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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?
Maybe now NASA will stop dilly-dallying around and get some new technology other than the outdated space shuttle.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?
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.
Yes, 3 persons killed in soyuz 11 and 3 persons killed in the soyuz 1.
There have been more than 800 soyuz flights (source: http://www.starsem.com/soyuz/introduction.htm).
If we assume on average ~2 (I believe its higher) cosmonauts for each soyuz, that means that ~ 1600 has travelled in a soyuz. Out of these 1600, 6 have died. => death ratio on: 6/1600 = 0.00375.
The space shuttle has had a total of 111 missions:
Challenger: 10
Columbia: 28
Atlantis: 26
Discovery: 30
Endeavour: 17
In these missions we assume an average of 6. (I believe its lower though). This makes the total of shuttle-astronauts: 666. With 14 dead this makes a death-ratio on: 14/666 = 0.0210.
(or about 5.6 times higher).
Now these figures are on "per traveller". But the risks are more associated with launches. On this front the soyuz has 2 failed missions in 800 and the shuttle has 2 failed missions in 111.
Then, of course, we have the costs. A soyuz-launch cost about 20 million dollars. A shuttle launch, on the other hand, cost about 500 million dollars (source: wikipedia).
BUT! What everyone is forgetting is that these 2 ships are not compareable. The soyuz is a human-crew only capsule and the space shuttle is a reusable crew & equipment lifter. However, the conclusions one can draw is that it might be more efficient and safer to launch humans in human capsules (reusable or not) and launch the equipment on a separate booster earlier. (This is how the russians have constructed their space stations in the past - which has worked). There is very little need in sending up the equipment and humans at the same time - unless you are in a hurry.