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