Russia's Next Spaceship: Alternative to NASA's CEV - ummmm - o.k.

Bob MacBird sent me two links about Russia considering building a spaceship and I posted them below.

Both are from Space.com, one being back in December 2005.

The catch is that they would like a buyer.
- LRK -

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The program presented by Nikolai Sevastyanov, the head of state-controlled RKK Energiya, relies on hopes of attracting private investment, but the lack of government support calls its feasibility into question.
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http://www.space.com/news/ap_060412_russia_moon.html

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Like so many of the past proposals for lifting off, supporters come and go.

In the USA, one administration will have and idea and then there is the politics that go along - or against - the ideas. An example might be the spacecraft Triana.
- LRK -

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http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/671
NASA considers foreign launch options for Triana
Posted: Fri, Feb 8, 2002, 8:06 AM ET (1306 GMT) Triana illustration (NASA/GSFC) NASA is evaluating two proposals to launch the Triana spacecraft on foreign boosters, Space News reported Thursday. One proposal would launch Triana as a secondary payload on an Ariane 5; such a launch would be paid by a European national space agency in exchange in a scientific role on the mission. A second possibility is to launch it on a Ukrainian Tsiklon launch vehicle, arranged by an unnamed company trying to market the Tsiklon commercially. Triana is a mission that would observe the fully-illuminated disk of the Earth from the Earth-Sun L1 point, 1.5 million kilometers away. The Triana spacecraft has been built but is sitting in storage since there are no foreseeable launch opportunities on the shuttle, which was the original launch vehicle for the spacecraft. Triana was proposed in 1998 by then-Vice President Al Gore, but faced strong Congressional scrutiny, including an order to stop work on the mission until an independent panel confirmed the mission's scientific validity.
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http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2001/010715-sat.htm
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL July 15, 2001
POLITICS PUTS $100 MILLION SATELLITE ON ICE Melissa Harris, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- NASA has spent almost $100 million in taxpayer money to build a satellite that is headed for a storage bin in Maryland.

Triana was scheduled for a November flight into space, where it would measure ozone in the Earth's atmosphere while also beaming round-the-clock photos of Earth to the Internet.

But now, some fear it may never fly.

The cause of the costly hibernation: presidential politics and conflicting views -- many of them partisan -- about Triana's scientific worth.

The National Academy of Sciences addressed the last concern when it concluded in March 2000 that the controversial satellite would provide unprecedented insight into the amount of dangerous ozone and ultraviolet radiation in Earth's atmosphere.

The project also would monitor the sun to provide early warnings of solar flares, which could disrupt satellites and the electrical grid. Weather forecasters were hoping it would create better climate models, improving the accuracy of forecasts.

To Triana's project team, the academy's conclusion was the best ammunition yet against detractors in Congress who had dubbed it "Gore-sat" after the man who inspired it -- then-Vice President Al Gore.

Triana project manager Jim Watzin said last week that the satellite would be ready to go by Oct. 1. But it's not going where Watzin wants.
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The Russians have offered to build something new to launch to the ISS and possibly further. The USA is going to build something new to launch to the ISS and further.

To the Moon and/or Mars. To the Lunar Poles, and/or the equator. Maybe just a couple more tin cans, forget risking human life and all that money. The last administration spent it all. (Vietnam, Iraq, or the next global war)

I hope there are enough folks around this world that realize we live on a Blue Marble that could be turned black and blue from sources from outer space or inner space. An asteroid, a volcano, a nuke, take your pick.

Might be nice to have your eggs in more than one basket and eyes from different vantage points.

I shot an arrow into the air, I know not where it landed. Oops, my dad was not happy that it was on our shingle roof. I shot an arrow into a rock pile. It bounced back and hit me in the wrist. But then I was a kid.

I hope we have some in seats of authority that look further ahead than I did. I hope there are enough of you out there that will point out the errors of just shooting things into the air without considering where they land, but don't be afraid to launch either. :-)

Thanks for looking up. (good idea when I am around)

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsltr.: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update

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Bob MacBird sent these links. Thanks - LRK -
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http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/051207_tech_wednesday.html

Russia's Next Spaceship: Alternative to NASA's CEV

By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 07 December 2005
12:00 am ET

As NASA prepares to once again send humans to the surface of the Moon, Russia is also developing its own plans for future manned spaceflight.

