The Story of Baikonur, Russia's Space City

eldavojohn writes "There's an article up on Physorg about Russian space launch city Baikonur, rented by Russia from Kazakhstan. Although it is essentially the same as it was in the 60's and 70's, it is amazingly efficient and still operational. 'Even the technology hasn't changed much. The Soyuz spacecraft designed in the mid-1960s is still in service, somewhat modified. It can only be used once, but costs just $25 million. The newest Endeavor space shuttle cost $2 billion, but is reusable. Life and work in Baikonur and its cosmodrome are also pretty much what they were in the Soviet era. The town of 70,000 - unbearably hot in summer, freezing cold in winter and dusty year round - is isolated by hundreds of miles of scrubland.'" We last discussed Baikonur back in 2005.

Comments

Costs

[stoolpigeon]

This Nasa space shuttle faq lists endeavour's cost at 1.7 billion. Maybe they just rounded off, but a third of a billion seems significant to me.

It also lists the launch costs for a shuttle at about $450 million. I don't know if that's just the launch itself or if that includes the turn around costs. Of course - the article doesn't list similar numbers for the Soyuz - but it seems that while reusable - the shuttle still is exponentially more expensive. Although - I don't know of anything else that can get as much weight to orbit as the shuttle.

Re:Costs

[slashqwerty]

I don't know of anything else that can get as much weight to orbit as the shuttle.

At 21,000 kg to LEO, the Ariane 5 ECA comes pretty close. And it does a lot better than the shuttle to Geostationary Transfer Orbit. The Delta IV does slightly better than the shuttle at 25,800kg to LEO versus the shuttle's 24,400kg.

The Saturn V could put them all to shame. Although the planned Ares V can carry even more than the Saturn V.

Re:Bargain space flight

[CharlieG]

Remember the MAIN design goal of the shuttle wasn't JUST to bring "stuff" to orbit, but to be able to bring sats DOWN from orbit - in fact, part of the design criteria was launch from Vandenburg, grab a sat, and LAND in ONE orbit (Military wanted to be able to snach Sats)

They did bring 2 or 3 Sats down from orbit in the early days