Russia's Energia Phased proposals

[kane007]

RSC ENERGIA: CONCEPT OF RUSSIAN MANNED SPACE AVIGATION DEVELOPMENT<br /><br />Typically understated Russian for such a grandiose plan! Would be truly wonderful if it all happens as planned.<br /><br />This is fantastic and cool reading, goes hand in hand with SpaceDaily article 2006/12/21

 

[qso1]

Good links, interesting plans, thanks. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[dreada5]

Yes thanks for the link. Interesting to hear about what the russians plan. They seem to have more plans for the completed ISS than NASA does.

 

[shoogerbrugge]

These are <b>Industry</b> plans. Kinda like asking LM, Boeing, Thoikol and other space related companies in the US to draw up a plan for NASA to implement. <br /><br />Just consider it a piece of lobbying by Energia and other Russian companies of what they <b>could</b> do if they'd ever receive the funding<br /><br />The space probes mentioned in the article are likely to become reality, and the digital soyuz is also very likely to materialise, all others are just fancy concepts but unlikely to see the light of day.<br /><br /><br />One can dream though

 

[kane007]

Yes it would be absolutely fantastic if the worlds automobile users financed the Russian space program along these lines, the Americans fully implemented theirs and the Chinese and Indians followed. What a wonderful dream! Ya never know?

 

[halman]

Shoogerbrugge,<br /><br />Perhaps this is just the dreaming of aerospace engineers in the employ of Energia, but I think that it is more than that. Russia has the know-how, and the proven launch vehicles, as well as the Soyuz capsule, to do these projects within the time-line that is specified. Yes, the Kliper is still a paper vehicle, but it does not involve any radical new technologies. And a certain phrase jumped out at me; "this plan does not require the construction of a jumbo rocket." Who would they be referring to?<br /><br />Could it be that this proposal is aimed at the United States, as a way to accomplish the stated goal of returning people to the Moon, without an expensive development program? It would certainly cut several years off of the American time-line, while developing a far more robust infrastructure than the one proposed by the U. S., as well as making good use of the International Space Station, which the U. S. seems intent on abandoning to its partners.<br /><br />Russia seems to be saying, through Energia, "Hey, we have the hardware, and the know-how, to do what you want to do, but we don't have the money. You have the money, but lack the hardware, which will be expensive to build and test, as well as being time consuming. We could truly work together, and achieve what we both want much faster than either of us could working alone." There was very little mention of what types of equipment would be landed on the Moon, leaving lots of latitude for the U. S. to provide the hardware for lunar surface operations, which will require a great deal of research and development, at great cost. The U. S. could spend so much money building the infrastructure to get to the Moon that there would be nothing left for doing anything when we get there. Working with the Russians, America could concentrate its spending on the stuff that no one has done before, building habitat and work spaces on the Moon, instead of wasting huge sums of money recreating what <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>These are Industry plans. Kinda like asking LM, Boeing, Thoikol and other space related companies in the US to draw up a plan for NASA to implement.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Sorta like http://www.safesimplesoon.com/ ?

 

[shoogerbrugge]

@ No Way<br /><br />Kinda like SSS, with the difference that SSS is an ATK report. They don't even try to hide it, and its a great shame that ATK had to be kept on board to satisfy Congres. Safe Simple Soon has proven to be anything but SSS. The plans floated at the beginning of this thread are created by a consortium of Energia, Krunichev & dozens of other space related Russian Companies, not a single mayor player. Thats why for example you'll find references to the FGB (Krunichev) being towed by Energia spaceferries. If Energia alone would've made a plan for the future there is no way that would have happened.<br /><br />@ Halman<br />I agree with your sentiment, Russia has the hardware the capability to pull great things of. On the otherhand I've got a rather pessimistic view of the future. What you say makes business sense. Sadly enough space exploration and nationalism go hand in hand. And Russia is not too keen on sharing responsibility, case in point is the axing of Ukrainian suppliers and the hesitant approach to European Investors that want more then just sinking money.

