreased gravity, science, and of course, the all-important military applications) we'll start to see progress down this road. Unfortunately, it will be a long time before that happens. The military, our best bet to kick-start the process, won't bother until rival nations start building fleets of armed satellites.

Once the military faces the prospect of a space-based war all these ideas are no longer just cool, they may be essential to survival. So, the best-funded operation in the world will be determined to create a moon base capable of controlling space near Earth. Once that's done it will be paid for and justified by tacking on scientific and industrial components. Yes, that's how we're most likely to begin our grand and heroic journey into the destiny of man-for the purpose of being able to kill each other more effectively. Human nature, right?

But don't worry, recent history shows us that the best deterrent to war is mutual assured destruction, and we'll be fairly safe until we have a large enough moon base to become self sufficient and declare independence from Earth. In Soviet Russia, the moon colonizes YOU!

Read the rest of this comment...

look i have a sig!

Re:The problem with the ISS

[BiggerIsBetter]

A couple of points...

Aerodynaics don't mean jack regardless of gravity. Within an atmosphere they are a big deal, of course. Which leads to the idea of building a space station close to Earth, and when it's proven, you can send the station itself off to Mars.

Also (and somewhat trollishly), mutually assured destruction being a good war deterrent sounds like a good reason for the US to STFU about other countries having nuclear programs.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Lumpy]

this is all great and wonderful... but without getting rid of our ultra-primitave and extremely low-efficency propulsion systems all of this is nothing but a pipe-dream.

to hell with space stations, moon bases, space infrastructure...

Let's take a 50 year period and do nothing but work on a decent propulsion system that is at least 100% more efficent than the horrible ones we have now. 200% would be more desireable... I'm thinking we need a 1000% more efficient to do what we all want it to do.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Anonymous Coward]

The year they were born - none.
1970's - most.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[first.last]

tethered to the Earth

Are you high or just incredibly stupid?

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Cosmonut]

Wrong. ISS can't accomodate more than three long-term residents at this point due to limitations on the life support system, the habitation requirements, the lack of an adequate supply chain (Progress is a nice vehicle but the upmass isn't large enough) and evacuation requirements.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[reallocate]

ISS can handle several astronauts. The number of crew actually on the station depends on the capacity of the craft that would ferry them down in case of an emergency. Right now, that's a Soyuz docked to the station. Normally, that would equate to a crew of 3, but the rollback on supply capacity following the Shuttle's grounding requires a smller crew.

Why would you want to tether the station to either the Earth of the moon?

Re:The problem with the ISS

[visgoth]

If I'm not mistaken, the station was actually encircling the moon. It acted as a gun platform / dock for the ships.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[visgoth]

We have the capability right now to have a moon base. We merely lack the motivation to get off our asses and do it.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Firethorn]

The US is scared about many of the countries getting WMD because they don't necessarily care about their own continued existence more than the destruction of the USA. MAD worked with the USSR because, ultimately, the USSR cared less about the existence of the USA than their own existence.

There are factions in, say, Iran, that would happily give nukes to terrorist networks, even in the face of us possibly carpet-nuking the country. That's what we're scared of.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[CrazyTalk]

And exactly how do you propose to do zero-gravity research on the moon? Granted, a moon base has its uses, but if funded properly from the start and with an adequate crew size, so does the ISS.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[that_xmas]

I have to disagree with you there. The Space Elevator is feasible, thanks to carbon nanotubes (make that, double walled carbon nanotubes, because the single wall variety pops when exposed to bright flashes of light). Engineering marvels are always just around the corner.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[liftwatch]

A space elevator is totally infeasible at the moment. It is absolutely safe to predict that none of us will see such an installation realized in her or his lifetime.

Um, moderators... please take a moment to reconsider why you thought the parent comment deserved a +5, Informative. To me, it just reads like a troll.

Such predictions are never absolutely safe. In the case of a space elevator, you must be aware of recent feasibility studies commissioned by NASA. Although some advances in CNT (carbon nanotube) composite strength are still needed, there is every possibility that these will occur in the next couple of decades, if not sooner.

See What is a Space Elevator? for more...

Re:The problem with the ISS

[timeOday]

The ISS was designed to perform scientific experiments in microgravity, a condition which is naturally not present on the moon.

I can see that. What I cannot see is what microgravity experiments have been done, or might be done, that would be worth $100,000,000,000.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Buran]

Many people have the motivation. But the current government is so afraid of risk that historically the money has not been given to those who would do if they could do. That is hopefully going to change.

I see Bush's announcement as largely election-year politicking, and there are a lot of shortsighted problems with it (we can't kill the shuttle yet; all the replacements keep getting killed, including -- just this week -- the Orbital Space Plane project -- and nothing else can match its capabilities of heavy lift, on orbit servicing, and cargo return, all important to the ISS) and we just plain aren't ready, nor is enough funding being given to do it right.

But it's a start. Then again, Bush Sr. proposed the same thing in the 1980s but it quietly died when it proved to be too expensive, and look where we are now.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Buran]

Moon bases will almost certainly happen, as we know it's possible already through current and past exploration efforts on the Moon and our (as humanity as a whole) 30-year experience with long-term space flight and space stations.

Space elevators are still mostly theoretical possibility and may require materials that won't be economical or possible to make for a much longer time, so they're a lot farther in the future.

Zero-emissions cars have been proven to be impractical at this point in time (anyone remember the EV1?) but low emissions vehicles are very common today, and partial ZEVs are being shown to be possible (Focus PZEV) with current technology. And gas-electric and diesel-electric hybrid cars are finally starting to become available in mass quantities (a friend bought a Prius just last month, and loves it).

Technology is moving along nicely.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Buran]

We are on the verge of private companies beginning manned space efforts within the next decade, and I am hopeful that private space stations, manned spacecraft, and possibly lunar bases will be a reality in my lifetime. I want to see the earth from space befor I die, not after (via Celestis).

While the ISS has a lot of problems, including some of what you've brought up, it is also an amazing feat and will doubtless serve in ways that are unimagined today -- and what is learned from this station (the first international one, and the first to be built in the way this one is -- all previous stations were launched in one piece or assembled automatically via autonomously docking modules) will be applied to future stations, government-owned and privately-owned both. And it has some functions that just aren't duplicated anywhere else (can't learn to live in space in cramped quarters without actually doing it, which will be vital for future Mars flights, for instance.) And it's what we have right now, so we should make the very best of it we can.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Buran]

At this point, yes. However, once complete (there are many more modules still to be launched) that will improve. Here's why:

It is quite true that Progress is insufficient -- this is one of the reasons why I believe we just can't retire the shuttle in 2010 as Sean O'Keefe seems to think is a good idea. Progress can't carry many of the replacement parts that the station currently needs, nor can it haul the logistics modules Rafaello and Leonardo that were built to carry the large experiment racks and pieces of equipment that are needed to support research work, and it simply can't return anything to Earth at all as Progress freighters burn up on re-entry -- they have no descent module.)

And the point I made when originally submitting the story addresses your last comment: the simple fact that the crew is limited to three at the most is largely a result of the fact that even the latest Soyuz variant, TMA, can only carry three people and the station crew must be able to immediately evacuate should an emergency arise, so the crew size is limited to the crew size of a Soyuz spacecraft. That is why, if Energia's new vehicle ever is built and funding is found, a bottleneck will be removed that would otherwise constrain crew size no matter how big the station got (unless multiple Soyuz ferries are docked to the station in the future, another possible way to accomodate larger crews.)

And finally, as additional modules are added and the actual station approaches completion as it looks in plans, the life support capacity will increase as habitable volume increases. This was carefully considered when the modules were designed.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[LooseChanj]

ISS in just about the worst possible orbit for what you're proposing.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Cosmonut]

A couple of quick corrections: 1) Upmass using ATV and Progress will barely be sufficient to support a full-time crew of six,and as you've pointed out there is no effective downmass capability in the ISS program once the shuttle is phased out. This might not seem to be a big deal until the experiment wracks are maxed out or researchers need to bring quantities of research materials home. Downmass isn't necessary for simple ISS operations, but if you want to start doing useful things it's nice to have. ATV. Progress, and OSP/CEV/Apollo-Jr don't have that capability. 2)If anything, adding habitable volume will result in a HIGHER load on the existing life support systems within ISS. The existing systems are nearly identical to the units that were used by MIR. Standard MIR operations included burning oxygen-generating 'candles' whenever the crewsize exceeded three people and the same holds true fo ISS; the current life support systems really aren't sized for six people. The US HAB module was supposed to have more life support systems; Core Complete does not include the US HAB module. 3) Evacuation procedures for six people could be met by using two Soyuz vehicles. The Russians are perpetually strapped for cash and it's not clear that the Russian aerospace infrastructure could produce more than several Progess and two Soyuz vehicles a year without a large infusion of funds. Read that last point very carefully. That's the key to interpreting this article. Koptev has a habit of shooting off his mouth about one wonderful Russian space project after another. The money isn't there (or rather, the money MIGHT be there but no one in Russia is willing to spend it on space and spacecraft). BTW, this latest proposal is a resurrection of an older 'super-Soyuz' project called Zarya.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[igny]

I can see that. What I cannot see is what microgravity experiments have been done, or might be done, that would be worth $100,000,000,000.

I can not see what adequate return we might get from the $1,000,000,000,000 moon station.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Buran]

Yep, thanks for elaborating! I was aware of most of that already -- it just didn't make it into the reply.

While it is true that there isn't funding right now (of which I'm painfully aware), coming up with plans and making them known is an important step toward flight hardware. So this IS an important piece of news, even if its future is uncertain.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[ACPosterChild]

Umm, the point of the ISS is to do microgravity research. How does destroying the ug environment help ug research?

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Cosmonut]

Oh sure, coming up with plans is important, but finding a source of funding is equally if not more important; funding helps determine the scope of the project. Without the funding there IS no hardware, no matter how well laid-out the plans. If NASA had gotten the proper funding in the early 70's the US would have attempted to land men on Mars in 1982. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. I use the phrase 'attempted to land' because I don't believe we knew enough about the surface conditions of Mars to successfully land there in 1982.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[Buran]

The reason they didn't get the funding was that the government suddenly lost interest. There wasn't a loss of interest in actually going -- far from it.

But you can't fund what hasn't been dreamed up first. Someone has to dream something before they, or someone else, can actually do it.

We actually knew a fair bit about Mars -- a number of scouting (flyby, orbital, and landing) missions were sent to Mars in the late 1960s through 1970s, similar to the way in which the Moon was explored through flybys, then orbiters, then crash-landers, then soft-landers and remotely-controlled rovers. Only after the robots went first did people follow. (Interestingly, though, the autonomous rovers didn't reach the moon until after humans did; one would expect the reverse to be true.)

Re:The problem with the ISS

[ACPosterChild]

Most of the experiments are pure research. Such things often show no value until years later. It's research for the sake of research, which is what brought about the whole technological revolution. Read about the discovery of electomagnetic radiation for a good example. Also, all of those constants you see for different elements in chemistry books are results of experiemnts. The shuttle and ISS have allowed experiments to be performed that have increased the breadth of mankinds knowledge by providing similar data (the Critical Viscosity of Xenon, or CVX, experiment, for one; Physics of Colloids in Space, PCS, for another). How much is such knowlege worth? *shrug* It's such "little" things that got us to where we are today.

I will say, though, that I have a hard time seeing how firing a civil servant only to re-hire him through a contractor like Boeing to do the same work, with a total cost to government now being ~2.75 times the engineer's salary, helps to save money and "reduce government". It's a bunch of bullshit that puts money into CEOs' pockets and reduces the return on investment by huge factors.

Since I'm already posting: There is little to no research utility in a 1/6th gravity environment. It might be useful for manufacturing, and having natural resources there for mining would be complementary, but NASA's mission isn't to boldly set up manufacturing plants; it's to do basic research and explore. A moon base would help fulfill that mission by providing a true test for a Mars habitat type of module, but there is no other exploration or research on the moon that NASA is (or should be) interested in. It seems that the new Bush plan is corporate welfare, causing NASA to abandon its mission in favor of developing technology useful for making the moon a profitable place to do business. Exploitation of the moon's resources seems a perfect avenue for corporations to contribute to the technology of space flight and exploration (ala the X Prize). Taking advantage of discoveries and advances produced by NASA is one thing, but changing its direction by abandoning research in favor of developing essentially commercial-use-only solutions is harmful to the scientific advancement of the USA.

A Mars habitat module shouldn't need a Moon-based test module. Earth-based testing and remote monitoring of completed assemblies on Mars should be sufficient. I don't see how developing a manufacturing plant on the Moon that refines raw materials and spits out completed Mars habitat module pieces would be cheaper than manufacturing them on Earth and launching them with rockets. As for sending humans, you will have to launch them from Earth (can't exactly assemble them on the Moon), so it would take more fuel and effort to have them stop off at the Moon than it would take to just keep going straight on to Mars. The Mars initiative is cool, but the Moon initiative is a boondogle (aka moondogle ;)

Re:The problem with the ISS

[timeOday]

I am all for research. But seeing as how there are always limited resources, you have to do as much as possible with the dollars you get. That's where the ISS falls down (as does a return to the moon as you state.) The real question is, what research has been done on the ISS, which couldn't have been done without it - that is, on the shuttle and by unmanned craft? That hundred billion dollars could have funded *hundreds* of scientifically worthwhile missions.

