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Russia Says Next-Gen Spacecraft Design Ready
The next generation of Russian spacecraft will be ready for test flights by 2017, according to Energia President Vitaly Lopota. 'We have completed the technical design project taking into account the fact that the new spaceship is to fly to the Moon, among other places,' he said. Federal Space Agency Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin says the new ship would be built by 2018 and would be able to conduct missions to the International Space Station and the Moon.
'We have completed the technical design project taking into account the fact that the new spaceship is to fly to the Moon, among other places,'
ISS and where? The Bahamas? Restaurant at the end of the universe? Not a lotta stops within breathing time.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I've lost count of how many "next generation" the Russians have announced as being "practically ready" or terms amounting to the same thing.
Not to mention the article is silent on whether this is actually a new design or a new iteration of the Soyuz. If it's the former, then we're likely looking at yet more Russian vaporware. The latter actually might come to pass.
Paper (or Powerpoint) spacecraft and launch systems are a dime a dozen.
Even when they DO tool up their factories and begin production, they need to get on top of their industries' QA issues as well. I would think that the somewhat less-than-stellar track record of their newer systems (e.g. Briz-M), suggests that they have a lot of work to do.
I'm guessing it's a Giant Putin Head with frickin lasers. Amirite?
Hope the Russians name their technology something other than Next Gen Spacecraft.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"ISS and where? The Bahamas? Restaurant at the end of the universe? Not a lotta stops within breathing time."
There are plenty of other places in space, its just that there is nothing there.
Setting up a sation at L5 might be a good idea...
Some poor folk would rather see no progress in space exploration than have Russians get us there. I pity those folks from the bottom of my heart - and fingers crossed for Russians, and anyone else willing to invest money, knowledge, experience and time into these projects. Good luck!
That's got nothing to do with NASA's technical or engineering capabilities. It's solely the result of political decisions, as are all major decisions about NASA's human missions and objectives. They've all existed at the behest of the White House, and they all ended when the White House pulled the plug. Those are major decisions and NASA doesn't get to make them on its own.
It's about money. There's all kind of pushback when even marginal boosts to NASA's budget are mooted. A lot of that is cynical politics playing to ill-informed people.
We've had the capability to support a space station, a lunar base, and exploration of Mars since the Apollo era. We haven't done so because we chose not to do so.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
We need another private space industry, one specialized in designing and manufacturing habitable space station kits.
And we need yet another private space industry, one specialized in designing and manufacturing standard equipment for habitable space stations.
And then we need yet another private space industry, one specialized in assembling and equipping space stations.
Then we can proceed to build first shipyards, docks and supply storage warehouses in LEO.
Then, we will again need another industry, one that designs and makes kits and components for large interorbital passenger spaceships (sort of better shielded, moving space stations with propulsion).
Then, we can set up orbital stations and supply depots throughout our solar system and use them to support our endeavors of putting permanent human presence in interesting places.
I clicked an there was no picture. Lame!
in space. That's the problem. Maybe elite people at the US airforce do if you believe the conspiracy theories but the public isn't privy to any meaningful easy way to get free of gravity. The only conventional engine I've seen that could end this is the Skylon engine
Congress hasn't passed a budget since 2009, but they have plenty of time to renew their domestic spying powers.
I clicked an there was no picture. Lame!
Lame'
After all, their current-gen Soyuz capsule and R-7 rocket were designed in the 1950's (by their legendary Chief Designer Korolev)
If the Russians built game consoles, they'd still be running Super NES.
Just another powerpoint rocket from Putinist Russia. Like Kliper, Parom, MAKS, Rus', etc, it'll never make it into production and service as long as the official policy towards Russian rocket scientists is "the beatings will continue until morale improves".