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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?"
http://almostsmart.com
Zelenshchikov said Energiya engineers were also working on a huge spaceship for a flight to Mars, set to weigh 660 tons, the Interfax news agency reporte
660 tons? Wow. That's a lot of hard currency at work there. You think maybe the Chinese have put a back-order in for a ship to beat the US to the red planet?
Out of the 14 people who have been killed inflight in Spacecraft, all 14 died in Shuttle accidents.
The shuttle program is expensive. And, with Mars missions also on the horizon, it is high time we considered a replacement for both the Shuttle and the Soyuz. Otherwise, space may just become the final frontier, in more than one way.
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen
WHy don't they use that?
Maybe now NASA will stop dilly-dallying around and get some new technology other than the outdated space shuttle. We've really been slacking ever since we stopped going to the moon, and maybe international involvement will help us get back on track.
Why compete? It would be more to the point if one of NASA's contractor's licensed the Energia technologies and simply modified them to NASA's specifications. It would also help Energia fund some of their more ambitious projects.
What's the point in reinventing the wheel?
Their ground record isn't so great either. The disaster at Baikonur in 1960 killed at least 165 people. So I guess they don't really have a better safety record.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The Russians are a smart people, they are the only country that are flying( Yeah China are flying but 1 flight ) and have contuined no matter what the public think of them or what weather condictions are like.. -40oC and a snow storms had not stop the Soyuz from being launched in to orbit. The country has always lacked the funding for its space program, they have beaten all other countrys in a number of races ( frist satellite, animal, man and woman. ) also they are the only country to have a long term presence in space, the Mir space station comes to mind. I beleave that they have proved themselves over the years. I am not saying they should revice full funding from NASA or anyother country.. but certnely a few bucks in the right direction would help, even to a design stage.
To per it in perspective, the statue of liberty is 225 tons I believe. The best argument for lunar orbit recovery was the amount of fuel required would blow up the cape if there was an accident.
The Saturn I's empty weight is about 85 tons, about 650 tons fueled... with a payload capasity of 120 tons into earth orbit, 45 tons to the moon.
While I'm all for a Mars mission... I'd rather that such a launch vehicel were to rendezvous with a space station, tank up, then launch.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Please don't ever say CNN/FOX again...
.05MPH, and now it's stopping to re-evaluate it's path, wow this is fascinating." Especially in a presidential election year, with two wars being fought in the middle east, one of the most hated US presidents, a handfull of high profile court cases, a few major kidnappings and a sniper shooting at cars on the freeway in ohio.
I've been watching a lot of CNN lately and they cover a lot of the mars mission (ok they don't have 24/7 mars coverage but what the hell do you expect? "Oh and there's the rover traveling along at
They actually surprise me with their coverage of space. I usually see things on CNN an hour or so before it goes on slashdot. Also, they don't have Pro-bush news what the hell are you talking about? 90% of the news about bush seems to be against him (He's trailing in the polls, no one likes him, here are some untrue statements he said, look no WMD) I can't remember hearing any pro-bush comments on CNN.
When you were a kid were people able to watch NASAs own TV channel? And were they landing yet another probe on the planet Mars? I don't think so. And did you have internet where you could go at any time and watch 1,000s of space related videos, and find tons of pictures from missions. Kids today don't really care too much for space, but why would they? What is new and exciting about space? When they send people to mars I'm sure everyone would watch, but I don't think many people care about a rover on mars (unless it discovered water, then I'm sure that'd be on CNN all day.)
tell the government where their money should go? It's not related to Energiya, or whatever, just a general thought. I'd happily contribute $1K out of my yearly taxes to space exploration. It's a much wiser investment than $500 (average among tax paying americans) I indirectly spent last year on Iraq war.
Imagine what kind of amazing technology could NASA put out if they were getting $100B budget each year. We'd be all over the place in Solar system already and shuttle would be the most reliable thing in the world. Of course they will fail if you run them for decades!
Because NASA will probably be busy developing their own Crew Exploration Vehicle. I think that a partnership between ESA and Russia could work out well in this case. It will help the russians build a new spaceship, and it might help speed up ESA's Aurora programme.
Well I'd hate to be on the crew for mission 25. "Hey guys, this is the last mission before your ship wears out and has to be scrapped! Who wants to fly her one last time?" No thanks, I'll take one with fewer miles on the clock!
Why would they design something which has to be 100% safe and say it will only last 25 times?
Watch my YouTube atheist video blog (user NickGisburne2000) for arguments against religion
This site - which I highly recommend - may describle something similar to this Mars ship:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/marpost.htm
To quote a little from this site:
In December 2000 Leonid Gorshkov of RKK Energia proposed a manned Mars orbital expedition as an alternative to Russian participation in the International Space Station. The expedition would also provide the means for reviving Russian ascendancy in space.