The shuttle itself can get to a higher orbit than the ISS, and the shuttle can and has been used to carry out microgravity experiments. (And for that matter, most of those experiments could be carried out without people onboard - maybe even more effectively, since people scooting around and using the toilet etc. tend to make vibrations.)

Re:The problem with the ISS

[susano_otter]

Actually, this prediction strikes me as 100% safe. It's not going to poke anybody's eye out, it's not going to get an innocent man executed, and nobody will lose a limb if they don't keep it inside the prediction.

The prediction doesn't need to be made by a trained driver on a closed course. It doesn't require a safety belt. It can be made while operating heavy machinery. It doesn't molest children, it doesn't attack civilians, and it's not flammable in air.

If correct, the prediction will not lead to war. If false, the prediction will not lead to famine.

Someone could wager their life on the accuracy of this prediction, but that speaks to the safety of wagering, not the safety of the prediction.

Some idiot could rush out to prove this prediction false, accidentally driving over a pedestrian in their haste, but that speaks to the safety of letting idiots drive automobiles, not the safety of the prediction.

The prediction may, in fact, be every bit as wrong as you claim. But it's not unsafe in any way.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[patternjuggler]

It should in any case be in a higher orbit, and it should be expanded so that it can be used to assemble large interplanetary spacecrafts.

The space station was originally conceived as a launch pad for interplanetary missions, but after the cold war they changed the design to a high inclination orbit so the Russian launches from Baikonur would be able to reach it easily- but high inclination means that the natural path for things launched from it would be to go out of the plane of the solar system (there are launch windows still, but very slim). I'm not sure if it's true, but I've heard it's easier energy/safety/money-wise to just launch a new station in a regular orbit than try to change the orbit of the existing one.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[some guy I know]

Due to Earth's immense gravity, weight and aerodynamics are critical in spaceship construction. However, once the ship is in low gravity these considerations are totally irrelevant.

While true in the pedantic sense (weight = mass x gravity, so 0 gravity = 0 weight), the mass of a spaceship is relevant in the sense that a ship with higher mass requires more fuel to non-gravitationally alter its trajectory.
So it is still important to keep the weight down in interplanetary craft.
OTOH, in space stations that do not change trajectory (other than by graviational influence), the mass is far less important, excepting getting the mass there in the first place.

Re:The problem with the ISS

[M0b1u5]

Rubbish, We can make one right now. Deploying it from orbit initially, and finishing it are the tricky parts. Oh, and how do you validate a 100,000 kilometre long carbon nanotube tape? It will be realistic by the time it is affordable, which will be well before 2020. I predict a completed and operational elevator before 2025.

In Soviet Russia...

[MattyCobb]

In Soviet Russia Soyuz replaces YOU!

hell, someone had to do it...

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Wedge1212]

I was gonna say.... In Soviet Russia rocket ship rides on you!

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Darth23]

Sorry I didn't mean to infringe on your copyright:

Same Joke (basically)

Damn, same comment after smar-alec remark even. I think this Yakov Smirnoff Revival thing is really starting to take off.

Damn! Happened again!

[Trillan]

Every time slashdot mentions the ISS is falling apart, my mouse breaks.

* Trillan chucks cordless mouse across the room.

See? Again! I just can't figure it out.

Re:Damn! Happened again!

[Jackdaw Rookery]

You need a Soviet mouse then. Designed and built in three minutes from steel and random tubing, to help move it across the desk it comes with 24 mini jets clustered around it.

It will last longer than cockroaches and be derided by everyone working on more complex and expensive solutions; but it will just go on working for decades to come.

Now then, what was this thread about? Oh yeah ...

Re:Damn! Happened again!

[Anonymous Coward]

In soviet russia, mouse moves YOU!

But seriously - the russian mouse is fine, but you need to wear rubber gloves and a respiratory mask while using it because of the lead and asbestos content, and it's not a bad idea to wear a steel mesh glove too because of the unfinished sharp edges. At least the four pund weight will give you som exercise while you browse.

Re:Damn! Happened again!

[Trillan]

Hmm. I think I just need one with a tether. I mean, cable.

Re:Damn! Happened again!

[Junior J. Junior III]

In Soviet Russia, mouse throws YOU!

Re:Damn! Happened again!

[damien_kane]

The problem is not the mouse. The mouse is fine.
The problem is that the arm you are attempting to interface the mouse with is incompatible and must be replaced with a newer version.

That will be $20.00, have a nice day. :)

Re:Damn! Happened again!

[Trillan]

Son of a... you're right! Turns out my arm was measured out in inches and wasn't properly converted to centimeters when the rest of the plans were.

I guiess my first clue should have been everyone calling me "stumpy."

Re:Damn! Happened again!

[Anonymous Coward]

$20.00 for a new arm? whoa... what is this, some sort of miracle of science? Only charging me for the petri dish you grew it in, huh? :-)

Wait a minute

[Bobdoer]

Didn't the Russians report earlier that they wanted to send nuclear reactors to Mars? Now they want to develop a new space vehicle? Their economy is in a slum right now; how are they paying?
I know for a fact that DVD bootlegs do not produce that much capital.

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory Simpsons Quote

Russian official: The Soviet Union will be pleased to offer amnesty to your wayward vessel.
American official: The Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up.
Russian official: Yes, that's what we wanted you to think! [laughs]

Re:Wait a minute

[wronskyMan]

Their economy is in a slum right now; how are they paying?
Typical capitalist criticism. Didn't you learn in PoliSci 101 how in Soviet Russia, the Soyuz pays for 60% of your income tax?

Re:Wait a minute

[arivanov]

Their economy is in a slum right now; how are they paying?

Get a clue.

Read some actual reports on Russian economy

Russia still has regions living in extreme poverty, but as an overall economy it has had a year on year GDP grouth of 7+ for the third year running. So in fact economically, it has no problem in affording it.

Re:Wait a minute

[Crypto Gnome]

No, but according to the RIAA someone is making an absolute killing pirating CDs of music.

Re:Wait a minute

[kshcsuf]

I just recently read somewhere (was it here?) that the Russian space budget is less than a billion dollars. Apparently, the ESA spends between 15-20 billion and the US is well over double that. It would be amazing to see if they progress smoothly with such little capital. Maybe we could learn a thing or two...

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

I love Russians...

I love you.

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

But now that Russia is capitalist and a democracy (at least, nominally it is a democracy), it's no longer acceptable to spend enormous chunks of the GDP on defense and space programs while ignoring the goods and services demanded by the average person.

Re:Wait a minute

[spongman]

It just has a big problem convicing most of its citizens that it can afford it.

Re:Wait a minute

[MvD_Moscow]

Not really. As such there are no fair elections. All free media has been destroyed or taken over. There is only one radia station in Moscow is 'free' and they are in dager of being closed down. There is no difference between administrative and law-making government - they are one! Believe me, Russia has very big problems with democracy. About 7% GDP growth, take away the oil dollars and the GDP will most probably be negative, but the worst things is that Putin's government isn't doing anything to develop secondry and tertiary sectors.

Re:Wait a minute

[escallywag]

But now that Russia is capitalist and a democracy (at least, nominally it is a democracy), it's no longer acceptable to spend enormous chunks of the GDP on defense and space programs while ignoring the goods and services demanded by the average person.

Why not, the "world's greatest democracy", the US, does that all the time

Re:Wait a minute

[mikerich]

Didn't the Russians report earlier that they wanted to send nuclear reactors to Mars? Now they want to develop a new space vehicle? Their economy is in a slum right now; how are they paying? I know for a fact that DVD bootlegs do not produce that much capital.

Oil. Russia is rapidly becoming the West's favoured oil producer since its pipelines run straight into Europe and the Black Sea.

The Russian economy has been enjoying something of a boom in the last couple of years. Whilst it's still much smaller than during the Soviet era, it is growing fast.

And you have to remember, that a Soyuz replacement was on the cards in Soviet times (as well as their own shuttle). They have also done a lot of work in the last 30 years on nuclear power since a manned mission to Mars was always part of their space programme. To an extent, a lot of this is work already started, and the rest of it is down to having some of the very best engineers in the World.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:Wait a minute

[mikerich]

I just recently read somewhere (was it here?) that the Russian space budget is less than a billion dollars.

That's the civilian budget, I expect that a lot of spending is hidden in the military budget - in the finest tradition of aerospace industries.

Russia still sends payloads into orbit from Plesetsk, almost all of them military. It's currently extending the complex to handle the new Angara rocket to replace the Proton which can only be fired out of Baikanur in Kazakhstan.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:Wait a minute

[magarity]

Get a clue.
Read some actual reports on Russian economy.
Russia still has regions living in extreme poverty, but as an overall economy it has had a year on year GDP grouth of 7+ for the third year running. So in fact economically, it has no problem in affording it.

OK, let's read an actual report about the Russian Federation's economy.
Population below national poverty line: 25%
GNI per capita US$2,140
GDP US$346.5 billion
GDP Growth 4.3 %

Let's see, $346B is 1/5 that of England (half the population of Russia) and 1/30 of the USA. And per capita of $2k with 25% under national poverty is hardly a few poor regions. Large growth rates of something small is still not much. With all due respect to Russia's world class rocket science know-how, no, their government shouldn't be blowing money on this kind of thing it right now.

Re:Wait a minute

[magarity]

Parent is a cheap troll; the USA's market economy offers an insane amount of services and goods to consumers. As for "huge chunks" of the GDP, check out Welfare, Medicare/aid, and Social Security and then compare to defense and NASA spending.

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, really? Then you'd love to know that in Russia (no, not in Soviet) the space expenditures are even smaller percentage of the budget, than they are in the US.

If you think there is not insane (well, may be not that much insane, but quite comparable - to the point of having the argument irrelevant) amount of services and goods in Russia - ok, Moscow - go and see for yourself. I bet you'd be surprised.

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you'd probably agree that it is a good idea to actually make money out of this world-class capability.

The government support for the space industry in Russia felt many times over the last decade; only the last three years it grows in numbers. Meanwhile the industry considered among the most secret back in the Soviet days now makes for itself (and the budget, by the way) more money, than it actually receives from the budget. Not a bad result for such an expensive industry, eh?

The truth is that the government doesn't really support the space industry as much as it used to. But now the industry is much more self-supporting. Check it out - Boeing flies with Zenits, Lockheed flies with Energomash's engines, China flies with spacecraft modelled after Soyuz, India flies with hydrogen booster made in Russia, and everybody and his brother flies to ISS using russian tech - and you bet Russians make some money out of it.

Re:Wait a minute

[Reservoir Penguin]

This is not "interesting" to any degree, its just the usual pseudo-liberal crap from Putin detractors.

Re:Wait a minute

[Buran]

Reports say that the KH-11 and/or KH-12 (which is sometimes called an enhanced KH-11) is based on the same design as Hubble (or, rather, the reverse is true) and when one fails they just launch another. It's sad that they won't give the same basic support to Hubble (if they won't fix it, just replace it) when several Hubble-class spacecraft are probably already up there. No, not sad ... infuriating. If you give one program that kind of support, the one sprung from it that people actually have become attached to deserves the same support.

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

a GDP growth of 7? LOL. this one time, i drove my car 182. Get a clue.

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not, the "world's greatest democracy", the US, does that all the time

The typical American family below the poverty line has a car, air-conditioning, a microwave oven, a stereo and two color televisions with cable or satellite service.

I bet they do it, too...

[tinrobot]

I get the feeling the Russians will have something working long before we ever design a shuttle replacement.

They keep things simple, and their stuff works.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[kitzilla]

Yeah, it'll be a great bird. Nothing fancy, robust, and big. Based on proven design. You have to think this might end up being a moon vehicle, too.

As far as paying for it: the Russians desperately need a symbol of national pride. They'll find a way to get this flying.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Naffer]

I have the perfect idea! The Russians should design an awesome heavy lifting vehicle, capable of putting over a hundred tons into orbit. With a launch vehicle that powerful, they wouldn't need to pay attention to things like how bloated their actual space vehicle was.
Yay! Shuttle Program.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Capt'n Hector]

Spacefaring is one of the few instances where socialism has shown a clear advantage over capitalism. That and OSS, but don't tell Microsoft.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[VanillaCoke420]

I hope that ESA can work together with Russia on this one.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[roman_mir]

Buran/Energia

From the site:


The modular Energia design could be used for payloads of from 10 to 200 tonnes using various combinations of booster stages, numbers of modular main engines in the core stage, and upper stages. The version with two booster stages was code-named Groza; with four booster stages, Buran; and the six-booster stage version retained the Vulkan name. The 7.7 meter diameter of the core was determined by the maximum size that could be handled by existing stage handling equipment developed for the N1 programme. The 3.9 meter diameter of the booster stages was dictated by the maximum size for rail transport from the Ukraine.

