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Russia To Study Martian Moons Once Again

Posted by timothy on Fri Jul 18, 2008 06:02 AM
from the phobos-grunties dept.
Mars Space Science
Robbie writes "The Russian space program once faced bleak prospects, receiving meager government funding. Meanwhile, the United States and the ESA continued to send automatic probes to the Red Planet. NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are now crawling on the planet's surface, while their Russian prototypes never lifted off and are now on display at the Space Research Institute's museum. However, the situation seems to be improving today. Under a stage-by-stage national program for studying Mars, the Phobos-Grunt automatic probe will be launched in October 2009. This cutting-edge modular spacecraft costs just 1.5 billion rubles ($64.4 million)."
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  • Phobos Grunt = Doom guy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by damburger (981828) on Friday July 18 2008, @06:07AM (#24239915)
    You know they play it in Russia too. This must be an engineer having a chuckle...
    • How so? [wikipedia.org]

      In the Doom novels, the main character is referred to as Flynn "Fly" Taggart, which is universally suggested to be the Doomguy from the games. However, Tom Hall's original design draft, also known as The Doom Bible, suggested his name was Buddy Dacote ("Dacote" being short for "Dies at conclusion of this episode", which is indeed the fate of the character, although he continues his adventure in the second episode). In the Doom film adaptation, the main character, John "Reaper" Grimm (played by Karl U

    • Re:Phobos Grunt = Doom guy (Score:4, Informative)

      by K. S. Kyosuke (729550) on Friday July 18 2008, @06:32AM (#24240037)
      "Grunt" is the Russian word for "soil", not a word for "An infantry soldier. slang (orig. US)". But still, yours is an interesting thought. :-)
      • Given the level of international cooperation, the guy who named the project almost certainly speaks good English and has had enough contact with Americans to pick up slang, and maybe figured the guys who signed the cheques didn't.

      • "Grunt" is the Russian word for "soil"

        He should have called it "Earth" then. In Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books people of the distant future wonder why the ancestral home of mankind was called "dirt".

      • "Grunt" is the Russian word for "soil"

        I know quite a bit of Russian, and that's news to me. According to this [freedict.com], Russian word for "soil" is pochva, and that's the word I'm familiar with.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Cyberax (705495)

          They are mostly synonyms.

          "Pochva" means a part of Earth's crust on which plants can grow.

          "Grunt" means any soil.

          PS: Russian is my native language.

  • I study minority languages of Russia and travel to many areas of the country outside the big, internationally known cities. There is desparate poverty everywhere. I'm not one of those killjoys who think you have to completely solve all human ills before launching anything into space, but it's a big mystery how Russia can come up with money for space, and yet can't seem to raise the standard of living enough to stop its demographic implosion and high rates of unemployment and deadly alcoholism. The country's priorities are so much more mixed up than the homelands of NASA or the ESA that they should seriously put this on hold.

    • Re:Bread and circuses, minus the bread (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mahmud (254877) on Friday July 18 2008, @06:23AM (#24239985)

      I'm not one of those killjoys who think you have to completely solve all human ills before launching anything into space, but it's a big mystery how Russia can come up with money for space, and yet can't seem to raise the standard of living enough to stop its demographic implosion and high rates of unemployment and deadly alcoholism.

      Because if you actually studied Economics instead of minority languages, you would understand that Russia is already overspending on its social programmes. Giving money to the poor is the best way to fuel the inflation. Plus 65M$ is a drop in a bucket compared to the current Russian currency reserves.

      I am not one of those killjoys who think that poor people shouldn't be helped at all and that the markets should completely take over the welfare functions but it's a big mystery how some people fail to see the big picture even though they routinely travel through the country and are exposed to the economic processes taking care there.

      • Giving money to the poor is the best way to fuel the inflation.

        You don't have to directly hand out cash to people to eradicate poverty. Governments routinely boost the economies of regions hard hit by giving tax breaks to local businesses, maintain the infrastructure they built, and spend more on education there. (Adjacent republics in Russia can have wildly different economies based on how well the schools are preparing people for a global economy, look at the difference between poor Yoshkar-Ola and increasingly affluent Cheboksary.)

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mahmud (254877)
          I guess what you are pointing at is the difference in the quality of management by the governors and the local legislative and executive bodies in different places.

          Certainly the quality of the bureaucrats in Russia has a lot of drastic improvements to make. Still, having a decent space program does in no way interfer with the management issues that plague the Russian "glubinka". Quite to the contrary, if the youth of the country will see that the once powerful scientific industry of the country is gettin

          • I guess what you are pointing at is the difference in the quality of management by the governors and the local legislative and executive bodies in different places.

            Not at all. Much has been written about how local governors in many republics are little more than puppets of the Kremlin, having no authority of their own and quickly being replaced if they come up with any independent initiatives. Why the Kremlin is favouring a tiny handful of poor areas while leaving most to rot is a big mystery.

      • Oops, to continue my last post: it seems like Russia is abandoning huge amounts of its territory in a way I've never seen in the U.S. or the EU. Things are left to rot, people pack up and move to Moscow (virtually every young minority person I know is there already or is planning to go soon) or abroad, and no local businesses ever come in. And yet, as it self-defeatingly retreats from all this space, the Asian portion of which which is ripe for China to eventually grab through force or demographics, Russia gets more nationalistic and ethnocentric of late.

