Don`t dismiss the Russians, just yet...

[blobrana]

Hum,
It looks like Russian engineers have begun design work on a new spacecraft that would be twice as big and spacious as the existing Soyuz crew capsules, and be able to carry at least six cosmonauts and have a reusable crew section...
The spacecraft, to be designed by the RKK Energiya company, will have a massive takeoff weight of 12-14 metric tons , which is about twice as much as the current Soyuz crafts.

But , where the money needed to implement the declared program would come from no-one knows...
The Russian Aerospace Agency has only enough funds to send the two Soyuz and two Progress spacecraft necessary to operate the ISS this year. But Russian and European space officials are currently negotiating the possibility of sending a European astronaut on a six-month mission to the station in a Soyuz.
And we have to remember that the american shuttle fleet is going to need replace in the near future.

So is it possible that there is a new space race in the making?


Answers on a postcard to:

[iamaboringperson]

So is it possible that there is a new space race in the making?:lol:

Not when Russia is out of money!!! :P

[Speelgoedmannetje]

iamaboringperson wrote:
So is it possible that there is a new space race in the making?:lol:

Not when Russia is out of money!!! :PAnd foreign investors? Russia has a lot of talent and technology to buy for cheap.

[blobrana]

@Speelgoedmannetje
Even now it`s cheaper to launch with russian technology...

The Conventional Rockets like the Atlas/Delta cost $50-90 million (large satellite: greater than 1000 kg)
or the Pegasus which works out at $18 million (mini satellite: 100-500 kg)
Today, a typical satellite launch to geosynchronous transfer orbit using current expendable boosters—such as the American Atlas, Delta, and Titan; the European Ariane; the Russian Proton; or the Chinese Long March can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $13,000 per pound

And there is a lot of debate regarding the true cost—operational and otherwise—of the Space Shuttle, which NASA uses mainly for human missions to low Earth orbit.
But probably the complex Space Shuttle costs far too much. NASA's goal for launches using next-generation reusable vehicles is about $1,000 per pound of payload (but who knows?).
So the current shuttle design can be discounted as `competition`.

Foreign investors really do have role in shaping who will win the space race (er, if or when it exists)...

[whabang]

Yep! They could sell cargo space.

[blobrana]

@whabang
So how much do you weigh?
(including an amiga + accessories)

I could probable afford to send my amiga up now, and save up to join her later on...

[Speelgoedmannetje]

whabang wrote:
Yep! They could sell cargo space.I'm too in doubt if there's any interest in space at all. The military interests were obvious, but not anymore. I think the tourism interests are too meagre. I think/fear the investors are only interested in the technology it has delivered and leave further space development for what it is.

[blobrana]

Hehe,
There`s loads of money to be had in space , telecommunications and media, drug manufacturing, Research and development and maintenance of the existing thousand or so satellites up there...eventually probably mining and energy harvesting...to name a few, and no doubt there will be other opportunities...


(you remind me of that guy who turned down a contract with the beatles...)

[whabang]

@blob
Too much! :)

[whabang]

@Eyso (easier to type than speelgoedmannetje. (DOH!) )
Oh, there are plenty of industrial processes that are easy in space but extremely hard or impossible down here...

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Energy is here on earth far easier to gather than in space, and space mining isn't either very profitable either. Those communication sattelites are the only commercial profit I can see. And I don't see any other development in that other than higher bitrates.
Maybe in the future, communication sattelites will be replaced by highly developed antenna's (easier in maintenance you know)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

whabang wrote:
@Eyso (easier to type than speelgoedmannetje. (DOH!) )
Oh, there are plenty of industrial processes that are easy in space but extremely hard or impossible down here...Source? :-)

[KennyR]

Don't forget chip manufacture. Zero-G makes precision tooling a lot more effective.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

KennyR wrote:
Don't forget chip manufacture. Zero-G makes precision tooling a lot more effective.And what about artificial Zero-G, or another developed method to make precision tooling more effective?

[Speelgoedmannetje]

You know, I do not want to sound pessimistic, but I just do not see perspective in it :cry: yet I want to see so, as a former Warsie/Trekkie

[KennyR]

Artificial zero-g is impossible.

Earth interferes with everything - its tides, its varying gravity, its vibration, its spin, its magnetism. Even feedback systems can only go so far to compensate. When you want nanotechnology, space manufacture is the only way.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

KennyR wrote:
When you want nanotechnology, space manufacture is the only way.yet....
and it's not enough to 'explore new, strange worlds, to boldly go where no one has gone before!'

[whabang]

Source? :-)
KennyR

[Glaucus]

Hmmm.. Russians building rockets... what else is new???

- Mike

[blobrana]

The Americans planning to `invade` Titan?