Propellant selection was a big controversy. Use of solid propellants in the booster stages, as used in the space shuttle, was considered again. But Soviet production of solid fuel motors had been limited to small unitary motors for ICBM's and SLBM's. There was no technological base for production of segmented solid fuel motors, and transport of the motor sections also presented problems. The final decision was to use the familiar Lox/Kerosene liquid propellants for the boosters. In the 1960's Glushko had favoured use of toxic but storable chemical propellants in launch vehicles and had fought bitterly against Korolev over the issue. It is surprising that he now accepted use of Lox/Kerosene. But Korolev was dead, and the N1 a failure. Glushko's position had been vindicated, perhaps he now had to agree objectively that use of the expensive and toxic propellants in a launch vehicle of this size was
not rational.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[CommunistTroll]

Spacefaring is one of the few instances where socialism has shown a clear advantage over capitalism. That and OSS, but don't tell Microsoft.

And what is going to be increasingly more important to advanced economies - software and space, or pig iron and textiles?

The more advanced we get, the greater the advantage socialism has over capitalism...

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny? Moderators on crack again!!! Scary more like - communist dictatorship here we come...

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[d_strand]

So what? Lots of people on /. seem to think that russia is still communist... Well they aren't!

Russia today is as ultra capitalist as you can get (i.e the rich/powerful are in complete control). Russia today is a weird maffia-hybrid country. Their government is so corrupt they'd make Al Capone proud and the various mafia organizations does whatever they want while the people suffer (as usual). Russia today is worse than italy was at its worst mafia heydays a generation ago.

So maybe they'll make a good spaceship but it wont be because they're communists, it'll be because they have little resources and have to make it as cheap as possible (i.e proven, reliable and of-the-shelf technology)

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[batura]

Well, the US has deep pockets and has been actively funding the Russian space program for years through subcontracting.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[rhuntley12]

Hopefully it's easier then launching a missile from a sub. I kid, I wish them the best of luck.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[WankersRevenge]

Maybe you should site a source for this viewpoint. And I'll give you a hint - Val Kilmer's "The Saint" doesn't count.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Detritus]

Please stop propagating this urban legend.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much every space endeavor of any significance has been undertaken by socialist organizations. Where do NASA or the ESA or the Russian space program get their funding? Not from their profits or investors.

Love it or hate it, most big government programs (the US Post Office is one notable exception) are basically socialist. Take money from citizenry, spend it on something else. There have been very few capitalist space exploits (aside from communications satellites), and even those use government launch vehicles.

Could capitalism do space better than socialism/big government? Maybe, but we'll probably never know, because space vehicles are pretty much identical to missiles, and letting just anybody launch an ICBM is a pretty bad idea.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Polkyb]

Didn't they make a shuttle a few years back? Before the wall came down.

I seem to remember them launching something which looked a LOT like the US shuttle, orbiting a few times and returning it safely to earth. The big shouting point for USSR (at the time) was that it was capable of doing all of this unmanned, which the US shuttle still cannot do.

I also remember seeing more recently that it was currently sitting in a playground being a tourist attraction, not unlike the US shuttle Enterprise.

I resisted the urge to put USS Enterprise :-)

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, wrong. The Russian space program is more capitalistic than the US's, what with tourists paying to go into space. Look at the effort and progress on the X-Prize. Capitalism works better. The US space program has always been a non-capitalistic endeavor (so far).

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[ttsalo]

Lots of people on /. seem to think that russia is still communist... Well they aren't!

Could be because only early last year we got news about the first russian city starting to charge people the real housing costs... They really didn't move away from communism (socialism really) quite so fast as some people think.

Russia today is as ultra capitalist as you can get (i.e the rich/powerful are in complete control).

Really? How come Khodorkovsky and his fellow oligarchs from Yukos and other companies are rotting in jail then?

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[squaretorus]

Russia today is as ultra capitalist

If only it were so. In fact Russias economy is pretty often described as 'putin-capitalism' as so many economic restrictions are placed on private companies - and when a company steps out of line it has a habit of being 'bought out' by one of putins 11 or 12 super rich ex-party cronies (it might be 10 now if he's decided to exile another like he did last year).

Capitalism requires freedom - ultra capitalism requires ultra freedom. The majority of russia isn't aware of the chechen war!

There are enough parallels to the current Bush administration that anyone could rip my arguement to shreds - but maybe that says more about Bush than russia.

Communism it aint though

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[deadbadger]

Spacefaring is one of the few instances where socialism has shown a clear advantage over capitalism. That and OSS, but don't tell Microsoft.

Pardon? To show this statement to be true, you'd have to a) show that the Russian space program has achieved significantly more than the USA's, and b) demonstrate that the socialist system in the USSR prior to its breakup was the main contributing factor to this difference. It's hard to see how you're going to conclusively achieve either, to be honest. If I were to identify one "advantage" the Russians have had over the USA, it's a greater willingness to take risks, but when one has a country in which vast bugger-ups can be effectively hushed up, such risk-taking comes at considerably lower consequence.

Personally, I don't see how either space program is indicative of anything to do with the economic systems that created them. Both involve spending vast amounts of state money on an economically unproductive enterprise that doesn't really benefit the wider populace in the short term*. This can't really be described as socialist or capitalist behaviour.

* Don't take this to mean I think space programs shouldn't exist, by the way...

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[JaredOfEuropa]

Hmm not just one but two silly statements that need to be addressed here.

1) If socialism is such a good way to undertake large projects such as space programmes, how come so many of the other large-scale undertakings in socialist countries have, to put it in popular terms, sucked donkeyballs? If anything, socialism has been the cause of a number of failures of the Russian space program, due to strict adherence to unrealistic schedules. Of course, capitalist organisations fall victim to the same trap from time to time.
I think the Russian space program has been successful because of the way the program and associated design bureaus have been set up. That has nothing to do with socialism or capitalism, but with common sense.

2) OSS is not socialism. In addition, I do not think that you can say that OSS has a clear advantage over commercial software, on the strength of one prominent example (Linux). Many OSS products are merely 'adequate' rather than 'best of class'.

State socialism is evil, in the sense that it robs individuals of the freedom of choice. In contrast, an individualist society allows its members to associate how and with whom they want, which includes the right to form a fully socialistic sub-group. The difference between an individualist society and a collectivist one, is that socialists are allowed to be socialists in an individualist society (they do not have the right to rob unwilling victims, though). A socialistic society however does not allow its members to opt out, except by leaving the society altogether, and that is not always an option either (Berlin wall).

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[VanillaCoke420]

Perhaps I'm not doing it right here, but I would like to compare todays government space exploration journeys with some of the great journeys carried out by the european explorers hundreds of years ago. They are (were) both funded by the president/congress (then: king/queen) And now the cruisers and trade ships and cargo ships are owned and operated by competing private companies. I believe that in the future, a large part of space exploration/travel will be carried out by private companies, for profit. Shipping cargo, mining, tourism, trading, exploration, adventures. And what about politics in outer space? Surely there will be new governments controlling areas of the moon, mars, mercury, asteroid belt etc. Or maybe not governments, maybe more like corporations.

And regarding to what you said about ICBM's, actually they can be modified and used to launch stuff into orbit. For example the Planetary Society's solar sail. I see some sort of beauty in that - to turn swords into plows, kinda. I have not yet lost hope in humankind.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[mikerich]

I hope that ESA can work together with Russia on this one.

That's quite possible, ESA has been quietly deepening its links with the Russian space programme for some time now.

ESA has contracted Rosaviakosmos to supply Soyuz rockets for launch out of the Ariane site in French Guyana. Not only will it give Soyuz a new lease of life - allowing it to lift heavier loads into orbit, but that is lots of hard currency pouring back into Russia.

ESA is relying on the Russians to provide the launcher for Venus Express late next year and possibly for the next European Mars probe in 2007 (assuming funding can be agreed).

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[d_strand]

Because Putin didn't want them?

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[d_strand]

ooh.. nice one!

Does 'russian friends' count?

Of course I cant prove this to you but I really dont care.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[amabbi]

The more advanced we get, the greater the advantage socialism has over capitalism...

WARNING.. POLITICAL TROLL DETECTED. Please... innovation derives from competition, which is substantively reduced in a socialist economic structure.

I don't understand why people are so in love with the Russian space program. The Soyuz has the same safety record as the shuttle; ie 2 catastrophic failures with total loss of life over ~110 flights. The shuttle was an economic failure because it couldn't keep up with a launch schedule that justified keeping the production lines open. (ie 2 shuttle launches would cost roughly the same amount, in overhead, as 10 launches, b/c technicians, mechanics, engineers, management have to be paid whether there is a flight or not). NASA has had issues, primarily because it has been more ambitious, technically, than Soyuz. When was the last time the Russian space program even tried to build a next-generation launch vehicle?

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[ckaminski]

1988. Buran.

Mild success, because they took the road NASA chose not to (liquid boosters). :-)

Complete failure, because it was mothballed.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[smithmc]

Russia today is as ultra capitalist as you can get (i.e the rich/powerful are in complete control).

By that definition, medieval Europe was "ultra-capitalist" - after all, the Church was rich and powerful, and it was in complete control. "Capitalism" does not mean "control by the rich and powerful". The term "capitalism" implies other things, like a free market, property rights, rule of law, etc. which do not apply especially well to present-day Russia. No, Russia is not socialist anymore, but "anarchy" would be a more accurate term than "capitalism" to describe what exists there now.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[amabbi]

Copy of the US space shuttle. Decreased development costs because they knew they had a design that worked, vs what NASA knew when the shuttle was designed. NASA chose SRB's because in the 70s it was determined that development costs would be too high for liquid boosters (which many engineers in NASA wanted, but were overruled by budget conscious managers)

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Akimotos]

Agree... talk to a German about it in reference to the 2nd World War... eg the MP44 vs the AK47 thing ... keep things simple, en masse and pay with blood. Don't see why they wouldn't be doing that again .... especially since Mr. Putin converted Russia already to this right winged dictatorship. He has everything in place and probably is looking for money to pay for it all. Right now he is talking to Esa to bring Europeans (probably meaning Germans and French) up to stay there for six months. I bet ESA is willing to put down a lot of money for a nice arrangement.
Problem for the US is that the don't have a Mr. Space anymore. After the era 'Werner von B' the progress in US space programs has been limited to one (brilliant) craft: the shuttle. And that only thanks to a cold war.
Right now, America needs an enemy to justify huge spendings. A bunch of (insophisticated but effective) Russian craft could just produce the argument competive America is looking for.

And America and cooperation? Only a serious option if there isn't enough money for them to do it themselves. Look at the biotech. For years America acted alone, but since Bush axxed budgets they are finally willing to cooperate, if only not to fall behind....

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Buran]

However, the new Soyuz launch site will NOT support manned launches, due to the effort and cost required to equip the site with the infrastructure needed to support human spaceflight, along with the fact that the ground tracks go out over open ocean and that would pose a recovery problem. Not with the spacecraft itself -- Soyuz was designed to land in water, and in fact one Soyuz capsule did come down in a lake in the Soviet Union, so that was a very good move; crews receive splashdown training, as well.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[d_strand]

I dont agree. 'Capitalism' only means unregulated (free) market. And if you have a truly free market you'll eventually end up with a mafia state (i.e the strong rules).

Dont get me wrong, I'm all for regulated capitalism, like most western countries has today. I guess my argument is that a truly free (unregulated) market leads to anarchy (which is nothing new).

And lots of slashdoters who hate the monopoly called Microsoft, should realise that monopolies are what often happens when you have a too free market.

Most people dont want a free market, they want a regulated market.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[kitzilla]

Best of luck on the Soyuz, not the missiles... ;-)

Damn, you KNOW those missile failures had to be an embarrassment to Putin. They're actually a danger to him politically, which is a bad thing for the West. We want Putin to succeed. There's nothing good that could happen if someone more nationalistic took the helm and decided to reassert Russian national pride in ways we might not like.

I don't usually like syndicated columnist Charlie Reese, but he made a good point last week: foreign policy goal #1 should be US-Soviet relations. The current administration seems happy to humiliate the Russians at every turn, treating them like a third-world nation.

Any country which can deliver a couple hundred nukes to our key cities on thirty minutes notice isn't a third-world power, even if a few missiles splash into the sea. But the aging Cold Warriors in the White House are more concerned with half-crazy, two-bit despots commanding ruined armies and phantom WMDs.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[LooseChanj]

I keep seeing comments like this, and have to wonder...The russians are having a hell of a time meeting their ISS obligations, the U.S. isn't doing a single thing to force them to, and nearly every damn /.'er thinks this new spacecraft is all but built! So, how are those russian plans to land a man on Mars going?

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[LooseChanj]

Energia and Buran are both museum pieces now, and nothing more. Buran only made one flight, I'm not sure of Energia, but I think that only flew once as well. They just ran out of money. If it hadn't been for the Shuttle-Mir program, they would have had to abandon Mir several years before they actually did.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[LooseChanj]

Utterly false. The Iran non-proliferation law prevents this. There was a one time exception made for the FGB (Zarya). Such things are very much the exception, not the rule.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, we definately should be helping our relations with Russia.

