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Energiya Pushes For A 6-Person Space Capsule
voss writes "Apparently the Russians want to build their own reusable capsule called the Clipper that can be used up to 25 times and can fit 6 people. They also say they can build their ship in 5 years. The key here is if they can get the funding. The shuttle will be retired in 2010 and with no credible replacement on the horizon...why doesn't NASA give the Russians a chance?"
Russians always seem to have a much, much different design philosophy than America when it comes to space. It's not just about funding. I think this comes from their cold war philosophy. The idea that an soviet fighter jet should be able to land on almost any airstrip, even half bombed-out, refuel, and take off in an hour (or something like that). Contrasted with American designs which are always very maintainence-heavy, and more technologically sophisticated/complex.
This is really a core difference in design/engineering philosophy between Russian and USA, and I think it definitely extends into their space programs. USA craft are very susceptible to slight malfunctions. Russian craft will be fine as long as you have a roll of duct tape or a bit of wood glue. Anyhow, my point I guess is just that, I think sometimes the Russian approach is more practical. I'd like to see what they would build.
"Out of the 14 people who have been killed inflight in Spacecraft, all 14 died in Shuttle accidents"
Sorry, wrong. In 1971 a Soyuz crew was lost when it depressurized too early, asphyxiating the astronauts inside. Soyuz 1 also killed it's occupant when it's main and reserve parachutes failed.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
IIRC, most of the Burans left are chopped up into bits, and two are not even assembled. Anyway, the Buran is as dated as the shuttle, which is the entire point of building a new one... Take a look: Buran, by NASA BTW, the Clipper is being built by Energiya, which also has the Buran launcher to its credit...
A nice picture and more information on the plan are in astronautix.com.
The 14.5 tonne reusable lifting body would be used as a space station ferry and lifeboat, or could operate independently to shuttle tourists to space.
This is mainly based on proven technology, so there is a chance it may actually be built. Space tourism is also getting quite hot lately. They are planning to use another Russian designed spacecraft.
Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Shamelessly ripping off the Wikipedia Space Race page:
- first artificial satellite - Sputnik 1 (1957, USSR)
- first animal in orbit - Laika - Sputnik 2 (1957, USSR)
- first spacecraft on moon - Luna 2 (1959, USSR)
- first human in space - Yuri Gagarin, Vostok 1 (1961, USSR)
- first orbital flight - Vostok 1 (as above)
- first dual flight (1962, USSR)
- first woman in space - Valentina Tereshkova (1963, USSR)
- first flight with more than one crew member - Voskhod 1 (1964, USSR)
- first spacewalk - Aleksei Leonov on Voskhod 2 (1965, USSR)
- first space rendezvous - Gemini 6/Gemini 7 (1965, USA)
- first space docking - Gemini 8 (1966, USA)
- first human orbital flight of moon - Apollo 8 (1968, USA)
- first human landing on moon - Apollo 11 (1969, USA)
- first space station - Salyut 1 (1971, USSR)
Depends what you mean by space and race.
"The buron was pretty much the russians trying to emulate the shuttle." It was not only emulation, Buran (this name can be translated from Russian as "Snowstorm") had a lot of improvments. For example, it had more efficient heat shield, autopilot (Shuttles, haven't this feature, they can land only under man control) and so on. Clipper uses some ideas from Buran.
Actually, Russian treasury is relatively full of money, and they had positive budget for several years. That is, in fact, not very good (limits investments), and the new government is being assembled now that knows how to spend. The previous government was stuffed with ex-bankers who, from all arithmetics, only knew how to add and multiply :-) These bankers fixed the economy, and now it's time to use that money. Space is as good technology investment as any, if not better (because it affects many areas of science at once.)
Regarding the generalizations for strength/weaknesses in Russian and American aerospace products, particularly aircraft:
Russian airframes, landing gear, gearboxes... built tought to work in shitty conditions.
Russian turbojets, great while they work, but need to be rebuilt every few hundred flight hours.
Russian avionics/radar: relatively primitive and prone to crapping out.
American airframes: finely engineered and can take a licking. Landing gear: engineered for whatever a particular design's expected environment, pick one: candy-ass smooth USAF tarmac, a carrier deck, dirt strip.
American engines: reliable, last long time, 1000's hours between rebuilds.
American avionics/radar: used to crap out regularly, even if not as often as Russian... until Hughes and Westinghouse got their digital h/w worked out in the 80's, now tough as nuts and runs for weeks w/o swapping out.
Just as an example, ask the Royal Malaysian Air Force. They fly F-18 and MiG-29. Sure, the 29's were about a quarter the price of the 18's, but it's the 18's that are flight-ready almost 24x7.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I have posted this before and will post it again. Buran program started at about the same time as the Shuttle, but was initially aiming for a smaller vehicle which could land nearly anywhere, not a specially prepared strategic bomber airstrip with 30 km to spare. There are pictures of a Russian Kiev class carrier group recovering one of the prototypes taken by a New Zeland destroyer as early as later 70'es in the pacific. In btw, it looks exactly as one of the competitors for the current NASA vehicle. IMO Energia should sue for plagiarism. Unless whoever was the proposer actually used their blueprints (which is quite likely, happens quite often lately, especially when congresscritters are not watching).
Unfortunately, at one point some idiot above issued an order for Buran to comply with the same spec as the shuttle while retaining automatic landing. This was the most stupid decision ever, because the shuttle spec is a result of political horse trading. Its capacity was increased at the last moment at the expense of other flight parameteres to get Pentagon funding. This resultted in it being pushed way beyond the limits of our engineering at the time (and possibly now).
