Will Russia Be Left Behind In Space?
Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic spaceflight marked in Russia and worldwide, TASS
“As far as the competition in the space industry is concerned, it has intensified sharply in recent months. The re-launch of a booster by (Elon) Musk and plans to replace our RD-180 rocket engines with those made in the US by the Blue Origin demonstrate that we are entering difficult times and that the reserves of the Soviet space program are now about to be depleted,” said Alexander Zheleznyakov of Russia’s Tsiolkovsky Academy of Cosmonautics. “If the Roscosmos leadership is aware of this, there is still a chance that we will succeed, but if we continue to rest on our laurels, we will lose this struggle for competitiveness,” he said, adding that although projects for reusable boosters are explored by Russian space industry researches as well, they are far from completion. “While we are trying to catch up, our rivals will increase the gap in the development of space technologies. If we want to catch up with them, we will have to be proactive. If we simply mirror the achievements and technological ideas of others, we will always stay behind,” the expert said.”
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Russia has severe budget problems due to the price of oil. The quality problems they have had recently in their space program reflect this.
They do great PPT! Up on a par with NASA any day!
No doubt. I can’t wait until fossil fuels become largely obsolete. Then the US and Europe can tell Russia and pretty much the entire Middle East to take a flying leap.
The amount of money the US has spent in the Middle East alone to keep the region “stable” is insane. Over that same time period, certain regions in Africa have been arguably as bad or worse, yet we largely turn a blind eye towards the killing in Africa.
” I can’t wait until fossil fuels become largely obsolete. “
That could happen very quickly except for, you know, the free market.
It will happen, but you’re right it will take time for the free market to sort out. That and governments time to realize that supporting the oil economy only enables “bad actors” that have oil.
Interesting that from this Russian POV, they are still talking in terms of “competition”. And it’s not from a business competition perspective. The article quotes specifically refer to the competition in “space leadership”, and how the Russians are falling behind the US and China.
It was probably wise that the Soviets did not publish full-spread accounts of their space efforts in Life Magazine, as we did; just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, in that program.
And were it not for the existence of another, parallel space program – ours – who is to say that the experience of the Soviets fairly characterize the nature or the difficulty of gaining a foothold in space? In some ways, the early American effort – the horror of Apollo 1 aside, for a moment – was indeed charmed, with few serious problems and no loss of life. Some of this success is due to $$$, some to the engineers and managers, but a lot of it was the luck of the draw. In many ways, we won the moon race at least in small part because the Soviets made a few bad design decisions on the N1 rocket, decisions that might have gone in a different direction. We very nearly lost the “Apollo 8 free return around the moon” race for sure.
And lest we view that era wearing political glasses, assigning as we do lesser motivation to Soviet effort because they had no profit motive, don’t forget that the motivation on both sides had very little to do with profit (recall for instance that corporate Grumman worked on the LEM without funding for 2 years before winning a contract and was not reimbursed) and everything to do with personal satisfaction, with winning, with doing something new, with standing up for your country, for proving that it could be done.
The Soviets were very active and inventive and not afraid to fail: Venera, Vostok, Tereshkova, Voshkod; the names go on and on. The work they did is not to be underestimated nor to be forgotten.
Don’t forget Robert H. Lawrence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wi….
Maj. Lawrence was a superstar for sure, but his connection to this thread escapes me?
Have to wonder what he could have done had he lived.
(By the way I always wondered about the style of address for these super achievers: is it Dr. Major? Or is it Major Dr.? Or is it Major Lawrence, Ph.D.? )
well. you said “the early American effort – the horror of Apollo 1 aside, for a moment – was indeed charmed, with few serious problems and no loss of life.”
I am not picking nits, I agree with you, but it took decades to get Lawrence’s name on the astronaut memorial. And his death resulted from one of the hazards of preparing for space.
Yep. Thanks for the reminder.
It seems to me unless there is a sense of urgency (war), space visionaries Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, Oberth, Korolev and others are pretty much are ignored. With WWII Oberth and Von Braun got some money and resources. Then after with Cold War we see huge efforts funded by governments including idealogy programs like putting the first man in space, first woman, first on the Moon. Right now sense of urgency calls for other efforts as space technology is not specific in fighting terrorists. So both countries struggle for funding, Russia even more so.
But wait, the new visionaries nowadays a few billion to kick around (Tsiolkovsky and Goddard didn’t have that kind of money, or the books and technologies).
Russia invented space travel, but Putin’s Russia would rather invade their neighbors, cheat at the Olympics, and steal credit card numbers. It’s very sad.
And sell natural gas to Europe. I can’t wait until fossil fuels become largely obsolete. Then we can tell Russia and pretty much the entire Middle East to take a flying leap.
Indeed. The Russian legacy is deep and admirable.
And these were the guys who laughed at Elon Musk when he wanted to buy 3 ICBMs.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…
If NASA starves Commercial Crew to build the fly-on-odd-yr-at-enormous-expense-SLS, then they will not have “won”. As the article notes, it’s NewSpace that’s defining the competition.
Imagine how long you will stay in business if you do it slower, expensively, and not as good as others.
Just exactly who is being left behind in space? Is it the country that has not launched any of our own astronauts in almost six years or the country that can still loft people into orbit?
There are currently two countries that can loft people into orbit. While China doesn’t yet have anything like the recoverable boosters developed by SpaceX and Blue, they are progressing steadily and recently tested three new-generation launch vehicles, the heavy-lift LM-5,light/mobile LM-6, and medium-lift LM-7, apparently without any significant anomolies, as well as beginning operations at an entirely new space launch center. Unlike Russia, China appears to have solid financial resources and feasible plans for continued development of human spaceflight, including international collaboration.