I don't know a lot about Putin but I thought he was a hard liner. Ex KGB and all, it might just be the way he looks. He always looks pissed off. He looks like a guy you just don't fuck with.

Plus being friendly with the Russians can only help in places like North Korea.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Buran]

Actually, it wasn't just the managers -- see this page on the subject.

Engineers wanted monolithic (non-segmented) SRBs because not having to have segments joined by O-rings would eliminate the possibility of joint failures as occurred on 51L and to a lesser extent on a number of previous missions. They were repeatedly overruled to the point where results of review boards were repeatedly ignored and the worst proposal selected.

The result was a system that was known to be problematic due to post-flight booster inspections, which killed seven people, and which was not replaced even after that fatal accident. To this day SRB segments are routinely sent back to the Thiokol plant in Utah for processing over our rail network, despite the existence of a facility in Florida, near the launch site, that could have built much safer boosters!

In fact, several segments from the STS-114 stack were shipped back to Thiokol just a few weeks ago for test-firing to see how well they perform after a fair amount of time passes after loading with propellant.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[Anonymous Coward]

er, US-Soviet relations??

Was this a slip, or a comment on the state of Russian politics? Also:

The current administration seems happy to humiliate the Russians at every turn, treating them like a third-world nation.

This is largely true. But the previous administration managed to humiliate the Russians as well during the late nineties, especially with the military intervention and subsequent peacekeeping operations in Kosovo.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[roman_mir]

Energia flew twice in full 4 booster configuration. The boosters themselves are used as seperate vehicles for launches into the earth orbit. Energia is more usefull and usable than Buran, it is easier to bring it back than Buran as well.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[LooseChanj]

It's no easier to bring back, they're both impossible. Gone. History.

Re:I bet they do it, too...

[kitzilla]

Yeah, "Soviet" was a slip. ;-) You're right that the Clintonites also mistreated the Russians. I would have expected more from the Bush administration, however, given Condoleeza Rice's specialty in the *former* Soviet republic.

Wrong Direction?

[iLL_L0gic]

You'd think they'd find a replacement for their funds creation.......given the fact that they've promised many projects alot of money and have never come through with it.

Right, that's the problem.

[Jon_Sy]

"due to the fact that the station wasn't designed to operate with a crew as small as two or three people."

From all the articles i've read on /., it seems like it wasn't designed to operate, period.

Re:Right, that's the problem.

[My_Dirty_Facist_Ass]

You read the articles?

You must be new here.

Cool, but where's the money?

[Chairboy]

The RSA is starved for cash, this is probably a fantasy until money appears. Based on their history, I would guess that this is a balloon they are floating to try and get parties with deeper pockets (eg, NASA, maybe the ESA) to offer the development funding.

Of interest, NASA had a similar idea in the 1960s with their 'Big Gemini' program and the 'Apollo Rescue CSM' program. It's very feasible, and the Soyuz is a solid design.

Re:Cool, but where's the money?

[Cally]

I don't think the Republic of South Africa have a space program yet?

Re:Cool, but where's the money?

[BenJaminus]

Exactly. The USSR had a quality space shuttle that seemed to be WAY better than the US one, plus was cheaper to develop.

They made 12 of them to test all the avionics and one of them made it into space as a test flight and on AUTOPILOT landed only 5 feet off it's target (well impressive).

Alas that was it's last flight as it was cancelled cos of lack of cash.

They could use it as a starting point for a new one and hope it doesn't end up as another flight sim ride in Gorky Park

Re:Cool, but where's the money?

[amabbi]

I imagine Buran would have been cheaper to develop, primarily because they copied the US design with a few changes (ie liquid booster rockets instead of the SRB's on the STS). Considering there was only 1 flight, unmanned, it's horrendously unfair to say that the Soviet shuttle was way better than anything.

ok, here goes nothing....

[Anonymous Coward]

hey guys,

i'm not sure exactly what i'm doing here. so...bear with me!

i clicked "geeky" on my match.com personals profile, thinking that i'd maybe get hooked up with somebody who was into math or some kind of toy train hobby or something...boy howdy was i in for a shock! i went on 4 dates with guys who all got on match.com because of osdn personals from slash-dot! 4 guys!

anyway, it didn't really work out with any of them, because it seemed like they were all under some kind of mind-control robot or something! i was like "what do you think about office? office 97 is enough for me, but there are some things about xp that are cool too...." the first guy i asked that to exploded on this tyrade about how office was evil, and that it uses html that's invalid...blah blah blah, whatever...i figured "ok, this guys a freak, but i'm not giving up that easily." so guy number two and i are having dinner, and just as a test i bring up office, and he says the *exact* *same* *things* the first guy said! it was like he was reading from a script! i'm thinking to myself "is everybody from slash-dot programmed to say the same thing or what?" i decided to do a bit of investigation.

i actually surfed over to slash-dot and read some of the articles...mostly they were pretty boring, and the comments were just like i expected judging from my previous past experience: scripted!!! just when i was about to completely write the whole thing off, i found a post from some guy who's with anti-slash, some kind of anti-slash-dot website. i mailed him and was all "i so agree with you guys, look at what sheap these slash-dot people are!" he wrote back and made some funny comments (funny and so *true*!...that is soooo the best kind of humor...but i dirgress...) and guess what? this weekend i'm supposed to meet him for dinner :) if you're reading this, i look forward to meeting you in person, john!

anyway, that's my story. ladies: if you're looking for the real cool geeks, check out anti-slash. and fellas, you should check it out too and maybe use to to break out of your mind-control suits!

ok see ya later,

cyndi

I think I have a solution

[zegebbers]

String to tether it to the earth!
Lots of it! they can talk to these guys!.

Money (what we have and what we pretend to have)

[p-adically yours]

``There is no explanation whatsoever where the money needed to implement the declared program would come from,'' Koptev said.

And where are the Russians getting the money, anyway? Last I checked, Russian government-funded things are ill-funded and poorly thrown together which would either indicate lack of funds, mismanagement, or both. I vote both.

At the same time, he reaffirmed his skepticism about Bush's space plan, saying that the U.S. administration would have trouble raising resources for the planned missions.

Really, when has this ever stopped us before?

I wonder what the equivalent of global bankruptcy would be...

(to the tune of "We'd make great pets"...)

Re:Cart before the horse?

[eddiegee]

Ummm, you did read the articles, right? The part is most likely from the solar panel release mechanism that is only used soon after launch. It may show a design flaw that a now useless part was able to float away, but saying that this somehow means that the Station is "falling apart" is a pretty big stretch.

Now give it 4-5 more years of poor funding and then we'll see what else flies off!

Re:Cart before the horse?

[Locky]

Isn't NASA a major player in the ISS Project? Don't throw rocks from your glass house, Mir was doing better at this stage in its life then the ISS is doing right now.

Farewell to the Soyuz

[CommunistTroll]

Even on a modern anarcho-capitalist shoestring budget, the ex-Soviet space industry continues to show itself more innovative and flexible than the US system - where every major capitalist company involved has to be fed part of each contract; and where each company uses money earmarked for space for its own private research.

Whereas the US ended up with the expensive and dangerous Space Shuttle - now grounded indefinately - the USSR managed to design the simple, usable and much cheaper Soyuz.

Maybe this is because under capitalism every decision is a compromise between rival power structures, while good engineering is an open discource between co-operating equals? (Compare Windows vs. Open Source)

Good luck to the Russians! Maybe they can keep the dream of space alive until we get our act together and join them again - in the spirit of human expansion and scientific discovery.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[roman_mir]

I think the US with the Mars rovers program is also working towards that dream now, wouldn't you say?

But I would love to see that new vehicle, I think this is the way to go, no Shuttles, just simple reusable modules with more capacity.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[ottffssent]

As has been mentioned before, NASA has an incredible handicap:

They can't let people die.

When someone dies in an accident at NASA, it has to be thoroughly investigated. The investigation has to point to a clear proximate cause, which must be eliminated from every future design (and past ones). All this must be clearly documented in excruciating detail in order to maintain the fiction that space travel is safe.

On the other hand, a space program which is allowed a more realistic viewpoint (that being "Space is dangerous. It's really far away, and there's no air, and it's colder than Siberia. People will die. We make it as unlikely as is feasable, but shit happens.") can have vastly more efficient designs. Three craft (lacking major design flaws) have a much higher chance of succeeding at least once than one over-engineered ship. No matter how well-made (and NASA's made some incredibly solid machinery, no doubt about that), there's always that one-in-a-billion chance that something will go wrong, and there's nothing quite like a backup or two to keep things on track.

I'd be almost as happy to see the Russians or Chinese set up a proper moon base as I would be to see good ol' Stars and Stripes waving over a dome (you know they'd make it wave).

Good luck to the Russians indeed. And anyone else who's venturing off our little blue marble. We need all the luck we can get.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[bm_luethke]

"Maybe this is because under capitalism every decision is a compromise between rival power structures, while good engineering is an open discource between co-operating equals? (Compare Windows vs. Open Source)"

Or maybe because the soviets do not see as many issues with thier spacecraft failing, nor do they get the usage that our spacecraft do. No, those couldn't be an issue....

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[CommunistTroll]

As has been mentioned before, NASA has an incredible handicap:

They can't let people die.

It would seem to me that NASA can indeed let people die - in fact it has let at least 14 people die in Shuttles alone...

How many people have died in the Soyuz? None!

Don't confuse the public relations mea culpa with actually listening to the damn engineers! Under capitalism the people with the money rank higher than the people with the knowledge - management will override those pesky engineers who point out costly inconveniences like bits falling off the wing...

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[Anonymous Coward]

"the soviets do not see as many issues with thier spacecraft failing"

THEIR you stupid capitalist pig-dog

PS in case u hadn't noticed, the soviets arent around anymore...

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[tftp]

As another reply says, four people total died in 70's during earlier Russian spaceflight activities (not counting accidents on the ground, some fatal some not.)

Komarov died in Soyuz-1 on descent; the parachute failed to open. This had been fixed.

Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsaev died on descent because the outer atmospheric valve opened too early, and the cosmonauts were only wearing shirts. This had been fixed in two ways: the valve had been reworked, and everybody now must wear light spacesuits during liftoff and descent.

Accidents are unavoidable. If one is too afraid of risk, he won't accomplish anything. As a russian proverb says, "one who does not take risks does not drink champaigne."

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[WegianWarrior]

How many people have died in the Soyuz? None!

According to this article in Wikipedia, the official deathtoll for the spaceprogmans are 18 astronauts in flight, 11 astronauts in training and at least 70 groundcrew in launch pad accidents.

we know that NASA has lost 14 astronauts in flights and 3 in training - so logic dictates that the USSR lost 4 kosmonauts in flight and another 8 in training. One life was lost on Soyuz 1, and a further three on Soyuz 11.

What might be more interesting is that no kosmonauts has died in space since 1971, despite the fact that the russians have way more actuall hours spendt in space than the americans. This suggests that the design of the Soyuz is either safer in it self or that the russian spaceprogram is willing to learn from it's mistakes...

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[dafoomie]

The Russians aren't perfect... They designed two of their own shuttles, which fell into Kazakistan's hands. One had holes drilled into it so it could never fly, and the other is a resturaunt.

I like the Russian designs for their simplicity and effectiveness in general, but at least we got to use our shuttles.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[axxackall]

Most of ground deaths were caused by unreasonable high pressure from the top political communist leaders. Not from technical reasons.

I know that as I I spoke to some russian kosmonauts back in University where they gave us some introductionary lessons about the space research. After official lessons we usually had some non-official questions-and-answers meetings... Memories...

Anyway, that pressure from top-communists has been declined even in late years of Soviet Union. Today Russian leaders don't make that pressure either. So, the management style in Russian Space programs is very different. It's still very disciplined (not like in over-burocratic NASA) and based on old school russian scientific culture (lack of such culture is the major problem in USA IMHO). And of course it's very technology-oriented (that's like in NASA).

I believe in todays Russian Space programs. Even if US administration will make everything to shut it down in order to protect own NASA, Russians still can make some space business with EU and Australia. And perhaps Latin America too. The only problem to be expected is if USA administration would try to shut such relationships down, looking at it as a terrorrsm or something.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[torpor]

All the US has to do is open up its space sector to the auto industry.

That is all.

Ban the concept of "Aero-space" and create only a "TRANSPORTATION" sector. Open it up to GM, and let 'er rip.

The Russians can't really do this - they don't have as grand a free market for massive industrialized production as the US does - but the fact remains that the Russian space program parallels US car industry manufacturing design ideals more than the US program does, that is for damned sure ...

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[Lumpy]

does this mean that we could talk the russians into simply duct taping Lance Bass to the OUTSIDE of their next launch vehicle?

anyone want to set up that pay-pal account?

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsaev died on descent because the outer atmospheric valve opened too early, and the cosmonauts were only wearing shirts. This had been fixed in two ways: the valve had been reworked, and everybody now must wear light spacesuits during liftoff and descent.

Well, it was actually 'fixed' before that mission, when the crew wore space suits. The reason they didn't for that mission was that with three people on board they just couldn't fit the extra bulk of the space suits of the era. They wanted (for political reasons) to fly a three man mission and the expedient was to just cram them in regardless of the risks.

