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?"

Comments

Re:no way

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:14 people in two incidents

[sould]

Americans are the leaders in this technology, have been for years, we won the space race.

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.

Re:Good for them

[_Sprocket_]

Maybe now NASA will stop dilly-dallying around and get some new technology other than the outdated space shuttle.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.

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.

Re:Russians Do It More Economically

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Reused up to 25 times?

[meringuoid]

Are you kidding? Mir was designed for a five-year lifespan. After something like 12 years they crashed a cargo ship into it, depressurised half the station, set the rest on fire and for good measure took down all the computers and it still wouldn't die...

If the Russians say it's designed for 25 flights, I'd start to worry around flight 78 :-)