 

[halman]

Shoogerbrugge,<br /><br />Sadly, I must admit to sharing your pessimism about the future of manned spaceflight in particular and the world in general. Greed is proving to be an extremely powerful, resilient, and innovative force in today's world, while being blind to the consequences of its actions. The actions of Putin in the guise of Gazprom are extremely disconcerting, but not out of character. But, the actions of the U. S. in the Middle East have been extremely disconcerting, also.<br /><br />Unfortunately, about the only way to manipulate Greed is to wave money in its face, which seems to be the strategy of the energy investors who are trying to bring the enormous resources of Russia onto the world market. Likewise, Russia has enormous resources in the realm of off planet exploration, which are not being utilized very well at all, due to the weakness of the Russian economy.<br /><br />Modifying the behavior of Russia will be far easier if we work with her than if we exclude her, and we can achieve the economic growth that is normal with the expansion of frontiers far more quickly if we utilize the available technology than if we insist on duplicating it. And economic growth is essential right now for the U. S., because that is the only way that we can stop our financial decline. Advanced technology is about the only field that the U. S. still has the lead in, and that lead is eroding fast. Building new rockets does not require our most advanced technology, but building equipment for exploring and developing the Moon does. We will see far more return on our investment if we focus on building that equipment than we would from building rockets. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[ldyaidan]

Excellent post. What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that by investing in space/technology, we are creating jobs for people here in the USA that are badly needed. Companies are closing, sending jobs overseas, etc.. leaving many people unemployed. If the space/tech sectors can create jobs for these people, they'll be able to do more good for our country than just the advances that will be made. We need to get back to being a country that produces goods, not just service industries<br /><br />Rae

 

[publiusr]

Agreed. I do support ATK. EELV assembly to me is pure stupidity. The Russians shock me in not talking more on Angara 100

 

[rocketman5000]

true, competition will do far more to advance the efforts of both nations than cooperating together will. Making a monopoly will promote bureauacracy and high cost.

 

[j05h]

<i>> true, competition will do far more to advance the efforts of both nations than cooperating together will. Making a monopoly will promote bureauacracy and high cost.</i><br /><br />As citizens, we should insist that the only competition going on is economic. Markets generally divide into duopoly or multipolar not monopoly. We can make space "happen" but it needs to be for more reasons than flags and footprints, which is largely what Nationalism has done for space. <br /><br />The space islands that Gerard O'Neill proposed could have been built, in the proposed timeframe. Except that he largely apealled to nationalist purpose instead of economics. <br /><br />As far as the USA and Russia goes, we could settle the entire inner solar system in the timeframe ESAS is proposing to build a moon outpost. I'm not BS-ing - if we put the corporate effort of these two nations together, we citizens could afford to go out there, sooner. Nuclear reactors and engines would help, but raw factory output can easily build habs for thousands of people. The main market in settling space will be settling space. <br /><br />Oh yeah, No guts, No Galaxy! <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[rocketman5000]

I agree. I do not me competition in the sense of the 60's space race (ie. political). It did many things helpful. (developing techinical expertise) but that that type of competition tends to be unsustainable because when one party surrenders you typically end up with a monopoly, and the winning party usually gives up or scales back too.

 

[nyarlathotep]

<font color="yellow">Greed is proving to be an extremely powerful, resilient, and innovative force in today's world, while being blind to the consequences of its actions.</font><br /><br />I take offence to that halman. The greedy chase for the almighty dollar is what gives us those wonderfully efficient microprocessors and electronics, healthcare products, mining, large scale retailing, innovative software like Google and Oracle databases, Boeing 787's and Toyota Camry's. <br /><br />The worlds problems aren't being caused by greed, they're being caused by crony capitalism. <br /><br /><font color="yellow">The space islands that Gerard O'Neill proposed could have been built, in the proposed timeframe. Except that he largely apealled to nationalist purpose instead of economics.</font><br /><br />The only way that we could have launched enough mass to get them built would be with Project Orion. And fat chance of building a nuclear rocket in the 70's. Perhaps if we tied the hippies under the rocket as reaction mass, maybe, but then everyone would be crying boo hoo, that's genocide...<br /><br />If anyone is serious about building a Project Orion type craft, might I suggest Woomera. Build a nice 5km diameter 1' thick steel pad to contain the blast. There's nobody within 1000km who will care about the fallout.