So it was a gamble brought on by political pressure that didn't pay off. (That and the fact that the valve was badly designed. The manual shut off handle took two minutes to close the valve, but the craft bled off air at a much faster rate. It wasn't supposed to be open anyway.)

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[JaredOfEuropa]

Maybe this is because under capitalism every decision is a compromise between rival power structures, while good engineering is an open discource between co-operating equals? (Compare Windows vs. Open Source)

And do you think that under socialism, there is less rivalry between competing power structures? To what extend have Russian scientists have had a true open discourse to resolve conflicting viewpoints, as opposed to the Party dictating the 'truth' of the moment? Under the socialists, mistakes were buried rather than learned-from.

Look up some time why the Buran was grounded after one test flight. Hint: it wasn't for technical or economical reasons.

A Russian-style space agency could very well function under a capitalist government. The problems that NASA has would have existed under a socialist government, too. Their success or failure cannot be attributed solely to the way their respective governments work.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[bluGill]

How many US astronauts have died in space? Both shuttles were in the earths atmosphere when astronauts died. I'll admit my memory isn't very good, but I can't recall anyone who died in space itself. Many have died in launch, re-entry, or tests, but in space itself I can't recall any.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[ckaminski]

Better to have Russian and American rocket scientists building heavy lift vehicles, than selling their services to any country willing to keep them fed to build ICBMs.

Save the world, employ a rocket scientist.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[cosmo7]

Obviously it's launch and reentry that are dangerous. The floating around listening to Strauss part is relatively safe.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[axxackall]

Most of leaks of nuclear technologies have been unofficially organized by offcials of both USA and USSR/Russia. I guess it's in interests of both countries to spread mass distruction weapons - just keep themselves busy.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[Buran]

Incorrect.

Soyuz 1 crashed on landing due to the failure of the main and reserve parachutes, killing cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. And the crew of Soyuz 11 died when a valve in their spacecraft opened on undocking from Salyut 1 -- they were not wearing spacesuits.

The rest of the deaths, not counting deaths from aircraft crashes, etc.:

Apollo 1: Pure oxygen environment caused a raging fire due to electrical sparking in command module wiring, main hatch could not be easily opened. Three astronauts killed. CM redesign followed, including a much easier to open one-piece hatch.

STS-51L Challenger: Bad seal on right-hand solid rocket booster allowed combustion gases to eat through seals, then into the external fuel tank, causing explosion 73 seconds into flight. All seven astronauts killed.

STS-107 Columbia: Catastrophic failure of left wing resulting from plasma burnthrough due to failure of RCC panels on leading edge from debris strike. Seven killed.

Both manned spaceflight efforts to that date have lost people. It's an inherent risk in spaceflight.

Re:Farewell to the Soyuz

[Buran]

I think the future of the program is going to be balancing the use of the large heavy-lift Shuttle, with its unique ability to service things in orbit, haul up large payloads and return them to earth, with other spacecraft, disposable or not, that can supplement it for missions that don't require the Shuttle. Crew exchange is one possible use of such vehicles; more uses will be revealed over time. But until we can do everything the Shuttle does with newly-designed spacecraft, it's not going anywhere. The Station's logistics modules (for carrying large supplies up and down) require it, for instance. And the need for their use won't vanish once the station is completed -- it will need fresh supplies and experiments, and completed experiments and no-longer-needed stuff (that can't just go into a Progress for disposal) will need to come down.

MOD PARENT LEFT!

[Anonymous Coward]

God do i hate the term Anarcho-Caapitalist. Its ssuch a misnomer. Aside from that you're completely right.

esa working on same thing

[Anonymous Coward]

i think they are... its called an Automatic Transfer Vehicle
http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/ATV/in dex.html

Re:ESA working on same thing

[Holger Spielmann]

No, the ATV is intended only as a cargo vessel. It will eventually replace the russian Progress which supply ISS. ATV will offer a significant increase in paylod capacity compared to progress.

Nevertheless, together which this Soyuz successor it makes sense - ESA will provide an enhanced replacement for Progress, Russia is developing a new crew capsule.
I hope that way Europe and Russia can provide a replacement for the aging Shuttle fleet.

It would be interesting to know if ESA does transfer technology from ARD to the new russian project....

Re:esa working on same thing

[marcel-jan.nl]

However, the ATV is an unmanned cargo re-supply ship. What is interesting is that ATV and big-Soyuz together could replace the shuttle for an important part. No need for resupplies with the logistics modules (Raphaello, Leonardo and Donatello), which were launched with the shuttle. No need for the shuttle to launch large crews. You could reduce the shuttle's task mainly to construction. This is still a big task, but they got to finish ISS one day. From then on the need would be less.

Slashdotted already? Full Article Text:

[jay-be-em]

Full article text can be found here

Re:Slashdotted already? Full Article Text:

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod down this idiot. it's the same link from the original story.

Re:Slashdotted already? Full Article Text:

[Buran]

That's the same link I used when I submitted -- it's in the story already. :) But since it's a wire-service article, finding other copies of it should be fairly simple. Space.com has a pretty good link, it seems, though -- part of why I chose it (the fact that there's tons of other space info on there is another -- I was hoping people might explore more of the site and become interested in space exploration.)

Re:Slashdotted already? Full Article Text:

[randyest]

Since it is possible to post and meta-moderate in the same thread, I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell you that I just meta-moderated one of your (ill-warranted) +1 informative mods as Unfair.

Please, let this be a lesson to you and everyone else reading: if you post a mirror (hopefully a real one, unlike this turd) do it as AC, otherwise you incur the wrath of the anti-Karma-whore (me).

Re:Cart before the horse?

[cujo_1111]

Mir did way better for way longer too.

Forgive me, but...

[anzha]

Do the Russians even have the money to do this?

NASA Watch only had a short quip that funding was a fantasy.

While the Russian economy is growing, it still seems less than likely that they'll be able to afford this. They have a PPP GDP smaller than France, Italy, or Brazil right now.

Re:Forgive me, but...

[cujo_1111]

I believe they will pay for this by rewriting the ISS contract and making sure they will be the supplier of astronaut transport when the space shuttles retire. Not a bad move I must say. The other 14 nations in the ISS group may be able to get the US to agree to this.

Re:Forgive me, but...

[roman_mir]

Interesting, isn't it? In my turn I bet that their design stage will not cost nearly as much as it would cost in the US, and that by extending an existing design and implementation they will save a lot of money by retrofitting the old facilities that are used to build old Soyuz modules to build the new ones and it will not cost them a fortune.

Re:Forgive me, but...

[bluGill]

I hope not. There should be two unrelated suppliers of ISS transport until going into space is about as common as visits between Europe and North America. (both business and vacation) The shuttle has been our of commission for about a year, what if the replacement (from either side) suddenly has a major disaster and engineers decide that it is a design flaw that shouldn't be risked.

Re:Forgive me, but...

[Eunuchswear]

According to the site you quote Russia is #10 in the list, at $ 1,409,000,000,000 and just ahead of Brazil, #11 at $ 1,376,000,000,000.

So only 8 countries in the world are richer than Russia (#1 in the list is "the world").

Russia produces about 2,9% of world GDP.

Its not just the russians....

[cbdavis]

I am wondering how we will pay for everything we want in space - a shuttle replacement, the ISS is an albatross ( a money pit), we wanna go to the moon, we wanna go to mars.

Things just havent been the same since the apollo missions. Just imagine what we could have done if we had persued our space dream instead of killing it...

Re:Its not just the russians....

[tehdaemon]

I would imagine that about 5% of the global military expenditures would be plenty. According to this article

"And even in the strictest military sense of the word, is the US funding of its current defense requirements genuinely making the nation safer? No nation has the capacity to challenge the United States in any conventional military sense. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, global military spending rose to $798 billion in 2000, an increase of 3.1 per cent from the previous year, and the US accounted for 37 per cent of that total. Today, the number is closer to 40 per cent of that total. " (emphesis added)

That would be at least $40 billion/year. and at the cost of just over 1/8 of our current military spending, we can do that! Just cut out the waste and some mild spending cuts. . . . Especially since we can't be touched anyway . . .


We _have_ the money, much more than we need really, It is all a matter of priority.

(any sarcasim in this post was intended BTW)

Re:Its not just the russians....

[magarity]

> an increase of 3.1 per cent from the previous year
OMG! Military spending increased at about the rate of inflation! OMG!

the US accounted for 37 per cent of that total. Today, the number is closer to 40 per cent of that total.
So all of the US's allies who can spend diddly on defense while hiding behind the US's capabilities should have loads of cash available for space exploration that they'd otherwise be spending on their militaries. Please see how much money the US government throws away to farmers to not grow anything and to "low income" people to have more low income babies before complaining about defense spending.

Re:Its not just the russians....

[tehdaemon]

According to this military spending in the US has risen 80% since then. If other nations did not increast their spending (unlikely) that means that we spend 51% or _more than everyone else combined!!_ There is absolutly no reason for anyone to be spending that much on defense. Unless we are planning on conquering the world. . . Our allies with loads of cash should defend themselvs.

On the other hand, we do waste far too much money on agriculture, and most of that is un-, if not counter-productive, and more than enough to fund space at the same level as what I mentioned. Welfare is much smaller, more like what NASA currently gets. (not that it shouldn't be cut anyway . . .)

I guess what I am saying is that we need to cut military spending a lot, whether or not we fund space, or anything else with it. BTW interest payments in the debt are almost the same as defense spending anyway, maby we should do something about that.....

Re:Cart before the horse?

[cujo_1111]

Look here (thanks to the beeb) for a timeline of Mir's history.

If the ISS survives the problems that Mir had, it will be doing quite well.

Super Soyuz has been proposed before

[zzabur]

Russians have been designing larger and possibly reuseable Soyuz-type spacecrafts for long time. The original mission was ferrying military cosmonauts to Almaz and Polya military space stations. A later design was Zarya resusable space craft to be launched with Zenit booster. Project was cancelled on financial grounds back in 1989, but the technology has been further developed in connection with ISS and Sea Launch projects.

Re:Cart before the horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it wasn't the Russians who lost two space shuttles and fourteen astronauts in the last 25 years in spite of having far smaller budgets, and far more relaxed attitudes towards safety. While NASA was making an issue over a few batteries brought on the station without its inspection and permission, they didn't seem to do a thing about chunks of foam falling off of booster rockets until one bashed a hole in the shuttle wing causing the loss of one of the America's most cherished national treasures. Maybe that's the problem here. Folks at NASA just don't know how to make the very best of what they have anymore. Maybe what's is needed is to put them on the same budget diet the Russians are on. Scarcity of certain resources is one of the best catalysts for new inventions or ideas.

Free Software Democracy

[Stallmanite]

I, for one, am tired of everyone comparing Free Software to Communism. Windows World - Central control: a tyranny GNU+linux - Distributed control: a democracy. Its as simple as that.

Re:Free Software Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think that distributed control is democracy? Isn't that anarchy? Democracy would be if there was only one permissible kernel, and all linux users could vote on what code went into it...

Russia should bring back Buran

[randomized]

There is a project that russians were working on awhile back. It is shuttle like and was tested number of times during cold war. I suppose most of people here wouldn't know about it ala Lunokhod.

New project based on that technology is MAKS (mnogocelevaya aviacionno-kosmicheskaya sistema) which claims to be able to reduce cost per kilogram down to 1K usd. (from 12-15 nowdays). It's not space elevator, but definitely more possible at this time.

Read about Buran and MAKS here -
http://www.buran.ru/

Re:Russia should bring back Buran

[zurab]

Every time the word Buran has even been uttered, the idea has been shot down by the RSA right away. Not only do they not have enough funds to bring back the program, they have also lost a lot of specs and documentation, not to mention people and the minds who worked on it. It is at a point where they would effectively be reverse-engineering their own shuttle.

Besides, IMO, the U.S. space shuttles have shown that there could be more efficient ways to design space vehicles for the LEO, and Russians (and everybody else for that matter) would be better suited to think forward, rather than repeat the NASA history.

Re:Russia should bring back Buran

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Buran is just a Russian version of huge, expensive and cumbersome space shuttle.

Smaller and cheaper vehicle is better solution.

Re:Russia should bring back Buran

[guacamole]

Uh, why bring an inherintly more expensive, more complex, and more unsafe space craft to life? In my opinion Russians are lucky to have terminated their shuttle program early on. If Russians had to fly shuttles today, they surely would been broke. Look at NASA. Much of their technical and financial problems come from shuttle. It's an overhypped and bloated design that that should have never existed in the first place. The cost of a _single shuttle lunch_ equals the size of the entire anual Russian space budget, yet Russians are somehow able to launch at least half a dozen conventional rockets to the ISS missions every year with what they have not counting their other minor projects. The only thing that Russians should be upset about is that they didn't terminate their Buran project even earlier.

Re:Russia should bring back Buran

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Buran was expensive crap (like US shuttle, just a little cheaper) but Energia is a good lifter. Buran and the US Shuttle are too big and too expensive for the people moving task.

