Russia's Renewed Space Drive

Russia's Renewed Space Drive

Prime Minister Putin recently unvielded the new Russian direction of exploration, in some ways it is both more ambitious and more modest than earlier.

The crash of the Phobos probe, has caused Russia to pull back, temperarly from Mars and reset its sights closer to home. Some say that the crash in the computer systems were caused by bad design, by a rougher than expected take off or maybe even by US EMP pulses. The Americans are notoriously sore losers.

Either way, this has made several things obvious and has led to a general clearing out of the Russian space agency's leadership, as well as a new drive for a better launch site than the worn out base in Kazakhstan. Baikonur cosmodrome is old, worn out and the Kazakhs, ever greedy for more cash but not business savvy enough to figure out when the game is up, are demanding yet more and more for the rent.

Unfortunately for that third world oil based economy, they, like the Ukrainians, Belarus and Poles, who all though they had some form or another of leverage over Russia are finding out that they have been out maneuvered yet again. Just as North Stream maneuvered Russian gas out of the hands of Belarus, the Baltics and Poland, allowing Germans to actually sell gas to the Poles and set rates on a nation that was used to setting rates on Poland, and as South Stream is soon to allow the same to replace the Ukrainian games, so the new cosmodrome in Siberia's Vostochny, will allow Russia to cut the greedy Kazakhs right out of the equation.

The new unveiled facility, upon which construction is already under way and over $1 billion has already, out of a total of $10 billion, been invested, will contain a staggering eight launch pads, huge assembly and research facilities, as well as the latest in housing and accommodations for the crews, scientists and engineers who will inhabit it. Forty modern apartment buildings are now under construction.

This will also help repopulate parts of Siberia.

The first launch is expected in 2015, just 3 years from now.

The target of that first launch as well as the development of the next ten years, will be the Moon. The first probes will be to the Lunar poles, followed up by manned landings to study both the moon and crashed comets. Other landers will begin initial construction for future moon bases with a manned presence planned for the 2020s.

Finally, in related news, a company called Orbital Technologies is working out plans to put a private Russian space hotel into orbit. They plan to put the first module into space by 2016 and continue at a brisk pace from there on. There will be room for seven space tourists at a time, plus crew, as well as space for pharmacological laboratory and experiments.

CEO Sergei Kostenko, who is also head of the Russian office of the U.S.-based Space Adventures, stated that the cost of space tourism should drop from the present $60 million per trip, about 1 week, to a "mere" $15 million. Sure, its still out of reach of the vast majority of humanity, but its a start a one that will already cut costs by 75%.

Who knows, just maybe, in thirty years, a regular ride up on a space plane, to a Russian space hotel and than a slightly longer, day or two trip out to the moon, for some nice walks, scenic views and a pleasant round of golf? Why not?

Russian Space Tech Surges Forward

With the next to the last flight of the American space shuttle in the air, the US will soon be retiring their space shuttles to replace them with a new vehicle, scheduled for 2013. Of course, seeing how things always delay in America, it is more likely 2023 is a better year. Until then, the Americans will be riding on Russian Soyuz capsules. But the Soyuz itself, a 40 year old technology with many modernizations, is on its way out, to be replaced with bigger better platforms.

The replacement of the Soyuz will be the Kliper, a ship carrying 6 crew and a half ton of cargo. It is scheduled to fly its maiden voyage some time in 2010. The ship is about twice the size of the Soyuz and will require much larger rockets, most likely the Zenit class of booster rockets, in order to make orbit. It will return to earth by extending wings and gliding down, for a soft landing.

Interestingly enough, if things go according to plant, the new, larger Kliper, will actually save money. The present Soyuz missions run between $20 to $30 million each (compared to the American space shuttles at around $300 million each). Kliper flights are supposed to move more equipment and people for less money, but even it the costs stay the same, with more room on the ship, there will be room for more space tourists and at $20 million per pop, the ships will earn a profit, with just one added passenger.

Development of the Kliper is also priced at the low cost of $1 billion, compare that to the $10 billion for the American Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), which is still on the drawing board.











But the Kliper is only the first modern step in a new plan by the Russian space agency to conquer the inner sphere of our solar system. Next on the development board is a manned spacecraft powered by a nuclear electric engine. Russia and the Soviet Union before, had developed, for decades, nuclear powered satellites, which did not have to rely upon easily damaged solar arrays, for power. Of course those put out only kilowatts of power, while this ships engines will have to run on the megawatt range. Of course, after40 years of working on this technology, this is a very realistic capability.

The ship's design is scheduled to be complete by 2012 and a finished by 2021, at an estimated cost of 17 billion rubles, or 580 million USD. More realistic estimates put the price tag at 1 to 1,5 billion USD, over the next decade.

The ship is aimed at flights to the Moon and to Mars, with a trip estimated to take about 39 days, one way. Nuclear electric rockets are twice as efficient as chemical rockets and most importantly, carry only a fraction of the weight in fuel. The Head of the Russian Space Agency, Anatoly Perminov was quoted as saying: "The project is aimed at implementing large scale space exploration programs, including manned missions to Mars, interplanetary travel, the creation and operation of planetary outposts."

True, the space budget is below these requirements, but there have been moves from President Medvedev down to the Duma to find funding and to find partners. If the Germans or Japanese can be brought into these projects, there is no end to the possibilities. NASA astronauts may be riding in Russian ships into the very far future, especially when counting how bankrupt the Americans are.