        • "Oops, to continue my last post: it seems like Russia is abandoning huge amounts of its territory in a way I've never seen in the U.S. or the EU."

          Twice the land area, half the population, and central planning isn't around to tell them where they have to live any more.

          "Things are left to rot, people pack up and move to Moscow (virtually every young minority person I know is there already or is planning to go soon) or abroad, and no local businesses ever come in."

          May I suggest touring places like Ohio, Michig

            • Yeah, after killing all those females leading to a male surplus the only solution is to kill a bunch of males aswell! ...

              Are there really such a huge difference?

              World factbook:
              Age structure:
              Definition Field Listing
              0-14 years: 20.1% (male 142,085,665/female 125,300,391)
              15-64 years: 71.9% (male 491,513,378/female 465,020,030)
              65 years and over: 8% (male 50,652,480/female 55,472,661) (2008 est.

              Sure it's noticable, but not huge. Some men have to do without a woman, or share. But I li

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by TheJasper (1031512)

        I'm not one of those killjoys who think you have to completely solve all human ills before launching anything into space,

        I am not one of those killjoys who think that poor people shouldn't be helped at all and that the markets should completely take over the welfare functions .

        I study neither economics nor minority languages. It seems to me however that quite a bit of corruption has a negative effect on both capitalistic and socialistic programs.
        A prestige project is good for national morale and could help the country as a whole. At 65M$ (10â approx) it isn't all that expensive. Of course the whole program costs more.
        Keeping it in perspective, the russian gdp is 1.3 trillion $, the budget is 299 billion$ in, 265 billion$ out. Meaning about 24 billion $ is surplus. 65M$ i

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by infolib (618234)

        Because if you actually studied Economics instead of minority languages, you would understand that Russia is already overspending on its social programmes. Giving money to the poor is the best way to fuel the inflation.

        If they can really build spacecraft to bring back frigging soil samples from a martian moon for only 60 MBucks, wouldn't economy rather dictate that other nations out-sourced their development to Russia? It might actually help their economy and total global friendship and all that. And the

    • it's a big mystery how Russia can come up with money for space, and yet can't seem to raise the standard of living enough to stop its demographic implosion and high rates of unemployment and deadly alcoholism.

      Consider India, which has been a fantastically successful exporter for centuries, and has a large middle class. It still has hundred of millions of dirt poor people.

      The only reason I can think of is entrenched social inequity. It doesn't have much to do with how much you spend on space programs. It is caused by racism, prejudice and apathy. We have the same problem in Australia with our aboriginal people.

    • Re:Bread and circuses, minus the bread (Score:5, Insightful)

      by antirelic (1030688) on Friday July 18 2008, @06:57AM (#24240179) Journal

      There is never a good time to do anything when it comes to the suffering/malignancies of humanity. If we used every problem as a reason to stop moving forward in other areas, the United States would never have put a man on the moon. Just take a look at this wiki page with references to 1969:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969 [wikipedia.org]

      You have the Vietnam War, massive protests throughout the country, civil rights movements (and everything that went along with it)... etc.. The world will always be a messy place, no reason to stop making progress.

      • Pardon me for questioning a sacred cow here, but SO WHAT if we had never put a man on the moon? Certainly, we've reaped real benefits from the early space program (communications satellites, GPS, etc.). But what would we REALLY have suffered if the Apollo program had never happened? The only thing we would have missed (as far as I can tell) was a chance to show up the Russkies (the one and only time NASA ever did something the Russians didn't do first, whoopty doo!). And, with the Cold War in retrospect now

      • You have the Vietnam War, massive protests throughout the country, civil rights movements (and everything that went along with it)... etc.. The world will always be a messy place, no reason to stop making progress.

        None of those problems had anything to do with a lack of money. Indeed some of the the social upheavals were the result of prosperity, rather than poverty, and in the late 1960s the US embarked on the largest scale anti-poverty spending scheme in history (LBJ's "Great Society program).

        The GP is co

    • I don't know, maybe because high tech projects can lead to more income?

      And they probably have some pride / weapons was important / ..

    • The basic problem with tath idea is encapsulated by the phrase "Throwing money into space."

      The money does NOT go into space. A rather small amount of metal and some organic matter goes into space.

      THE MONEY STAYS ON EARTH. It provides JOBS.

      During the Great Depression in the USA, they spent massive amounts of cash on 'beautification' programs that paid for art. This one done in part to employ the people.

      If you are against poverty, you should be infavor of space program. It is a worthwhile program tha

      • The swimming pool in my hometown was built during the depression under such a program. No backhoes, no tractors, just a bunch of guys with shovels. And it's a BIG pool.

        All the concrete work, plumbing, brick work, etc... was also done 100% by hand. Partially because there just wasn't much equipment available, but mainly because doing it that way allowed the project to keep more people on the payroll for a longer period of time.

    • 1990s called and want their Russia back.