This resulted in:
Instead of a small launcher Soyuz or Proton Class stage 1+2, Buran had to use Energia which meant a dependency on a launcher program which was in its very early stages at the time.
It stopped being economically feasible. Let's face it, the shuttle is not. It is the most expensive (in terms of dollar per killogram) launcher.
As a result after one successful fully automated test flight, and one take off incident it was mothballed. Someone finally did the books and the numbers did not come out.
If you do not believe me check how many Burans are actually floating around (one was even on sale lately). Basically Russia still has definitely more then 2. It does not fly them because it does not make any sense (financially) and because launching them requires building Energia launchers which for all practical purposes are too far from being sufficiently reliable for human launches. They simply have not been tested enough.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I would not be too concerned about seals. In low-G environment, and with low thrust, you get very low acceleration - and low vibration. Your washing machine probably has more stress on its pipes than a zero-G rocket engine.
A properly constructed rocket engine, which stays at 50-100K all the time, will be fine for many years. Satellites also have small engines for orbit correction, and they seem to be OK. All modern rockets (incl. Shuttle) have cryogenic fuel, experience thermal shock of 300 degrees C during fueling, and still work fine.
A U.S. law known as the Iran Nonproliferation Act prohibits NASA from making cash payments to the Russians unless the president certifies to Congress that Russia is not providing missile or other sensitive technology to other countries(=Iran).
Great. Perhapse you can help ensure NASA gets a budget that matches its former glory?
Take a look at the CAIB report. Pay attention to Volume I, Chapter 5. Read over section 5.3 An Agency Trying To Do Too Much With Too Little. Along with some very interesting text is some telling charts. NASA's funding in 1965 was a little under 4% of the national budget or $5,250 million (the equiv. of $24,696 million in 2002). Meanwhile, FY 2002 saw a budget of $14,868 million - less than 1% of the national budget.
I think that there's a good chance Energia is bluffing about the 660 ton Mars spacecraft. That's not another satellite launch - who's going to pay for that?
But assuming for a second that Energia is not bluffing, NASA would have to either play catch-up or compete on a different level. IANARS (rocket scientist) but as far as I know, Energia lifters are one of, if not the best of the breed. Unlike Buran, the launch vehicle that was going to lift it into the orbit (and did so once) - LV Energia - has not been lost or forgotten. When it was designed and built, it could carry up to 100-120 tons into orbit, over 200 tons if fully expanded. The main difference from the STS being that the shuttle has its main engine on the spacecraft, while Buran was lifted entirely by Energia rocket and attached liquid rocket boosters (i.e. spacecraft did not do any lifting of its own).
Now, as far as I know, nobody else including NASA has anything like this. While Energia design could be relatively easily used for lifting cargo other than Buran, I'm not sure the Shuttle main engine could be that easily ported or even comparable in power. If there's indeed a renewed competition in space and considering that there's still a lot to be said about lifting 660 pound spacecraft into LEO (not even about going to Mars and back), I am wondering what would NASA's plans be - play catch-up, or do something entirely different?
Again, IANARS, so feel free to correct.
The correct number of _manned_ soyuz flights is ~87. This includes soyuz, soyuz-t, soyuz-tm and soyuz-tma flights.
So, the reliability of _manned_ flights is statistically approx. equal between sts and soyuz.
Ofcourse, soyuz hasn't had a serious accident since the seventies.
The official site of RS-84 does not mention it but it seems to be true. I saw the announcement in usenet .
cavitating torpedoes? All high speed torpedoes cavitate.
Cavitate - ablade moving through the water creates a low pressure area on the trailing edge. If the blade moves too fast for the water to close in, an air bubble forms. The noise of cavitation is the bubble collapsing. The screw on a submarine will do this if accellerated too fast, caising a chirp that any half assed sonar tech can hear.
Formerly on the USS Silversides SSN 679 during the bad old days of the late 70's.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
First, in 1965 the national budget did not include much money for certain programs which have exploded since then (for example, most of the Great Society stuff like Medicare). Comparing fractions of the budget without adjusting for huge changes in the portion of GNP which goes through the government makes any comparison suspect.
Second, the economy is several times as big now as it was then. Is something less important if you allocate 1% of 4*x to it instead of 4% of x?
Third, we have already solved many of the technical and engineering problems required to do the things we want to do in space (I think we should put a permanent population on Mars, others may differ). For instance, we already know how to maintain people in space for months at a time. We know how to handle ultra-cryogens such as liquid hydrogen; we now use them routinely in rocket boosters and other applications. We don't need to spend money to re-invent these wheels.
What NASA really needs is a mission and a reform of its bureaucratic mentality so that it can pursue it properly. It doesn't need more money, it needs to shed the albatross of the enormously expensive and obsolete Shuttle program so that the money can do something more useful than paying for an army of government contractors.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
What was recovered in the Indian Ocean (not the Pacific) was a very small (2-3m) model of an aerodynamic shape very different from Buran. While the Russian have never owned up to exactly what it was a subscale model of, it's believed today to have been a concept test of the BOR-4 spaceplane. The Russians did fly a few subscale Buran's, but those were recovered on land, in Russia. When those craft were sold on eBay, they got confused with the ones recovered in the Indian Ocean, and an 'urban legend' was born.