New Russian Space Station 'Real Possibility'

su-geek writes: "BBC is reporting that the Russians are looking into the feasibility of a commercial space station. The Station would be used to promote space tourism and would help pay for future supply missions to the ISS." I think they should get into the business of crashing space stations into the Pacific, and bringing tourists on boats to watch the fireworks.

As it should be!

[Mr. Flibble]

The sad thing about space travel is that it is currently being used for science. Don't mistake me here though - I happen to think that science is the best possible use for space programs, if anything there is not enough money to go around for scientific research in any field.

Currently, the only real "business" in putting things into space is in military hardware and communications satelites. If "big business" gets involved in space tourism, (and here is the key!) and space tourism becomes profitable, more advancements into space travel will be achived. It is ironic really, that profit will create a drive for better space accesability than research does.

The more trips that there are into space, the more the process will become streamlined - and the greater the economic drive to make it less expensive to get people into space.

And finally, just like the article mentions - space tourists coule cover much of the cost of space missions. This would allow for more research to take place in space.

All in all. It is about time.

Now if we were only able to put nuclear powered spaceships in space (such as the "Orion" design mentioned by Carl Sagan in Cosmos) and have craft capable of 1/10 the speed of light.

Perhaps someday.

I'm amazed.

[piecewise]

I'm amazed that a country with NO money continually spends their debt on failing space programs, whereas a country with a high level of affluence and world influence shows continuing dis-interest in what its very own citizens realize as important, if not somewhat boring these days.

Father: "I grew up in the space age."
Son: "You mean that use to be a big thing? Ohhh..."

Russia SHOULD rather be focusing on rebuilding their ruined country. A place where doctors are paid in trade by the government (salt, cow dung, whatever -- and no i'm not kidding). A place with an unstable government and a weak military. What is in space that they are after, exactly?

Meanwhile, America should of course be embracing space more, but we're barely willing to increase NASA's budget beyond annual inflation.

On the other hand, it looks like we won't even be able to afford a valuable education bill without dipping heavily into social security, so maybe space can wait.

MIR was a success, not like Skylab

[Uatu]

"I think they should get into the business of crashing space stations into the Pacific, and bringing tourists on boats to watch the fireworks."

If you're talking about the MIR station, let me tell you it excedeed it's time of service, and the last thing I heard, it outlasted the Skylab, now that's a failure.

Stop adding this kind of "humor" to the articles, it demeans the audience as stupid in history. At least I hope there are not many who thinks about MIR like you...

----
On the other hand, I hope this news is not true, the people of Russia has more pressing things to worry about. But if they want, they can pull it off, I'm sure of it.

Re:NASA should fully support this...

[bogasity]

NASA is not going to like this. It sounds like the plan is to rotate the ISS crew rescue Soyuz capsule through the commercial space station for a couple weeks before sending both it and its crew on to the ISS. The crew would then fly the "old" Soyuz to the ground. If this is the case, the ISS is essentially subsidizing this commercial venture at the cost of knocking two weeks of life off of each Soyuz rescue vehicle at the ISS (they are only good for 6 months). Secondly, the ISS still gets the unwanted visitors during at the Soyuz switchover, which is all that Dennis Tito was there for. Thirdly, NASA may feel that the Russians do not have adequate Soyuz production capacity to support the ISS let alone this venture. If the ISS Crew Rescue Vehicle gets the axe (as is the plan under the Administration's budget), then a 6-person crew on the ISS will require 2 Soyuz capsules for escape - doubling the number currently required. I hope that a commercial manned space venture of some type does succeed to break the governmental monopoly, but NASA and the other ISS partners are not going to be happy about this deal.

"Clever" comments

[Legion303]

I think they should get into the business of crashing space stations into the Pacific, and bringing tourists on boats to watch the fireworks.

Hemos, do yourself a favor and stop adding pithy comments to stories when you obviously have no clue what the fuck you're talking about. It's embarassing to everyone who does.

Many others have pointed out that MIR has outlived everything we put up so far. Please keep ignorance to yourself and keep this a pure news site, OK? Thanks.

-Legion

Re:It's Not Gonna Happen

[lonedfx]

When Nasa called for design projects for the ISS, they got a few proposals, and they reduced the thing to basically two options: 1) building ISS at sea level, pack it up and ship it in 2 or 3 shuttles flights to deploy it, OR, 2) send it in kit using a hundred shuttle flights and build everything in orbit.

The scientific advisors gave their opinion, option 1 was MUCH easier to do and MUCH cheaper, for the same result.

BUT.

It didn't justify a space shuttle.

ISS (or more to the point, the way it is built) is solely a justification for the space shuttle. I have NO doubt that, if the russians were indeed going to make Mir2 (or whatever they call it), they would not make that kind of mistake precisely because they cannot afford it.

In 10 years, Mir2 might be operational, and ISS might still suffer from budget cuts.

Don't dismiss the idea just because they can't afford an ISS, that's like saying you cannot afford to buy a cesna because a boeing jumbojet costs so much.

lonedfx.

Economics lesson

[beardcz]

Russia needs to build up her economy, what better way to invest in a field in which Russia is an acknowledged world leader - durable space station construction.

Just because NASA can't or won't build it doesn't mean that it won't be profitable. The only way I'm getting into space (and let's face it, many of us would like a shot at seeing the Earth from a new perspective) is as a paying customer, and there are enough people with enough money to afford it.

Russia needs capital to build it's economy. If they charge $10 million a trip (monopoly prices), they can send up a few tourists at a time and their profit margin is pretty high. Do you realize the quantity of vodka they have to export to earn that much foreign currency?