Slashdot Mirror
Russia's New Cosmodome Approved
eldavojohn writes "You may recall discussing Baikonur, the Kazakhstan city rented by Russia that has been used as a launch site for quite some time. Today, Putin has just approved construction of Vostochny between 2010 and 2018 which will be positioned in the far east of Russia to complement the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the northern part of the country. This is not bad news for Kazakhstan as the director of the Russian Federal Space Agency has announced they plan to operate this facility alongside Baikonur."
Russia having two space ports (similar to how the US has the Kennedy and Johnson space centers) is going to be one of the best things they can do. The more efficient the process of launching stuff into Earth orbit, not to mention out of orbit for interplanetary missions, the closer everyone comes to space based living.
A multinational space race (or even better, cooperative missions) benefits everyone, even if its the side effects of materials developed for aerospace programs being used for everyday life.
This is a gamble on Putin's behalf, but it can pay off big for Russia, because people will be contracting with them for launches of private satellites (new ones, and replacements for existing satellites.)
There's a big difference between a cosmodrome and a cosmodome. I got my hopes up really high from the story title, just to have them dashed by the blurb.
the style-sheet or whatever for /. summaries should contain a mandatory "[sic]" at the end of the body.
which this one in particular needs like seven of.
In Soviet Russia, cosmodromes launch from you!
Cosmodome: Two Astronauts enter, One Astronauts leaves.
Post-Soviet Russia just got a lot more interesting.
In Soviet Russia, the Ritz is Putin on YOU.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
All Hail Our Space Russian Overlords!
Borat was excited for his country.
I also know that when they finally deliver, the whole atmosphere will be met with very little fanfare unlike in the US.
I guess it's not in them to seek publicity unlike we in the west.
Now for those who might think this post is "flamebait", I'd like to remind them that the Soviet Union, much of which became today's Russia had and still has the biggest, heaviest and highest-capacity flying aircraft in service today. And this was put in service more than ten years ago...again, with little fanfare.
Contrast that with the Airbus A380 that the [TV] networks appeared not to get fed up of when it made its first commercial flight. Ohh, what about the Space Shuttle which continues to make news whenever it's to lift off or land. On this front, the Russians just fire their Soyuz craft as if it's just another chore!
ComsodRom (NOT Comsodome). lrn2speak(russian) noob
Ummm, stop watching so much gay porn bro. Or not... it's a free country.
That's because of a fundamental difference between Soviet/Russian space policy and American space policy. The Soviet space mission was always viewed as a military one, while the American space agency was a civilian organization. Therefore, there was always more fanfare around American launches, simply because NASA made itself more accessible to the public than the equivalent Soviet agency.
Now for those who might think this post is "flamebait", I'd like to remind them that the Soviet Union, much of which became today's Russia had and still has the biggest, heaviest and highest-capacity flying aircraft in service today. And this was put in service more than ten years ago...again, with little fanfare.Again, you're comparing apples and oranges. The AN-225 was originally envisioned as a special carrier for the canceled Buran space shuttle. Only one was ever built, and even it was in storage until 2000, at which point it was retooled into a conventional transport. To compare a custom-built transport originally built for a single purpose to a multi-use mass-produced jetliner is unfair. You may as well compare Formula 1 cars to Toyota Camrys.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
flamebait, nah.
Now if I could mod a post "strawman"...
Where have you been, you only get Flamebaited on Slashdot when you defend the US. I often boast of Russias accomplishments because the US is buried in beaurocracy. The US could have beaten the Soviet Union with a satellite, it was ready a year ahead of the Soviet Union but government wouldn't let them launch. They also were prepared to launcha a man into orbit before the Russsians but instead launched a Chimp. The US is still the only one to land a man on the Moon let alone do it repeatedly and that was with 60s era technology. They dropped the heavy lift Saturn rockets in favor of the space shuttle which was a glorified satellite maintainence platform, a primary reason for all the blacked out missions in the 80s. Also if you think the Russians never seek publicity for their accomplishments I take it you are extremely young or don't watch the news much. The Russians are quite vocal with every achievement. I believe the complaint is more about Western press but Pravda is equally slanted. I still think the Mir was an amazing achievement but a lot of Russian progress came with a heavy toll of lives. They took cheaper lower tech approaches that came with higher risk. Up until the Shuttle NASA had an amazing safety record. There's a lot to respect about what the Russians have done with fewer resources but knocking the West is cherry picking your facts. Russia has a miserable track record when it comes to Mars and they've never done anything approaching the rovers. They have managed a landing on Venus which is impressive inspite of the craft being short lived. If you look objectively both the US and Russia have similar accomplishments when you make adjustments for financial and political restrictions, Ironically the west tends to have the money but politics tends to hamper progress. As far as the largest aircraft the Russians always took the big dick approach having the biggest of everything from aircraft to largest nuclear explosion whether it was practical or not. It was a cold war propaganda thing of boasting about having the biggest. Since the end of the cold war you noticed that trend changed to more practical weapons and aircraft than simply the largest.