The US shuttle certainly was more glamorous than the soviet method of keeping people movier / cargo hauler separate. The only advantage to a shuttle method is to repair, upgrade and even bring back satellites.

Re:Russia should bring back Buran

[Buran]

There's nothing left in anywhere near flyable condition, alas. The single space-flown orbiter was destroyed in a hangar collapse, and others that started construction never were finished ... and were later dismantled. I can dream, but it won't happen. I do hope that maybe some of the autonomous landing hardware could be adapted for use on the US orbiters, however...

wishful thinking

[tloh]

Politics aside, there is enormous opportunity for economizing by applying the recent success of the Chinese manned space program. In a way, it would be the homecoming of an evolved technology as the Chinese Shenzhou is an improved conventional design based largely on studying russian crew return capsules. Last I heard, no new cash has been found for Russian space missions. I'd be very excited if they can even afford to pay for major design work. A shame really. Less I be moderated down as an idealogical loudmouth, I do recognize that such levels of interaction is unrealistic. Assuming Energia is willing to ask, the Chinese will likely refuse. Thus far, the Shenzhou program has too much domestic significance for the Chinese for them to consider sharing it with the rest of the world just yet. I really wish the Chinese leadership have not decided to try and leapfrog their manned space program by establishing the narrow goals they have. Given the cash and other resources, Energia is likely to elegantly pull off any design job for replacing the Soyuz because the Russians have a sturdy tradition and a rich legacy that has been hard earned by developing their own space program. China, on the other hand, is relying on too much borrowed technology with too little home-grown experience. While admirable achievements have been made in the near term, I don't believe Chinese arospace engineers will make any real breakthroughs in space technology because have gotten their hands dirty enough yet by mucking around. God knows there is a large potential for embarassment if the result of Energia's efforts end up obsoleting the Shenzhou. If China contributes now, there might be bragging rights at least in claiming progony. *sigh* Nationalism and politics can be such a drag on inovation.

more on the lunar Soyuz

[WegianWarrior]

..for those curious about such things *smiles*:

Soyuz 7K-L1A circumlunar

Soyuz 7K-L1A test article

Soyuz 7K-L1E circumlunar test article

Soyuz 7K-L1P prototype, boilerplate capsule

Soyuz 7K-LOK planned lunar orbiter

You might also be interested in reasing baout the Soviet Lunar Lander and the launchsystem they hoped to use. Had everythng gone as planned they could have reached the moon around the same time as the americans... but since their booster just wouldn't work right they lagged behind until they decided to cancell the whole program.

The site I've pulled those links from also has a number of interesting articles on the N1 program, the various soviet manned lunar programs and wether the design of the Soyuz was stolen from the US.

Re:more on the lunar Soyuz

[0123456]

And if you want to fly it yourself, at least on your PC, there's an N1 add-on for Orbiter (www.orbitersim.com).

You are right

[Teahouse]

The Russians do not have the money to pay for this. They barely have the money to pay the heating bills at Star City. They lost one whole mothballed Buran (their last)a few years back because they couldn't pay for the maintenance to replace bolts keeping it suspended in a hanger.

What the Russians are doing is letting NASA know that they want to be included in the OSP competition. They will undoubtably be able to build a cheaper and probably more reliable craft than the US contractors, and they also are looking at a big brick wall ahead if they don't get this project.

Remember, the Russians deorbited Mir and put all their resources into the ISS at NASA's insistance. If the US abandons the ISS project in 2010, or cuts all external funding because they have their own safe 6 man OSP, Russia has no Soyuze launches, no Progress launches, and few satellite launches. NASA and the US are basically propping up the Russian space program right now. The Russians need to find a way to finance their once proud space industry, and they see the current funding dissappearing in 6 years.

"We have a design ahead of the Americans design"

"We will make it reusable"

"We can do all the LEO launches"

Sounds like they are trying to do all the LEO launches, funded by NASA, so the US can develop a trans-lunar vehicle. If someone at NASA sees it the same, it allows cheaper access to orbit, while enabling NASA to build a real trans-Lunar/trans-Mars type vehicle and a human-rated lander of some type. I am willing to bet a paycheck this is how it turns out:

Russia will own LEO, and be contracted by NASA to handle ISS personnel and resupply. NASA will build a bigger system that is more capable, but too expensive to be wasted on ferrying assignments to the ISS. They get the interplanetary craft.

Re:You are right

[grozzie2]

If you are a proponent of going beyond LEO with manned missions, this is the best scenario that could play out politically. In the short term, it's very easy to justify the financial aspects of simply contracting out to Russia all launch requirements for low orbit.

Politically this becomes an easy sell on all fronts. Financially it's way cheaper. In the event of 'incidents' (and you know they will happen), it's trivially easy to point the finger at Russia and say 'thier fault'. That's the biggest problem NASA has today, they are expected to play with very large, dangerous, explosive vehicles, submit them to extreme environments of launch/space/re-entry, and do so without losing an astronaut. This is unrealistic, so, it becomes politically easy to contract this job out, and then they can just blame the Russians when something goes wrong.

In the longer term, the American public will NOT settle for second or third best in this arena. Once the shuttles are retired, and all launches are outsourced to Russia, the american public is gonna wake up one morning and say 'hey, wait a sec, were we not the best at this at one time, how come we are not even in the game anymore?'.

At that point in time, the USA will gain the political will to accept the risk, and really start a program that goes beyond earth orbit. It wont happen right away, and actually will probably have to wait till the chinese land a man on the moon. But, that's what its gonna take to co-erce the american public back into a mode where they are willing to accept the risk, and, have a demonstrated need to 'come back' to the game.

Until john q. public gets hit in the face with the realization that the usa is no longer a leader, and not even in second place, in terms of space exploration/development, the public will not have the will to shoulder the expense, and the percieved risks of this endeavor. In the long run, the best thing that could possibly happen to the space program, is that the shuttles are never flown again, and the whole issue of orbital launches is just contracted out to the low bidder. At this point in time, there's only one qualified bidder, altho, china is not far off from that role. In the long run, it's the quickest route to 'beyond orbit'.

Re:You are right

[Buran]

Actually, the hangar roof fell in on it.

While I myself (as the submitter of this story!) am skeptical -- and I've seen a lot of skepticism elsewhere -- even coming up with the idea and talking about it is a step toward possibly launching actual hardware.

NASA hasn't been much better lately; all the proposed shuttle replacements keep getting cancelled. Just this week, the Orbital Space Plane program fell victim to the same curse.

But I try to stay optimistic!

What project this alegged system is based on ?

[S3D]

Interesting, what this project is based on ? Existing projects like Energiya/Buran ? buran, MAKS , spaceplane RAKS(Igla) , Zarya Or something new ?

New Space Race

[Turismo86]

"It has already reached a serious project stage while the Americans are only talking about their spacecraft." Hmm, I wonder if were going to be seeing renewed competition in reusable spacecraft. What do you want to bet that the Russians announce plans for a Mars mission as well.

Money seems to be their problem

[Geekonomical]

>>>>
``There is no explanation whatsoever where the money needed to implement the declared program would come from,'' Koptev said.

With their past experience and track record of Soyuz, this is definitely possible...but I really have my doubts about funding

Re:Money seems to be their problem

[tftp]

Oligarchs should pay for that. Or rot in Siberian prison of their choice :-)

No

[sunbeam60]

The ATV was never designed for people; so not the same.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, it fits in with the topic. Russia is mentioned. :]

well, actually 3 people died -

[ehack]

They had an airseal intergrity failure during reentry in the 70s

Re:well, actually 3 people died -

[Buran]

Soyuz 11. A valve was jarred open when the spacecraft undocked from the Salyut 1 station. The crew was not wearing spacesuits; if they had been, they may well have survived -- provided they wore them. There is evidence that not all the STS-107 crewmembers were properly suited for re-entry. While they would not have survived even if they had been fully suited, in a lesser disaster (a less catastrophic failure of the spacecraft), wearing the suits might have meant the difference between survival and death.

Re:Cart before the horse?

[batura]

Why do people forget that such large portions of the INTERNATIONAL space station were built by Russia?

Russian shuttle

[SpinyManiac]

Your referring to Buran (snowstorm).

The French had a mini shuttle called Hermes, designed to fly on the front of Ariane.

Re:Russian shuttle

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, neither of them were 'real' shuttles, as they needed an expendable launcher.
But then the US Shuttle is only 'semi-real' too, needing an expendable tank and SFB's to be fished out of the drink and majorly refurbished every launch.

Re:Russian shuttle

[mikerich]

Yes, neither of them were 'real' shuttles, as they needed an expendable launcher.

But then the US Shuttle is only 'semi-real' too, needing an expendable tank and SFB's to be fished out of the drink and majorly refurbished every launch.

But the Soviets scored a cost advantage there. The most expensive parts of the US Shuttle are the main engines which were designed to be fired repeatedly. They need maintenance every few firings. The Soviets had engines that only needed to be used once then thrown away.

And they had a second advantage. Because the Shuttle's engines are attached to the orbiter, the vehicle has to haul them into orbit, reducing the payload. Energia threw away the main engines, Buran only needed small, light thrusters to achieve orbital velocity - so it could carry more.

IIRC, the four relatively small boosters attached to Energia were designed to be reusable. They would parachute back to Earth and be refurbished. They were liquid oxygen/kerosene engines and much simpler to refurbish than the Shuttle's main engines.

In the event, they were the only successful part of the Energia programme. Energia itself was only launched twice, Buran only the once. The boosters were redesigned into the Zenit launcher which now powers Sealaunch. (It gives you some idea of how big Energia must have been when each of its four boosters can put a sizeable payload into geostationary orbit!)

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:Russian shuttle

[Buran]

Yes indeedy, I know all about Buran. :) I've gone by that name on the net for years, and I've been surprised by just how many people recognized its origin! I very nearly put a mention of the Buran program in the original submitted story text, but it got dropped during my editing process since I felt it detracted from the actual story subject.

A lot more information is available here -- most of it in Russian, but there are some English pages. And there are many, many diagrams and images.

Hermes was designed to fly on the Ariane 5, but was never built; a Japanese shuttle, Hope (Kibo) was designed to fly on the H-2 rocket but was also cancelled; its name survives in the form of the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) which is to be launched to the ISS soon. It is currently undergoing prelaunch processing at KSC.

Re:Russian shuttle

[catfry]

And a derivative of the rd-170 engine used on the zenit, the rd-180, is also used on one of the to newest US launchers; the atlas 5

Re:Money (what we have and what we pretend to have

[torpor]

Classic Propaganda:

Last I checked, Russian government-funded things are ill-funded and poorly thrown together which would either indicate lack of funds, mismanagement, or both.

No more, or less so, than any other major government in control of a vast pool of resources. The Russians, for example, are no different in this regard than, say... The United States Government.

You're a victim of propaganda. Fix that.

Lets just assume that what you're saying is true... in which case, the Russians are even more Powerful and Mighty than we imagine, since they're the ones who - in spite of such 'hardships' - are still able to re-supply ISS, still able to make launches, and still running a viable space program in spite of the cost overruns and budget difficulties.

You can't say that as easily about the US. You can say it, but not easily ...

Re:Money (what we have and what we pretend to have

[meadowsp]

So when was the last time you audited a russian government project, just out of interest?

I love Buran

[Anonymous Coward]

Buran still is the most advanced manned spacecraft that humans have made.

The production version was able to take off, fly to orbit, orbit, de-burn and go through re-entry, land on a runway and come to a complete stop - entirely unmanned and on autopilot. (And it did exactly this on it's one and only flight).

It's an absolute crying shame that there was no money for it, but hopefully the technology and lessons learned will still be around for the next generation of spacecraft (that actually get funded).

Re:I love Buran

[Anonymous Coward]

Once I was flying back from Novosib (and pretty hungover), I was sitting next to this (russian) guy who told me (so this is how accurate my source is) that not only did Buran landed on its own but it also had to turn on its own after a while because those where the constraints of the runway they were testing on. So yeah, pretty fuckin impressive... Apparently the usians got really interested in how they managed to pull it all off...

Re:I love Buran

[Anonymous Coward]

As amightywind notes, the US shuttle is able to do those things by autopilot, and in fact autopilot is used for almost everything in practice. This is the way almost all space vehicles have been built. Buran's orbital test was probably unmanned because life support systems had not been built into Buran at that point.

Re:Cart before the horse?

[cruachan]

As Rutherford said:

"We haven't got the money, so we've got to think!
"

Do not blame US capitalism for our woes.

[Shivetya]

The problem with NASA and its supply chain is one created by government meddling from the highest levels. We do not have a real space agency, we have a pork barrel that is capable of putting things in space.

Even the supply chain is subject to pork barreling and government arm twisting. The system isn't designed to be efficient. It is designed to favor powerful Senators, Government Employees, and those who curry their favor.

They have no incentive to improve. I was hoping that by essentially condeming the Shuttle that Bush might cause more people to take a serious look at NASA and all that surrounds it. Instead the hate-Bush crowd ignores the real problem and instead blames Bush for no offering detailed solutions.