EDIT:
[After a 7-year interplanetary voyage, the Cassini spacecraft will reach Saturn this July and begin what promises to be one of the most exciting missions in planetary exploration history.

After years of work, scientists have just completed plans for Cassini's observations of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. ]

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Glaucus wrote:
Hmmm.. Russians building rockets... what else is new???

- MikeAgain

[minator]

Erm, Off Topic yet On Topic...

You think we in the west are the best with computer designs?
Perhaps not...

I heard this on line a long time ago and I have no reason to belive disbelieve it, quite the opposite in fact:

A long time ago people from Sun and HP visited a company in Russia called Elbrus.

Elbrus had made Russian SuperComputers using the VLIW technique which the west had tried but never got anywhere with.

The engineers seen this and came back and started projects.
Sun gave up pretty soon but the engineer went off and did it anyway at his own company called Transmeta (a VLIW based CPU).

HP went on for a while and eventually joined up with Intel, their project came to market under the name Itanium (another VLIW based CPU).

With VLIW everything is done in software, we know Russians were magicians at software - do they know a few things we dont ? Their compiler system in particular is very interesting, I don't know of any direct western equivalent.

Elbrus later developed a SPARC clone, and are working on the E2K, a single chip VLIW CPU claimed to kick the Itanium(1)s ass - which actually wouldn't be too difficult, Itanium 1 sucked big time.

www.elbrus.ru


BTW, The CTO just turned 70, look at who congratulates him!

[McNorris]

...And only a million people had to starve for it.

I think it's a lie. Since when did the Russians discover fire?

(Bad joke)

[blobrana]

Hum,
ONE million seems too small..


i think you will find that stalin killed 20 million through his policies...
And as for the rest of the leaders , ???

[Glaucus]

McNorris wrote:
I think it's a lie. Since when did the Russians discover fire?Hmm... Not sure, but it was probably around the time they built one of these:

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~steven/images/su30mk9.jpg

- Mike

[blobrana]

HUM,
Nice bit of kit that SU-30k


mark 9?


But not a patch on the single engined Sukhoi SU-37 Flanker (or the twin su 27 derivatives) that will carry you 80,000 feet up...Thats almost into space...you can see the curvature of the Earth.

£10,000 is all you need to hire one.

[Glaucus]

But not a patch on the single engined Sukhoi SU-37 Flanker (or the twin su 27 derivatives) that will carry you 80,000 feet up...Thats almost into space...you can see the curvature of the Earth.Hmmm... I could be wrong, but I thought the SU-27 was called the Flanker, while the SU-37 was the "Super Flanker" or "Terminator". Anyway, the real amazing thing about the 37 isn't it's thrust output, but it's vector thrusting abilities. Sukhoi was the first company to start mass producing vector thrusting jets, and as a result the 37 can perform maneuvers no other plane can:

su37diagram1 (http://mustangman5.netfirms.com/su37diagram1.gif)
su37diagram2 (http://mustangman5.netfirms.com/su37diagram2.gif)
su37diagram3 (http://mustangman5.netfirms.com/su37diagram3.gif)

- Mike

[blobrana]

Yea, single engine as opposed to twin engine of the su 27... but ultimately they are variations of the same craft...
Yea the 37 could almost fly at 90 degrees in a combat turn!
Which give a definite edge in a dog-fight...! saw it on TV once (photographic recall you see)


What was i saying?
Oh Yea, but both have a top ceiling i recall of 80,000 feet...

<i would get one but i don't have a pilot licence>

[Speelgoedmannetje]

http://www.salemstate.edu/peaceinstitute/images/dove2.gif

:-)

[blobrana]

Hehe,
Sry, did all that fighting talk scary you?





WELL, ON YOU FEET SOLDIER!
YOUR IN A.ORG NOW!





[a few levels of quake will help. -Referance to a terminator quote]

[Speelgoedmannetje]

uh, real fight scares me, yes.

But for the rest, naah, Quake is boring (yet fun to play on a 486DX 33Mhz, 8 megs of ram in a resolution of 1024/728 :lol: - yup I did it)

btw I really like your new avatar Blobrana

[McNorris]

@glaucus
"Hmm... Not sure, but it was probably around the time they built one of these:"

It was a joke. Take a look at the "(bad joke)" on the bottom of the original post.

[Glaucus]

McNorris wrote:
@glaucus
"Hmm... Not sure, but it was probably around the time they built one of these:"

It was a joke. Take a look at the "(bad joke)" on the bottom of the original post.Hmmm... It seems I forgot to put one of these: :-D in my post. My reply was mostly a joke as well, perhaps just as bad as yours. ;-)

- Mike

[McNorris]

@Glaucus

Aye! ;-)