But does will it run Linux?
Huh? Their track record over the last fifteen odd years is of one project after another that fails to materialize - or is delivered years late.
That would explain the endless stream of glossy presentations, especially from their space industry, promising ever more wonderful accomplishments. (None of which, as noted above, have ever amounted to anything.)
It's not that your post is flamebait, it's just disconnected from the facts. The AN-225 was put into service nearly twenty years ago in the Soviet Union - with a great deal of fanfare. It was then mothballed with the fall of the Soviet Union. When it was placed back into service, it wasn't Russia that placed it in service - but a private company. While it did recieve a great deal of fanfare in the appropriate circles, like all cargo aircraft it was soundly ignored by the media. Comparing it with the A-380 is comparing apples and oranges.
Again the disconnection with facts... It may not make the Western media, but it does the Russian each time it launches or lands.
Is for the greater glory of Kazakhstan. The village rapist enjoy new Cosmodome greatly, and much bigger place for Running of the Jews.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Actualy when the Mria (An225) launched the customer was there. The Russian space program, Buran, the military complex, you name it. All of these were mothballed or frozen 15 years ago and not entirely unexpectedly so did the Mria. For the last 15 years its little brother - the An124 did the heavy hawling. Now the market for ultraheavy loads is opening again so it was once again taken to the skies: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1296054/L/. Compared to it the A380 is a dwarf.
IMO while awesome it is not that much of a technological achievement. It may be big, but it ain't revolutionary in any sense.
Now this http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1295104/M/ is something out of a different league. It may not take a large load, but its take-off and landing requirements (a field only slightly bigger than a football pitch) are in the realm of the insane.
Same for some of the specs for this one: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1262070/M/.
Both of these are so far ahead of anything in their class it is not even funny.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
The general idea (though it is not said officially) as I understand it is to get us our own cosmodrome which
1. comes cheaper with no rent to pay and
2. can never be denied us whatever the political situation in the world is
while being as close to the equator as we can manage it - Plesetsk is too far to the north.
I think once it's built and fully operational (that is manned flights begin to launch from there) we might drop Baikonur option - or perhaps turn it into museum.
Hmm... that doesn't really work, does it? Oh well.
Both programs were driven from the passion of just two men - Korolov and Von Braun - championing similar goals, to advance humanity into the space age. The reality is the space age was born out of the paranoia of the other capability to inflict harm. Our risk mitigated litigious society doesn't do things "because they are hard" to achieve any more, instead our mantra is "better, faster, cheaper". Both programs are now the victims of pork barreling and both suffer from a critical "lack of relevance" to Joe Public.
More than likely the Baikonur cosmodrome will be opened up to more commercial use as it gets more expensive to maintain, so additional launch facilities have got to be a good thing. The shuttle downtime did demonstrate that collaboration works when it comes to utilising redundancy in a space program, which is a positive outcome for the ISS. I just wonder how much could be achieved if co-operation and standardisation across space programs were the norm and not just an exception.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
High Five!
Never monkey with another monkey's monkey.
Is this site not intended for launching stuff into orbit, but merely intended as a landing site, or a sub-orbit launch site?
Over the past 15 years, Russia has achieved a great transformation. It has become a modern capitalist society with a Western-style consumerist culture, a rapidly growing economy, and a stable political system. But at the same time it has lost much; among other things, it no longer has the capacity to do any serious space exploration.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's industrial and scientific capacity has been decimated. The criminal oligarchs who took over Russian industries invested in yachts and London real estate, but never in their factories. The corrupt and incompetent officials of the Yeltsin era let world-leading research institutes fade into shadows from underfunding and brain drain. During the era of economic collapse and hyperinflation, when state-owned enterprises routinely delayed salaries for months, most intelligent or enterprising people went into commerce, crime, or simply left the country. The scientists, engineers, and skilled workers who remained are, alas, too few and too old to sustain Putin's vision for Russia's development.