A solution will not come until we acknowledge the problem. NASA must be overhauled from one end to the other. Congress must not be allowed to saddle NASA with pork-barrel political favortism requirements. NASA needs the ability to do what is right for space exploration, not what is right for "political toady #x"

What next?!?

[Black Parrot]

First they replaced the beef in your burger with soyuz, now they're even going to replace the soyuz!

They'll be serving us Soyuz Green before you know it!

Re:What next?!?

[Glog]

Sorry to pop your balloon but "soyuz" has nothing to do with soy - it's Russian for "union".

Re:What next?!?

[infinite9]

So what you're saying is that... in Soviet Russia, people are made of Soylent Green?

Re:What next?!?

[MikeyToo]

Obviously you have never heard of something called "wit". People often employ it for humorous purposes.

maybe cern can help?

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe they can persuade the people at cern
to modify their LHC accelerator.

they'd only have to make a bigger vaccum tube and
point one end up a few degrees.

maybe one could send cargo capsules up to LEO
like this. just a small on board rocket engine
that gives the cargo an extra push a few ten
kilometers up ...

making a "gate" that "opens-and-closes" at the
right time for the accelerated capsule to leave
the vacuum tube might be a bit difficult.

i recon nobody wants to live near that capsule
accelerator since there'll be a sonic boom
every time a capsule leaves the tube ...

Building in space...

[Short Circuit]

Building spacecraft in space is a huge proposition. First you have to think of the crew. Moving large, heavy objects around in null gravity is going to require a lot of training. To do it even remotely safely is going to require a crew who find the physics and behavior to be second-nature.

And what about when one of such a crew gets killed in an accident? The press will have a field day, and critics will say "I told you so! Space is dangerous! Bring our boys home!"

Not that I'm saying it shouldn't be done. In order for it to work, though, you need to raise the average knowledge level of both voters and the people in office. Otherwise, it just becomes another liability for anyone who supports it.

It's probably not going to be truly feasible until space operation is either commercialized, or is in some other way unencumbered by popular politics.

Re:Building in space...

[visgoth]

The press will have a field day, and critics will say "I told you so! Space is dangerous! Bring our boys home!"

Some days I think someone should just bitchslap the press and tell them to stfu. Of course space is dangerous! But so is building highrise buildings, flying aircraft, mining, etc. If we cowered in fear because of every potentially dangerous thing, we'd still be swinging from trees.

Re:Building in space...

[ckaminski]

And not even then, because branches do break, and lightning sometimes does strike the same place twice.

Re:Building in space...

[AoT]

We'd probably just be looking at the trees thinking how dangerous it would be to swing on them.

Re:Building in space...

[flewp]

What I never understood was, why build spaceships in space if you have to lift the initial components and matierials from the earth? It just never made much sense unless you could mine the moon or mars or asteroids, etc.

Re:Building in space...

[Short Circuit]

Whatever you're building won't have to be capable of leaving the surface of large gravity wells like the Earth and (possibly) the Moon. You can build cheaper crafts that are essentially interplanetary shuttles.

The Space Shuttle by comparison, would be a forklift. All the brute power, but not really capable of long-distance travel.

Re:Building in space...

[VanillaCoke420]

Yes, mine the moon and launch the modules/raw material to the space dock at the L1 point... from there, send it off to wherever.

Re:Building in space...

[Buran]

People fear what they do not understand ("... and all this science I don't understand - it's just my job five days a week ...") and also don't realize that NASA is working from a miniscule 1% of the US federal budget. No other agency, at least in my opinion, does so many amazing things with so little. I stand up and applaud loudly.

The public also doesn't understand that inherent in any kind of exploration is risk - and they don't seem willing to take those risks today. In the early days of North America's exploration, many people were lost (Roanoke colony, famously) and it took a lot of convincing for governments to underwrite the early missions, and there was no guarantee that any of the explorers would come back (Columbus' fight for financing is a famous example.)

But discovery is going to require risk, and the public is going to have to understand and accept it. As you say, we would be nowhere if we never had people who said "Say what you want, we are going anyway."

Re:Building in space...

[kamog]

Buran says...

NASA is working from a miniscule 1% of the US federal budget.

Actually, now it's more like 0.5%. Even at the heyday of Apollo program (1964), it was 3.5%. You have also to consider the fact that out of this money, a disproportionalte share is spent on maintaining and flying the space shuttles on missions that could have been performed by Soyuz or similar spacecraft for 5-10% of the expense.

This means that, were the shuttle fleet to be scuttled and the ISS maintenance subcontracted to Glavkosmos, NASA would actually have some money for the R&D for the Mars mission.

However, if the pattern established by the Bush administration so far holds, loud announcement of an initiative is likely to lead to it being quietly killed by starvation.

Re:Building in space...

[jnicholson]

I've often wondered what NASA's workplace accident rate is compared with, say, the average construction company. I doubt that working for NASA (even as an astronaut) has the perceived risk that the popular press seems to attribute to it.

Re:Building in space...

[Insipid Trunculance]

The press will have a field day, and critics will say "I told you so! Space is dangerous! Bring our boys home!"

Some days I think someone should just bitchslap the press and tell them to stfu. Of course space is dangerous! But so is building highrise buildings, flying aircraft, mining, etc. If we cowered in fear because of every potentially dangerous thing, we'd still be swinging from trees.

So are my arguments with the Missus but that never made the 10 'O Clock news.

this could be daft, but hell

[WormholeFiend]

why not build an engine module to attach to the ISS and transform it into a spaceship to go to Mars?

Re:this could be daft, but hell

[Firethorn]

Because the ISS isn't designed for the constant thrust that would be needed. Also, it isn't shielded as heavily as it would need to be.

Re:this could be daft, but hell

[FTL]

> why not build an engine module to attach to the ISS and transform it into a spaceship to go to Mars?

Ok, I'll bite.

• Said engine module is completely feasible. Unfortunately the fuel tank that would be needed would have to be aproximately 16 times the mass of ISS if it is to power the station to Mars, break into orbit, break out of Mars orbit, then break into Earth orbit.
• Crew would be dead before they got back, ISS doesn't have enough radiation shielding in its walls to protect the crew outside the protective shield of Earth's magnetic field. Mars doesn't offer any such protection, nor does interplanetary space. You'll need to wrap the station in lead, and add 16 times the mass to your fuel tank.
• Mars is nearly twice as far from the Sun as Earth is, which means it gets 1/4 of the light (inverse square). Therefore you'd only get a quarter of the power you'd need from the solar panels when you reach Mars. You'll need to redesign the station to quadruple the panels, and add 16 times their mass to your fuel tank.
• ISS wasn't designed as a closed system, it needs regular shipments of water (that's the primary reason why there's only two crew members on it while the shuttle is grounded). There's no water between here and Mars, and lifting it from Mars would be more expensive than shipping it from Earth. So you'll need three years worth of food and water sent to ISS in advance, and don't forget to add 16 times its mass to your fuel tank.
• ISS is in an Earth orbit inclined at 52 degrees away from the equator. Before you even get started, you'll want to shift to an equitorial orbit (especially if you're about to start shipping up literally megatons of fuel). That will cost you 40% [1-cos(52)] of ISS's original launch cost just to reposition the orbit.

In short, I think ISS is firmly anchored to exactly where it is.

Re:this could be daft, but hell

[kamog]

"Crew would be dead before they got back, ISS doesn't have enough radiation shielding in its walls to protect the crew outside the protective shield of Earth's magnetic field."

You may be exaggerating a bit, to put it mildly. Assuming a two-year trip and ZERO radiation shielding (even the ISS would offer some), the dose would be on the order of 500 rad. For comparison, a single chemo treatment can give the patient a dose of 260 rad. Can such a dose mean cancer in 25 years? Possibly. Instant death? Naah.

The rest of your objections to the use of ISS as the core of the hypothetical Mars vessel are quite valid.

Re:this could be daft, but hell

[FTL]

> Assuming a two-year trip and ZERO radiation shielding (even the ISS would offer some), the dose would be on the order of 500 rad.

Under normal space conditions, yes. But what if there is a solar flare? There was one between Apollo 16 and 17 which might have killed any moon-bound astronauts who happened to be up at the time. A trip to the moon is just a few days, Mars is a lot longer. That scared NASA, and was one of the reasons they terminated the landings.

>The rest of your objections to the use of ISS as the core of the hypothetical Mars vessel are quite valid.

Except the bit about the amount of fuel needed to shift from 52 degree orbit to equitorial orbit. I forgot to cancel out the north-south velocity, so the fromula should be sin(52)+(1-cos(52)) = 1.17. Which means it would take 117% of the original launch cost to reposition the station. Eek!

Russians make the best rockets

[csoto]

The latest Atlast/Delta rocket motors by Lockheed-Martin were, in fact, designed by Energia. They are far more efficient (read: bigger payloads or more fuel capacity) than what we were using, and they are beasts. Tough and indestructible.

We will not explore the solar system without these brilliant people. "Going it alone" is stupid and shortsighted. But, then again, so are politicians...

Re:Russians make the best rockets

[WormholeFiend]

"Tough and indestructible." er, arent those single-use rockets?

Re:Russians make the best rockets

[csoto]

Heh. Yeah. But I meant that they put out the type of thrust that would have our previous designs splattered all over the Gulf of Mexico.

Anybody who ever gets the chance should visit their facilities at Baikonor. I have never been (haven't been out of North America), but some day...

Re:Russians make the best rockets

[NecrosisLabs]

To be pedantic: The RD-180 motors power the Atlas 3 and 5; Boeing makes the Delta series.

I had an interesting conversation recently with a LockMart Astronautics engineer who told me that it looks like they are going to start to the process to man rate the Atlas and Deltas for a NASA human vehicle.

Re:Russians make the best rockets

[red floyd]

IIRC, the original Atlas was man-rated. (Mercury-Atlas, anyone?).

Re:Russians make the best rockets

[csoto]

OK. I was only half sure about the Delta. My father-in-law works on the Atlas, so I was sure about that one.

Now, that is TOO COOL if they are in fact going to use these for human powered "flight." They are good birds.

Re:Russians make the best rockets

[Anonymous Coward]

The latest Atlast/Delta rocket motors by Lockheed-Martin were, in fact, designed by Energia.

Not exactly true. Atlas-5 (and Atlas-3...) uses RD-180, made by NPO Energomash, not RSC Energia. They are even in different cities ;) Khimki (Enegromash) and Korolyev (Energia), both about half an hour drive from Moscow. Provided there is not much traffic...

The RD-180 engine is a derivative of RD-170 family. RD-171 engine is from the same family, and it is used on Zenit - the rocket employed by the SeaLaunch. Boeing has 40% stake in the SeaLaunch company.

The name...

[Anonymous Coward]

I figure the name for America's replacement of the shuttle to be "meteorite".

Why not just...

[vudufixit]

Put another docking module on the ISS, and simply have two Soyuz craft on the station at one time to allow a complete evacuation of a full complement?

No Funding. Don't Hold Your Breath

[reallocate]

There's no visible indication that this effort has any funding. The Russians have designed a lot of spacecraft, but it takes money to get one off the ground.

In any case, it would be just another LEO vehicle.

Don't hold your breath.

Shuttle flight control

[amightywind]

Buran still is the most advanced manned spacecraft that humans have made.

Somewhat debatable since the craft was unmanned on its only flight and supposedly relied entirely on chemical battery power during flight.

The production version was able to take off, fly to orbit, orbit, de-burn and go through re-entry, land on a runway and come to a complete stop - entirely unmanned and on autopilot. (And it did exactly this on it's one and only flight).

The U.S. Space Shuttle has this capability and more. No humans needed. For some reason NASA feels the need to give the stick at the only point in the flight regime where a human can handle the task, landing. Can you imagine a pilot trying to control the ascent? I believe STS-2 actually made an automatic landing, the astronaunts twiddling their thumbs. I would like to see NASA launch the shuttle unmanned in its return to flight. We don't want any more meat comets over Texas.

Re:Shuttle flight control

[cosmo7]

The U.S. Space Shuttle has this capability and more. No humans needed.

This is not correct. The orbiter's landing gear lowering signal is not issued by computer, so an automated flight would have to do a belly landing (or rewire the flightdeck). The reason is that the shuttle can't lift its gear once it is down, so an accidental deployment in orbit would be a loss of vehicle scenario.

Re:Shuttle flight control

[amightywind]

I'll agree that this has always been done by hand. There are many such critical events already managed by the flight control system - SRB sep bolt cutters, SRB sep motor ignition, ET umbilical door closure... The idea that gear deployment cannot be done by the flight control computer is absurd.

Re:Shuttle flight control

[LooseChanj]

Quite the opposite. STS-2 made a completely manual landing, hand flown from entry interface. As far as controlling the ascent, it's not as impossible as you might think.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[Anonymous Coward]

what a waste of a low slashdot id...

WHAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to see NASA launch the shuttle unmanned in its return to flight. We don't want any more meat comets over Texas.

If you're implying that any of the two shuttle accidents were caused by crew error, YOU ARE A MORON!

Re:WHAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw that he was saying that next time there is an error, there won't be any fatalities because there won't be any people on board.

