Did NASA Really Ask Roscosmos To Build A Lunar Soyuz?
"@NASA is requesting Russia’s State Space Corporation @Roscosmos to develop the Soyuz spacecraft version for flights to the Moon, Roscosmos Chief Dmitry @Rogozin said in an interview with Rossiya-24 TV Channel on Thursday." https://t.co/PYdNE2r128
Huh? What is this guy smoking? pic.twitter.com/IO8NBQdikm
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) January 11, 2019
Dmitry, I thought you replacing the Soyuz in the next four years (for about the ninth time), or is is that canceled (for about the ninth time)?
Probably poor reporting rather than anything else. Russia is notionally involved with the Gateway plan, and might transport people there using a slightly beefed up Soyuz – this sounds like a clumsy reference to that.
It might be a reference to Gateway, and a pretty inaccurate one at that. But I’m not sure it’s poor reporting. Mr Rogozin has been known to say some strange things, and things that aren’t too closely tied to reality. The inaccuracy might easily have come from him rather than Tass.
I was thinking poor translation.
Makes sense. Though not recently flown, the “Lunar Soyuz”, AKA “Zond”, is essentially a stripped down Soyuz descent capsule + service module, is no more expensive than a normal Soyuz, has lunar return capability and is far less expensive than Orion. Essentially the same rationale ISS enlisted Soyuz in the first place. Zond’s problems in the 1960s was computer control and guidance and those should be non-issues with today’s technologies.
Maybe they have some still in stock from the 60s…
Brilliant. Just take the current Soyuz spacecraft, back out fifty years of design changes, modify it further to fly to the Moon, and launch it on a Proton, a launch vehicle which has never been rated for human missions. What could be easier? Are you serious? Adding a service module to a Dragon 2 and flying on a Falcon Heavy, or adding a service module to a Starliner and launching on a Delta IV Heavy would be easier.
Guys.
Geopolitics, in the form of peace through interconnecting common interests, has always been the largest motivator of our cooperation with Russia in space.
Add it up…
Trump started his candidacy with the intent of warming relations with Russia.
The shadow of the Mueller investigation has made direct action on that political inexpedient.
So…use back-channel agency connections not directly tied to sanctions.
Russia is being difficult. So are we. We are not at war with Russia.
The problem here I see isn’t that we offered an indirect olive branch, it is that Rogozin has diarrhea of the mouth.
I know that sounds weird coming from me. I don’t like Russia and I don’t like Rogozin. However, I have always been and still am a fan of cooperation with them in space. I think that it improves the safety of our planet.
I’m with you so far, but he did say Soyuz in particular. That part doesn’t make sense to me. Over the years, it has been modified and modernized several times. But those changes have been in the direction of making it a better taxi to low Earth orbit destinations. It would be low on my list of potential, Russian contributions to a lunar program.