This is precisely the quality of Russian cars fell after the collapse of the USSR. This is why the Clipper spaceship exists only as a mockup. This is why the lead Project 677 submarine is still not ready after 10 years of construction work. This is why Russia still doesn't have a 5th generation fighter jet.
If Russia wants to become a great power again, it needs a new era of massive investment in infrastructure, science, and the industrial complex, like in the 1700s, the 1890s, and the 1930s. Otherwise, it risks degenerating into an American or Chinese oil-producing satellite, a frozen and shabby Saudi Arabia. But even if the next president pursues such a program, which is not at all certain, it will take a decade for results to be felt. Realistically, I fear Putin's plan for space development is a dream that would be realized many years behind schedule, if at all.
I strongly believe they will deliver on this given their track record.
Note that the announcement comes one week before the Russian Parliamentary elections set for December 2nd. Putin is term limited as President but has vowed to run for Parliament and speculated that he could continue to rule as a strong prime minister.
What has actually been announced is a feasibility study to decide a location by 2010, and intentions to build start in 2018. The Amur Region that is named is the same one where Putin announced on February 26th, 2003 that he was opening a new road across Siberia and that 2008 it would be paved. That was coincidentally three weeks before the last Russian Presidential election. I have been across the Amur Highway this year (2007) and while a lot of good work has been done, there is no way the Amur Highway will be entirely paved in 2008, nor for that matter by 2010 (Putin's last announcement on the topic in 2006) or in my opinion by 2018.
So when I think of "track record" and I think of some of the engineering difficulties of the Amur Region (think permafrost, little infrastructure,...) and I put it in the context of Russian politics, then while this may eventually be built, I doubt it will be done by 2018 mentioned in the article. All that is promised so far is a study in 2010.
Where have you been? You only get Flamebaited on Slashdot when you defend the US.
I often boast of Russia's accomplishments because the US is buried in bureaucracy.
The US could have beaten the Soviet Union with a satellite: it was ready a year ahead of the Soviet Union but government wouldn't let them launch.
The US was also prepared to launch a man into orbit before the Russsians but instead launched a chimp. Note that the US is still the only country to have landed a man on the Moon, let alone repeatedly, and that was with 1960s era technology.
The US dropped the heavy lift Saturn rockets in favor of the Space Shuttle which was a glorified satellite maintainence platform; a primary reason for all the blacked-out missions in the 1980s.
Also, if you think the Russians never seek publicity for their accomplishments I take it you are extremely young or don't watch the news much. The Russians are quite vocal with every achievement. I believe the complaint is more about Western press but Pravda is equally slanted.
I still think the Mir was an amazing achievement but a lot of Russian progress came with a heavy toll of lives. They took cheaper, lower tech approaches that came with higher risk. Up until the Shuttle NASA had an amazing safety record.
There's a lot to respect about what the Russians have done with fewer resources but knocking the West is cherry picking your facts.
Russia has a miserable track record when it comes to Mars and they've never done anything approaching the rovers. They have managed a landing on Venus which is impressive in spite of the craft being short-lived.
If you look objectively, both the US and Russia have similar accomplishments, when you make adjustments for financial and political restrictions. Ironically, the West tends to have the money but politics tends to hamper progress.
As far as the largest aircraft, the Russians always took the big dick approach of having the biggest of everything from aircraft to largest nuclear explosion, whether practical or not. It was a cold war propaganda thing of boasting about having the biggest. Since the end of the cold war, the trend has shifted to more practical weapons and aircraft than simply the largest.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
mark cuban is a tool
the net's full of them i.e ere's another slapptelstra.com
Slightly off topic here - but what exactly IS the deal with Baikonur?
From what I can see on GE and googling, vast tracts off this 'city' are abandoned or destroyed sites.
Is access possible - on the sly or otherwise? Is it open space, except for around the new / active buildings? I'm curious!
Tell me then why did Americans send a man to the moon in the first place?
Oh, that's wonderful. At first glance, this appears to be another post from the illiterati, but the lack of speling erorrs indicates otherwise. Well done.
Let's kick shell!
