Slashdot Mirror
Russia To Build an Orbital Construction Plant
jamax writes "Russia plans to build an orbital plant for the production of spacecraft (link to sketchy Google translation of the Russian original) that are too big to build planetside, or are just too bulky to fire into orbit once built. Presumably these are the ships we would fly to the Moon and Mars. Plans seem to be rather sparse at the moment, with the tentative construction date set for 2020, after the ISS is scheduled for decommissioning."
There's no mention of the Moon or Mars in the translated article, so that is purely speculation in the summary. It's very much pie in the sky (pun intended) at the moment, with reporting just saying "it was proposed" and "The government's Security Council supported the idea". Nothing about funding or plans at this point in time.
Actually there is, in both, short version and full version Russian version and translated version
With the increase in state funds due to the rising resource prices, the russians have a bit of cash to spare, and with putin being keen to show his countrymen that they are a superpower again it doesn't seem outrageous that they might try something in space - which has always had major propaganda value. The budget for the Russian Federal Space Agency has been increasing every year (but is still a fraction of nasa).
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
Sadly the US probably won't - It looks like Obama will be the next president, and his is planning to gut NASA's manned space program:
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/obamas_nasa_plan_gets_little_p.php
It looks like the Russians or Chinese are our last best hope to find a way off this rock.
My rights don't need management.
Actually, the engineers were far more on the ball than this. They really did envision a grand space program with colonies across the solar system. To make it happen, they designed quite a few incredible machines. The Saturn V was only the herald of many amazing advancements in spaceflight that were to come. Artificial gravity, Single-Stage to Orbit, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, Nuclear Thermal Engines, and other amazing designs were drawn up, prototyped, and in some cases even built.
Rockets were going to diversify into craft that were smaller and cheaper for manned space flight as well as craft that were larger and similarly cheaper for launching massive payloads like space stations, moon base supplies, interplanetary craft, raw materials, foundries, whatever you could imagine.
So what really happened? Well, there's no question in that respect. The space race was 98% politically motivated. The US and the USSR couldn't lob nukes at each other due to that pesky MAD thing, so they lobbed space technology breakthroughs at each other in the biggest pissing contest in history. Both sides developed incredibly expensive crash programs to bring advanced space technology to fruition. The result was the development of new materials, new engines, new electronics, new physics, new logistics, just about every area of science and technology was pushed to the limit of what these post-WWII economies could muster. (Which was quite a bit given the breakneck pace of WWII technological development and modernization.)
Each side tried to out-muster the other, with the USSR handily keeping one step ahead of the US in every development. So the US set its sights on an incredible goal: Landing a man on the moon. The USSR tried to beat the US to the punch on this task, but when they failed, they didn't take the loss lightly. Rather than admit defeat, the USSR buried any information on the fact that they had even tried. The official line to the public was, the USSR was not in a race to the moon.
Where did that leave the US? Ultimately, with a very expensive space program that had outlived its political usefulness. Lunar missions were scaled back and eventually canceled. The SkyLab station was put in a parking orbit and eventually allowed to reenter and burn up. The grand plans for a small space shuttle, a large Saturn V, a "jumping off" space station, a moon base, and interplanetary mini-Orion missions were scaled back to a single spacecraft. President Nixon demanded that both NASA and the military fly one craft, and one craft only. So they hatched a grand plan for the future, put all their eggs in one basket, and asked the impossible of their engineers: They wanted the Space Shuttle.
Now there's an interesting economic issue with trying to create a machine that is everything to everyone. Unless you have a strong history of both successes and failures from which to understand every nuance required to design and build the all-in-one wonder, you are almost guaranteed to produce a machine that is jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none. Which is exactly what happened with the Space Shuttle.
* Cargo capability was too small for military sats
* Launch cost was too high for commercial sats
* Satellite return capability was unnecessary
* Extreme cro
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Not to mention, of course: When was the last time the Buran lifted-off? Hell, when was the FIRST time the Buran lifted-off? Sure, that's going back a few years, but this has been an endemic problem for an awful long time in the Ruskie space agency.
I mean, as an engineer I understand the 'if it works...' thinking, but the only thing the agency is producing of any utility is more Soyuez crafts.