Finally...

[essreenim]

..we will be able to see if monkeys can be trained
to sort small screws in space..

Not quite...

[Anonymous Coward]

The correct transformation of the headline is:

In Soviet Russia, Soyuz replacement works on YOU!

Nice try though.

Re:Not quite...

[Anonymous Coward]

But it is already Russia, so it should read:

In the United States of America, Soyuz replacement works on YOU!

If we had given the russians some money

[voss]

They could have come up with that soyuz type 6 person transfer vehicle 5 years ago. Think of all the useful science we could have done with 6 people instead of 3.

If we want to go to Mars why not use Energia type boosters to put our mars craft into orbit. If we want to go to the moon, the Russians are the only ones with the knowhow who can help us do it affordably.

Re:If we had given the russians some money

[BlueEyes_Austin]

Perhaps because the Energia is not in production and the capacity to bring it up to production is very, very doubtful.

Re:If we had given the russians some money

[voss]

Notice I said "energia type" boosters...the energia company is still in business and they are working on a super sized soyuz rocket to lift the larger capsule into orbit.

Over at sciscoop

[apsmith]

We did have this up earlier last night - along with a poll on exactly that question of replacing the shuttle. Should be interesting...

Terrific...

[herrvinny]

But when is the US going to start funding some serious exploration of space? NASA needs billions more. And giving NASA an increase of $1 billion dollars every year, to go to Mars, is laughable. Doesn't NASA need that billion dollars *JUST for research? The Mars rover pair cost what, $600 million? It's going to take quite a few billion (tens/hundreds of billions, perhaps?) to actually land people on Mars, and get them back safely. And yes, I did read the article that proposed just leaving the astronauts on Mars and firing "care packages" at them every two years, but come on. The American public would never stand for it.

Re:Money (what we have and what we pretend to have

[TwistedGreen]

'Global bankruptcy'? What an absurd idea. You can't just destroy wealth, especially since money is an artificial creation. If the world were bankrupt, humanity would be long dead.

I know a guy who gives tours...

[Anonymous Coward]

...$2800 for a week tour of Baikonur.

but none of them ever flew manned

[Anonymous Coward]

That is, TKS craft was the only one which was supposed to fly manned, but it only flew in automatic mode and docked with space stations - Salyutes back then.

Oh, and we don't count Russian lunar module, which has passed the testing on the low Earth orbit, unmanned of course. It never intended to be manned at the flight start.

Fat chance

[Gewis]

The russians have had some pretty impressive successes in their space program, but the past half-decade was spent with them falling behind in their ISS obligations and being unable to pay for their part of the commitment. Most of the trips to the space station to switch out crews, etc., have been financed by NASA, not Russia, even though they've been on Soyuz craft.

This announcement should be taken with a HUGE grain of salt. The Russians have spent a lot of time lately claiming "anything you can do I can do better" with regards to American plans for space, but until they have flight tests of a six man module, we can probably give it the same level of credence we should have given the X-33, OSP, and several other defunct NASA programs.

I wouldn't cross your fingers about NASA's future plans for exploration either.

New Propulsion Systems Already In Works

[Buran]

Work is already progressing on new drive systems. The Deep Space 1 spacecraft was a testbed for autonomous navigation systems and for ion drive propulsion, which uses electricity and xenon gas to accelerate a spacecraft. Unlike the TIE (Twin Ion Engine) Fighters of Star Wars, a real ion engine provides a gentle push, comparable to the force exerted by a sheet of paper resting on your palm -- but it does it over an extremely long period of time, so the ion engine is extremely well suited to long interplanetary missions.

Nuclear engines are also in the works, those projects having begun in the 1970s (NERVA - Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) and continuing today with concepts and development starting for possible use in manned lunar/Mars missions as well as nuclear-powered spacecraft for planetary exploration (the Jupiter Inner Moons Orbiter -- JIMO -- for instance.)

Reader note: Sorry for taking so long to answer questions in this story -- it hit the site while I was asleep!

Deja Vu All Over Again

[Anonymous Coward]

This all reminds one of Henry Spencer's signature line after the Challenger tragedy:

"There is only one spacefaring nation today, Comrade".

Learn the defition of 'socialism'

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean 'socialist organisations'. This is a stupid characterisation. The only entity to which you can apply the definition 'socialist' is a State.

Public or common-ownership is not the same as socialist - ask the Free Software guys if they consider themselves socialist, or the US Army. Is the Air Force socialist - by your ignorant definition, it is.

Re:Learn the defition of 'socialism'

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask a Libertarian if the U.S. Government is socialist...

Please stop this crap

[Anonymous Coward]

they moved the orbit to where it was mostly useless for anything else to accomodate the Russians (whom are worthy of admiration)

I'm tired of hearing this absolutely senseless unjustified crap about oh so bad Russians who are responsible for all the problems with ISS. Seems like nobody can ever get the idea of how much it is obtained from the cooperation with Russians.

Having the ISS on the same inclination orbit as Mir, how come it is mostly useless, when Mir missions allowed to practically write, for the very first time, the books on human adaptation to space conditions? For those curious ones over here there were more than 10,000 experiments conducted on Mir, from such different areas of science and technology, as medicine, biology, material science, astronomy, botany; some cosmonauts lived on orbit for more than a year in a row; the ISS still doesn't have so much of scientific equipment as Mir did. From this point of view, the ISS orbit was changed in order to tap the resourses of Russians, to take advantage of their great expertise, while simultaneously partnering with them in the first truly international space endeavour of such a grand scale.

Look at this carefully, The ISS would probably never exist in the first place if Russians wouldn't be partners. The Mir would probably still fly. The current situation with flights of Soyuzes and Progresses to ISS, especially considering the price of them, can't be just counted off.

But still

[Anonymous Coward]

But the new Soyuz rocket will eventually support manned missions. The Soyuz-2 booster carries an additional ton to LEO comparing to the current Soyuz-U booster; the version of the new rocket called Soyuz-2-1B is planned to carry humans to orbit.

How to save NASA

[jameskojiro]

Give direct control of NASA over to the US Air Force!

but they have the original design earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the Buran design was chosen after the Shuttle's. By that time the original design for reusable winged spaceship (which itself was born partially as a response to US's DynaSoar), Called Spiral, was tested in subscale unmanned orbital flights (Bor-4 spacecrafts). These models were photographed, and analysed in NASA. One of proposed OSP designs, made in pre-Columbia world, resembles these models quite a bit.

So, it's a mix of aerodynamics and politics. Not a simple copying...

Troll

[amightywind]

Quite the opposite. STS-2 made a completely manual landing, hand flown from entry interface.

OK, I'll bite. Your nuts! Any human who tried to eye ball it or even tried to keep the shuttle on a computer designated path would be dead. A human simply cannot manage the energy of a large vehicle to the minute precision required. You don't know what you are talking about.

Re:Troll

[LooseChanj]

Click this.
href="http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/DTRS/1993/PD F/H-191 2.pdf">Click. And she would know. Try a google on that name,Sparky.

Politics again

[Anonymous Coward]

To show this statement to be true, you'd have to a) show that the Russian space program has achieved significantly more than the USA's, and b) demonstrate that the socialist system in the USSR prior to its breakup was the main contributing factor to this difference. It's hard to see how you're going to conclusively achieve either, to be honest.

Well, I'm not sure what do you mean here. Roughly, Russia is about as advanced in space program as US is. It all boils down to how detailed you want to be. What did America do which Russia didn't? Flew to the Moon? Yes; but it doesn't do so anymore, for long time, and a big chunk of scientific results was obtained by USSR using other means. Martian probes? Then remember all those Soviet probes which successfully reached Venus. Asteroids? Vega-1 and Vega-2 come to mind. Shuttle? Yes; it turned to be very expensive, though, and the Buran actually flew once, but, granted, US have much more experience here; how about manned spaceflight in general then?

In every area of space achievements there are comparisons and parallels between US and Russia; you can't just say that somebody is more advanced - it is too dependant on the definition.

Going back comparing capitalism vs. socialism, at least you can say that the political system isn't the only defining factor here :) . Frankly, all pre-1991 results were achieved under the 'Soviet' commandment style; so almost everything Russia had up to now was achieved in socialism system.

Soyuz failures

[MikeyToo]

I keep seeing so many "Soyuz/Russian/Soviet spacecraft are so much better than anything built by the US" entries here. Maybe it would help if we posted a few hard numbers.

There have been eight accidents involving Soyuz spacecraft. Two resulted in fatalites.

Soyuz 1 - Parachute failure - One fatality

Soyuz 5 - Module separation failure on reentry - spacecraft nearly lost due to orbital module not detaching before reentry. Module detached due to atmospheric heating before spacecraft cabin burned through.

Soyuz 11 - Atmosphere leak during reentry - 3 fatalities.

Soyuz 18-1 - Stage separation failure resulting in boost-phase abort and 20.6+ g return.

Soyuz 23 - Electronics failure caused mission abort. Spacecraft landed in a lake and the crew nearly froze to death before the spacecraft could be pulled out.

Soyuz 33 - Engine failure. Reentry initiated by reserve engine. Ballistic trajectory resulted in 10g overload.

Soyuz T-10-1 - Launch vehicle blew up on the pad. Crew saved by abort system.

Soyuz TMA-1 - Guidance system failure on reentry caused a ballistic trajectory. Crew experienced 10g and landed 460km off target.

Hardly a sterling performance. Everyone has problems.

Re:Soyuz failures

[jnicholson]

I think this track record compares pretty favourably with NASAs. I'm not saying it's better, but it's not really worse either. They learned from each of their mistakes and are continuing with the programme, and the majority of their problems have been survived - which means they have a better chance of diagnosing and fixing the problem, if the cosmonauts were able to observe it or if the craft comes back mostly intact.
Obviously it's preferable that there are never any problems, but given that we're talking about fallable human beings here, mistakes will be made. This seems to be accepted by the Russian programme, which I think is a healthier attitude than the American one.

Re:You are on, sucker.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am willing to bet a paycheck this is how it turns out.

Done deal.

Signed,
Unemployed AC

Re:In Soviet Russia.....

[Darth23]

That's because Yakov Smirnoff Nostalgia Fever is kicking in now.

Russia - the outsource prefer country?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe what Russia trying to become is a leading country for spacecraft outsource. No doubt, they can build the next bird for a lot less than NASA or Boeing or Lockheed.

India - IT outsource
Russia - Spacecraft outsource

what next?

Petition Bill Gates!

[firew0lfz]

Mostly offtopic, but I just had to hash out this idea anyway..

A few days back while in goverment class I couldn't help but think that we will *NEVER* have another President Kennedy ever in office again. Never. Nor will the consenus of Americans ever again unite to support the space program ever, especially with the state of the economy and with the goverment obsessed with war...

So I got to thinking: who can we manipulate that is in the most prime position to gain public appeal by funding/supporting/actively (realistically, as we all know there is no way in hell Congress would ever, ever, ever again fund a massive space program) campaigning for America's role in space?

The answer I could think of was: Bill Gates | Steve Ballamer.

Or anyone else who is that geeky and rich.

I mean, c'mon, think about it: One of these days Bill is going to go into retirement eventually, and he really doesn't need all those billions.. so why not persuade him to dump some funds into NASA or research into an objective mission to Mars? After he's done spending billions on stopping AIDS (note: the only real way you're going to stop AIDS is by not having sex before marriage) and the like, maybe the collective slashdot crowd could petition our arch-enemy to become the poster boy for space?

At least he could score some public points by trying to turn himself into a "good guy" image by doing this.

Eh? Eh?

Re:Petition Bill Gates!

[jnicholson]

note: the only real way you're going to stop AIDS is by not having sex before marriage

Or after it, for that matter. Marriage doesn't make you immune.

Society's attitude to promiscuity has done more damage than the promiscuity itself. I'm not saying promiscuity is a good thing, I'm just saying that judging others for being human isn't your job. If anyone, that function belongs to God.

space station vs moon base?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have noticed that many of you are saying that moon base is a better thing than a space station.

If you really think, what is so special about the space station? Why is it better to do some science stuff up there, than do it on the ground? Zero-gravity! So the moon isnt that good place afterall.

Ronald

Central Planning = Space

[Vagary]

I can think of two reasons why central planning is superior to market economics for something like a space program:

1. The market is controlled by investors who are notoriously bad at long-term thinking. Space projects simply take too long to get properly valued on a market.
2. Markets are optimal at allocating resources to various projects, but space programs require a leap of faith in one single approach because funding too is impossible. Plus a major space program like a lunar landing requires a whole country behind it -- and therefore no allocation is necessary.

So I think bidding could be good on specifical components of space projects, but markets can't handle control of an entire space program.

Re:Money (what we have and what we pretend to have

[SEE]

Wealth != money; if it did, hyperinflation would just make people insanely rich, instead of destroying economies.

It's actually pretty easy to destroy wealth. You just destroy things with value. Nuke a city, slam a plane into a skyscraper, pour out good wine into a sewer, apply a hammer to silicon chips, burn crops, launch art in a rocket to the Sun . . . wealth is quite easily destroyed.