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Euro-Russian Manned Space Vehicle Planned
drachton writes "BBC News reports that the 'European Space Agency (ESA) is proposing joining forces with Russia to develop a new vehicle for human spaceflight, the Clipper.' The head of the ESA permanent mission in Russia also told BBC that the Clipper 'is meant to service the space station and to go between Earth and an orbit around the Moon with six crew members.'"
Original article here.
AFAIK, Russia never developed Nuclear Propulsion. On the thermal side of the equation, the engineering costs of starting from scratch are likely too high for Russia to consider. On the pulse propulsion side, Russia never really worked out the "micro-nuke" problem, and the Orion nuke designs are still classified.
Add a healthy dose of Chernobyl fears and you've got a country that has no intention of pursuing nuclear propulsion.
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It's looking like there should be quite a bit of competition soon in human orbital spaceflight. Here are the
various competitors I can think of off-hand:
* USA: Shuttle-derived system, probably with a CEV capsule on top. There's several downsides to a shuttle-derived system, but it keeps the constituencies happy and should have enough government momentum to keep on going.
* Russia and Europe: Kliper's been searching around for financial support for a while, and it looks like they finally got at least -some- funding from Europe.
* China: various iterations of Shenzhou spacecraft
In the private sector:
* t/Space: The (Rutan-affiliated?) company just completed a parachute drop test and water landing of a full-scale model of their proposed CXV space capsule. It's uncertain if they'll get more funding from NASA, but their concept seems sound and may get private investment. Oh, and their web page has some really spiffy videos.
* SpaceX: They've already announced their intent to compete for Bigelow's
orbital prize, and their upcoming man-rated Falcon V will be large enough to carry a Gemini-style capsule.
Now what about destinations? Besides the ISS, we've got Robert Bigelow's inflatable space station modules, which should be up and operational by 2010, with several prototype launches before then. He's planning on selling these modules to various groups and countries, so hopefully we'll have several different space stations up there.
Between Shenzhou 8 and 9 China is planning on launching a small orbital laboratory, which Shenzhou 9 will be docking with. Various members of the Chinese space program have also been visiting Bigelow's facility, so perhaps we'll see them doing something with his modules.
The future should be interesting.
The clipper design appears to be a shuttle-like space plane. Have there been any significant materials improvements that make a space plane built today more pratical and safer than the current shuttle deisgn?
Yeah, don't make it so damn big and complicated; don't tie the engines into the main craft; and DON'T use heat tiles when carbon-carbon shielding is available!
Does that answer your question?
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Nuclear electric is a whole different thing, though. It's not really nuclear propulsion, but rather a small nuclear powerplant to drive electric propulsion. In other words, it's not really a new form of propulsion, but a natural evolution of an existing one.
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On the other hand, the USSR pursued the nuclear-electric avenue extensively, while the US was working on its failed nuclear thermal programs. Both nations wanted ways to get heavy cargoes out into the solar system, but picked radically different approaches. It's no coincidence that US electric propulsion technology advanced greatly in the years following the collapse of the USSR. The Russians were working on Hall effect thrusters back in the 1960s - they were using them on spacecraft as far back as 1964 (Zond-2). We really missed the boat on that one.
;) The USSR at the time correctly saw that nuclear engineering wasn't yet advanced enough to make reliable enough nuclear thermal rockets without politically unaffordable amounts of investment and prolongued timelines, and pursued an ultimately invaluable, nearer-term propulsion method instead (electric, with the intent of nuclear electric).
I suspect that nuclear thermal will eventually become *the* way to launch payloads - however, it shows what can happen when you focus too intently on a single technology to revolutionize your access to space
... in Siberia, where Putin killed a fish with a speargun. He later claimed it was killed by Ukrainian separatists.
I do not like the fact that the shuttle-derived launch vehicle uses solid rocket boosters.
I'm sure NASA would love to obtain more control over launches by reengineering a kerosine rocket like the F-1s on the Saturn V, but the fact of the matter is that we have the SRBs now and they work. (They work extremely well too! Over twice the power of the F-1 engines on the Saturn V!) It would be a waste of time for NASA to develop new hardware when they already have a solution.
I do like the fact it uses shuttle main engines for the upper stage though.
Actually, the SSMEs fire for the entire launch duration. The launch profile is very similar to the Space Shuttle, but with five SSMEs instead of three.
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They did more than "maybe" "get close" - the first probe ever to actually reach the moon was Russian (Luna 2), for example. The Russians may not actually have sent people to the moon, but they certainly have accomplished some things, too, so give credit where credit is due.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Guess which is the highest-payload rocket in the market right now? That is right, the 10 ton Ariane 5 ECA.
Really? I could have sworn that was the Atlas V Heavy with 25000 kg to GTO. The Delta IV Heavy comes in next with 13,130 kg to GTO, leaving the Ariane 5 in third with 10,500 kg to GTO.
Russia's past experience with Buran TPS was allegedly less than stellar, with the thing returning with a lot of tiles blown off and the chassis warped from the temperatures at reentry.
*cough*Bullshit*cough* That was a rumor started on Usenet years ago. It has since been tracked down and squashed.
This will most likely need a new rocket,
It will use the Zenit booster.
new launch facilities
Is there something wrong with the Russian Cosmodrome?
and then you will have to put a winged vehicle on top of a rocket
<sarcasm>No!</sarcasm>
which to the best of my knowledge no one has got working yet.
You know, the Space Shuttle didn't just appear out of nowhere. The idea came from the Dynasoar program which was able to trace its roots back to the original German rocketry done during WWII. No one has yet used inline wings because of reentry problems with the vehicle, not launch problems.
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Riiight. The US had LOTS of space stations up and running for a really long time. I mean lets have a look:
Russian:
Salyut1 : 175 Days in orbit
Salyut3 : 213 Days in orbit
Salyut 4: 770 Days in orbit
Salyut 5: 412 Days in Orbit
Salyut 6: 1,764 Days in orbit
Salyut 7: 3,216 Days in orbit
Mir: 5,511 Days in orbit
US:
Skylab: 2,249 Days in orbit
I can see how Russia would really need the US's help.
What happened to a space elevator by 2015? We still need lots of technological advancements to be able to build a space elevator. The ribbon cable material(carbon nanotubes top the list) needs to be manufacturable in lengths of 100,000 km with a very high tensile strength. The power beaming technology proposed to power the "climbers" also needs to be developed further.