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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 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.
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.
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"...)
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A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems. - Paul Erdos
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!
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.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
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...
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.
"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.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
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.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
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.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
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...
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.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
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.
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...
Classic Propaganda:
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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
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
As Rutherford said:
"We haven't got the money, so we've got to think!
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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...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
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.
My patience is infinite, my time is not.