Russia is building a spaceport in the far east because Kazakhstan is weary of toxic Proton launcher first stages crashing in their territory. Proton's are loaded with UDMH, a dangerous carcinogen, and Nitrogen Tetroxide, a highly concentrated acid. Central Asia is strewn with spent first stages of Protons and Soyuz. Like Baikonur the new spaceport would be located above 45 deg N, which requires increased rocket performance to launch most payloads compared to lower latitude launch sites like Cape Canaveral or Kourou. The high (52deg) inclination of the ISS is a compromise for the Russian launch site. As a result there are fewer launch opportunities for the shuttle. By the way, Johnson Space Center is not a launch site. Perhaps your are referring to Vandenberg AFB in California.
If slashdot thinks this story is newsworthy they should also post one about the new Chinese launch site on Hainan Island.
an ill wind that blows no good
The biggest flying aircraft was developed, tested, and manufactured in Soviet Ukraine, which became an independent state after the union went kaput. And, you should know that Ukraine is not Russia at all. Moreover I would not dare to draw conclusions similar to that you have made taking into account surface area only. First computers were developed in Ukraine, rockets (carriers) were developed in Ukraine and so on. Then, It should be also taken into account that in the nearest future there will be parliamentary elections in Russia, and a little bit later, the presidential elections (approx in 100 days from today). These great plans can be just a part of the PR. These things are used to show the Russians how mighty and powerful became Russia lead by President Putin, and how even more powerful and developed it can become with Tsar Putin the great. In any case, time will show, how honest were these plans.
No! Not entirely. The design was both Russian/Ukranian, engines were Ukranian, avionics are Russian and the landing gear, just like those of the Il-76 was from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan. Wikipedia has an entry on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov.
As it is now, none of these independent countries can manufacture the Antonov independently, but Russia is taking a leading role in its manufacture, though Ukraine still has a pretty important role to play.
Shouldn't that be cosmodrome ?
We sent a man to the moon to demonstrate out superiority over the Soviets. However, that does not diminish the fact that our space program was conducted in far less secrecy than the Soviet space program. Thus, the current lack of fanfare around the Russian space program is due to the historic secrecy of the program, and not due to some kind of imagined modesty possessed by the Russian government.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
oh, what a flaming dork! They built shuttle-equivalent - Buran in 1980s, then looked at how much it was costing and canned it. Yeah, they didn't really have the money to run the Buran program so they took the practical route by designing rockets that have the best bang for the buck ratio.
Unlike USA they don't have 9 trillion dollars in debt and are working hard on getting that 300 billion debt down to zero. You just wait until China reprices its currency - we'll all be working for Chinese elite alongside China's poor working class.
It is important to understand the life cycle of prototypes: they are made to perform usually one function, in a very specific time frame. After that is done they are useless. I am sure nobody shed a tear over the damage to the prototype Buran because it should have been cut into pieces and recycled long ago (but probably not a single bureaucrat had enough bravery to order it done.)
Think of it this way: you have a spaceship that will cost you 100x your normal space launch rate to use. Also, it was never approved for commercial flights, let alone manned flights. The carrier for it (Energiya) is not manufactured (because there is no demand.) What do you do with such a spaceship? It is a black hole of maintenance and storage, for no reason at all.
I work in R&D, and we have tons of prototype designs that we build, test, demo and ... scrap. That's what prototypes are for. There is no chance that Buran, as designed, will ever fly, so why to keep it?
The Johnson Space Center in Houston is a control center rather than a launch site, so it's not directly comparable to what's being described in the article. There are US launch sites at Vandenberg AFB and Point Mugu NAS, but these are suitable only for launches to high inclination (polar) orbits. There's too much population density to lauch eastward from there, and a westward lauch incurs about 2500 km/hr velocity penalty because of the earth's rotation. I expect Russia to continue using Baikonur for heavy lift launches to the ISS and other low-inclination orbits. It takes less fuel to reach these orbit from latitudes closer to the equator than ones farther north or south. This is especially so for geosynchronous orbits, because a more delta-v is needed to change a high inclination path to zero inclination. On the other hand a near-polar launch site works well for polar orbits--provided your crew and equipment can handle the cold climate that comes with those locations.
The Russkys have cool names for everything.
Russia's New Cosmodome
Wow, that sounds like some huge condom. They are not lacking in self-confidence, are they?