  • That's no moon... (Score:4, Funny)

    by oodaloop (1229816) on Friday July 18 2008, @06:16AM (#24239959) Homepage
    ...wait, my bad. It's a moon.

    • Re:That's no moon... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ihlosi (895663) on Friday July 18 2008, @06:19AM (#24239969)
      ...wait, my bad. It's a moon.

      Just wait until they introduce a hydrostatic equilibrum requirement for moons. When that happens, it'll be a dwarf moon. Or a Phoboid.

      • ...wait, my bad. It's a moon.

        Just wait until they introduce a hydrostatic equilibrum requirement for moons. When that happens, it'll be a dwarf moon. Or a Phoboid.

        Oh damn I have already posted so I can't mod you hilarious and a little bit too close to the truth.

    • If I had a dollar for every comment titled "That's no moon..." that I've seen on /., well... I'd probably be sued by George Lucas... But assuming that didn't happen, I could easily afford my new video card several times over. That is, of course, not counting comments titled "That's no moon..." that I haven't seen :P
      • What about all the robot overlord comments? Hell, I'd just like to have a dollar for all the robot overlord comments that I posted.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mbone (558574)

      You are aware that in the 1950's there was a serious proposal from the Soviet astrophysicist I.S. Shklovsky that Phobos actually was a space station ? This hypothesis attempted to explain the obital decay of the moon by atmospheric drag, which meant that it had to have such a low mass to area ratio that it basically had to be hollow.

      Now the model for the orbital decay of Phobos is that it is due to tidal friction, but the spacecraft idea was seriously entertained for a while.

  • Now prepare for Soviet Russia jokes in 3... 2... 1...

  • Phobos is intriguing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by denver38 (1050472) on Friday July 18 2008, @06:50AM (#24240139)
    Phobos never failed to intrigue me. From Wikipedia: Phobos's unusually close orbit around its parent planet produces some unusual effects. As seen from Phobos, Mars would appear 6,400 times larger and 2,500 times brighter than the full Moon appears from Earth, taking up a quarter of the width of a celestial hemisphere. Some nice pictures of Mars, including Phobos, can be found here: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/martian_skies.html [boston.com]
    • The grooves are really strange. Looking at the pictures they seem to line up with the orbital motion of the moon, ie, a bit like streaks of windblown mud on a car.

      I wonder if they are caused by debris thrown up by impacts on the surface of Mars. I imagine Phobos flying through clouds of debris, some of which splutter off the leading face of the moon, then fall back and roll along the surface, creating shallow crater chains.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mbone (558574)

      Phobos is dynamically very interesting. Its orbit is decaying, due to its tidal interaction with Mars, and yet the tide it raises in Mars (as seen by its orbital decay) indicates a flexibility in the crust and mantle of Mars that is not in agreement with other measurements.

  • "Fear-Grunt"

    Well, it ain't exactly Pushkin...

  • Some needs to tell the Russians that the beluga sturgeon isn't the same as the beluga whale.

    There's no caviar on Mars' Moons. Just plenty of blubber, obviously.

  • Getting a payload back from Phobos would be good practice. Getting a manned mission back from Phobos would be even better. Preferably rendezvousing with a Martian payload a lander has deposited.

    Remember, it wasn't Apollo 1 that landed on the moon. When people start talking about an Apollo 8 style mission to Mars (but better), we'll know Mars isn't a fantasy anymore.

  • I wish they would go back to Venus (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mbone (558574) on Friday July 18 2008, @07:59AM (#24240709)

    Basically all of our knowledge of the surface of Venus comes from the Soviet Venera [mentallandscape.com] spacecraft. The Soviets developed the ability to land spacecraft on the hellishly hot surface of Venus, conduct experiments, and send back some pretty cool pictures [mentallandscape.com].

    Given that Venus is pretty similar to the Earth, except with run-away global warming, and that no other space agency has seen fit to do any surface missions, I wish that the Russians would send some more landers to Venus.

  • Pictures from the previous Phobos Mission (Score:3, Informative)

    by mbone (558574) on Friday July 18 2008, @08:04AM (#24240759)

    Pictures from the Soviet Phobos mission can be found here [mentallandscape.com].

    • If Russia actually thinks the space-race can ever go their way again ? Not inconceivable but surely a highly improbable concept. So why the effort then ?

      Just because one guy thinks he is racing the other, that doesn't make it a race. I don't see how a country wishing to continue its space program automatically puts it into a race.

        • that was what I was thinking in the back of my mind. At my company, we are facing a bit of a crunch right now. We had a hiring lull for a period of 10-15 years. The result is that we have a bunch of 20 somethings, and 50+ somethings. It is great for someone like me since the opportunity to advance is much easier. Unfortunately, it is very difficult cramming in all of the knowledge from my coworker before he leaves. And lets just say that cramming about the 'lessons learned' from the Apollo missions i

    • You speak of the Russian space program is some forgotten relic of the past. In your alternate history I guess NASA doesn't have to bum rides from them every time their shitty space shuttle falls apart (and in the future when it gets retired with no replacement yet in sight). In fact, with the sole exception of the first man on the moon, Russia has ALWAYS led the way in space (as loathe as the American media are to admit it).

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