The country's Clipper project to develop a six-person spacecraft to deliver astronauts into Earth orbit, and potentially beyond, appears in some ways to be the Russian Federal Space Agency's answer to NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV).

"We're starting to design this new transportation system to support the International Space Station (ISS) once it's complete," said Nikolay Sevastiyanov, president of the Russian aerospace contractor RSC-Energia, during a recent space conference where the program was discussed.

The winged crew vehicle, Clipper, would launch atop a Russian Soyuz 2-3 booster and could form the heart of potential Moon- or Mars-bound craft, according to RSC-Energia designs. Separate cargo pods could also launch atop a separate Soyuz rocket. Both the Clipper vehicle and cargo pods would be towed to the ISS.

Outside participation in the project by the European Space Agency (ESA) appears on hold after ESA ministers decided this week not to fund a two-year, $59.8-million (51-million euro) trial to study Clipper with the Federal Space.

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http://www.space.com/news/ap_060412_russia_moon.html
Russian Aerospace Firm Aims for Moon Exploration By Vladimir Isachenkov Associated Press Writer
posted: 12 April 2006
11:30 a.m. ET

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's leading space company on Tuesday laid out an ambitious plan to send manned missions to the moon by 2015, build a permanent base to tap its energy resources and dispatch a crew to Mars between 2020-2030.

The program presented by Nikolai Sevastyanov, the head of state-controlled RKK Energiya, relies on hopes of attracting private investment, but the lack of government support calls its feasibility into question.

"We believe that we can fly a manned mission landing on the moon before 2015 funded by sources outside the state budget,'' Sevastyanov said at a news conference.

Russian government officials have spoken vaguely in support of future moon and Mars missions, but have made no specific commitments.

In January 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush outlined a plan for NASA to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020 and then on to Mars and beyond.

Sevastyanov said that Energiya, the manufacturer of Soyuz and Progress spacecraft that ferry crew and supplies to the International Space Station, would rely on those ships during the first phase of its moon exploration program.

The company will first offer a commercial trip around the moon in a Soyuz that could be made around 2009, Sevastyanov said. He added that his company already has talked to foreign investors interested in the project, but refused to give any names or specifics.

"The use of the existing rockets will help reduce the program's costs and lower risks,'' Sevastyanov said.

During the next stage, Energiya plans to employ a reusable now under development, the Clipper.

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Richard Perry sent this link and comments that the idea has been around since the Lunar Prospector crash in 1999. Thanks Richard. - LRK -

I asked Ames PAO John Bluck and Chris McKay if they had any more information about the orbit plans as was curious as to where the orbit for 90 days before impact information came from. Chris supplied some other information but I don't know anything more about orbit plans. A couple of years off, so maybe a bit early. - LRK -
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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/266205_moon11.html
Tuesday, April 11, 2006

NASA plans to slam craft into moon

By WARREN E. LEARY
THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON -- A NASA spacecraft will deliberately crash into the moon in January 2009, in a kind of two-way bank shot that will help scientists search for water that might be lurking in deep, dark craters, the space agency said Monday.

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If shadowed areas on the moon contain ice, NASA officials said, they would be prime landing sites for humans. Water can be broken apart to produce hydrogen for rocket fuel and oxygen for fuel and breathing, helping astronauts live off the land while exploring.

The spacecraft -- the first to strike the moon since NASA's Lunar Prospector in 1999 -- will be part of a previously announced mission in which a larger craft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, will fly around the moon to map its surface.

Both craft will be launched on the same rocket on October 2008, but the smaller, impact craft will circle the Earth and moon for 90 days before slamming into the moon's south pole.

The project is called LCROSS, for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite. Its manager, Daniel Andrews of NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., said the upper stage of the rocket that sends the orbiter to the moon would be used as an impact vehicle.

When the 4,400-pound used rocket slams into a crater at about 5,600 miles per hour, Andrews said, it should send up a plume of vapor and debris, perhaps 1,000 metric tons of it, rising 30 to 40 miles above the surface.

About 15 minutes later, the trailing "shepherding spacecraft," loaded with infrared cameras and spectroscopes to determine chemical composition, is to fly through the plume, taking and relaying data before hitting the moon itself.

"We're going to see the impact," Andrews said, "and then fly through the plume while looking into the crater and also looking sideways 90 degrees out into space to see the plume material against the darkness."
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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