The Marpost (Mars Piloted Orbital Station) spacecraft would have a total mass of 400 tonnes and be assembled in low earth orbit from components assembled in four launches of a revived Energia launch vehicle. As in the 1989 Energia Mars design, it would be powered to and from Mars by matrices of hundreds of solar-powered ion thrusters using xenon as propellant.
There are two achievements of particular importance that come to mind as well:
- first probe to enter another planet's atmosphere and return data (Venus) - Venera 4 (1967, USSR)
- first remote-controlled vehicle on another planet (the moon) - Lunokhod 1 (1970, USSR)
ESA and RKA did partner up in the early nineties to do exactly that. After the Europeans had shifted their efforts away from Hermes (the European mini-shuttle), the Russians bailed out due to economic concerns and left Europe nowhere.
I can understand why ESA would be a little reluctant to try that stunt again.
The kernel of that joke is true.
I remember buying these ball-points in the late 70s that you could write upside down with, and the technology was developed for NASA.
Buy one here.
For example, a friend of mine was on a mining job in Uzbekistan. They had taken over a mine and substantially upgraded the equipment with the latest western stuff. After a while, some major items (pumps) were switched back to the Russian models because although they broke down more often, the downtime and running cost was much less than the Swiss models.
Back to combat operations, this was one of the successful aspects of the Red Army during WW2. The Germans were living on the edge of an extended logistical supply pipeline and even though the Russians were local, the fqctories were often a long way away (Stalin moved his production as far away from the advancing Germans as possible) so easy maintenance was very important.
I don't know enough about modern military aircraft, but it would be interesting to put in a total picture including maintenance costs and logistics (part inventories and so on). I have an acquaintance that flies the big Antonovs, and swears by them (even though they too are forever engine swapping).
The Russians [former Soviets] have the largest flying object in the world - the Antonov-225. I once witnessed its smaller cousin the Antonov-124 land with over 100 SUV size vehicles and extra crago. It was an amazing sight. Even the airport staff who see aircraft of all sizes and types of craft were amazed. This aircraft handled itself and took off in just 90 minutes! For any person who saw the amount of cargo it put on tarmac, they could not believe it. I understand its wheel alone weighed in at more than 180Kg! Russians are amazing people. I also once had them as class mates, but they always produced better and more efficient code even compared to the lecturer's code. I have always respected them. But the problem, they are not good at PR.
Cb..
Cute joke, but not true.
Both the newest Boeing Delta and Lock-Mart Atlas use license-built Russian engines with nary a design change.
Partially correct. While the Lockheed Martin Atlas 3 and Atlas 5 use the Russian RD-180 engine, the Boeing Delta 4 uses the RS-68 engine in its first stage, designed and built by Boeing's Rocketdyne subsidiary. Both vehicles use variants of the RL10 upper stage engine from Pratt & Whitney, another US company.
While I agree NASA needs an overhaul, it does need more money - if it is ever to build anything other than expensive toys and overgrown fireworks it is going to need serious money for R&D.
Eventhough the cold war is long over it looks like some people at the Kremlin still want to match the White House for irresponsible spending. There are many worthy things for *people* sorely lacking funds in the US while Bush has had one of the biggest budget deficits of all time....AND he wants to build moon bases, missions to mars. Not to be outdone, Putin, who can't get a flagship submarine to launch a missle during a high profile photo-op.......with Russia in *tatters* is deciding to build a reusable space capsule? Last I heard the Russian space program was financing itself by giving joy rides to rich Americans. No wonder Bush and Putin get along. They have no concept of basic fiscal management.
It's an example of "galloping irony" that the Russkies have chosen "Clipper" as the name or their proposed next generation spacecraft. Reason is that we already used that name for a 1/3-scale demo singe-stage-to-orbit vehicle in the 90s. It was called the DC-X or "Delta-Clipper", and it was made by McDonnell-Douglas under the direction of McD VP Pete Conrad, the former astronaut. You can read about it at: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/x-33/dc- xa.htm
There's also an interesting "first-person" account of the first publicly-viewed flight of this vehicle at:
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/DCX/
A little later on, when NASA let a contract for a demo vehicle for a replacement for the Shuttle, the contract went to Lockheed-Martin in Marietta, GA. The fact that Bill Clinton needed to win GA in the 1996 election is said not to have anything to do with the fact that Lockheed got the contract, despite the fact that they had a paper vehicle, and McDonnell-Douglas had an already-flying vehicle! The Lockheed-Martin program never did anything but squander our money, and was later cancelled.
Rather than pay the Russians to build their vehicle, we ought to have a crash program to build the next generation version of the DC-X!