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Space Science

Russian Sub Launches European Inflatable Space Vehicle 36

Posted by michael from the man-overboard dept.
QueueEhGuy writes "From the 'Red Planet' meets 'Hunt for Red October' department: CNN is reporting in this article that the Russian navy launched an inflatable space reentry vehicle atop a standard ICBM. Although this one was evidently only 2.5 ft in diameter, they evidently plan on making larger versions to act as life rafts or carrier pigeons from space back to Earth. Apparently, neither Val Kilmer or Sean Connery were involved in the test."
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Russian Sub Launches European Inflatable Space Vehicle More

Russian Sub Launches European Inflatable Space Vehicle

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  • ...that we launched our nukes in retaliation.

  • Russia's on to something .... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by acasto ( 591344 ) on Saturday July 13, 2002 @02:47AM (#3875994) Homepage
    I think Russia may very well have a wonderful future ahead of her in the space industry. They explore the idea of 'space tourists' instead of smuggly rejecting it, thus opening up channels that never exsisted before. Even in economical troubles, they still work to keep it going. I look forward to watching our neighbor on the other side of world progress and see how far they can reach.
    • I agree.

      It's amazing how people from different backgrounds can get along just fine and do amazing things together when your throw the politics out the window.
    • Frankly, all this attention to manned missions is distracting, when we should be concentrating on finding extrasolar terrestrial planets [slashdot.org].

      It's a resource allocation issue: We should not be sending tourists up temporarily when we know of nowhere perminant for them to go. We should be concentrating on terrestrial planet finding and then generation starships. Let the tourists be the first to see Mars up close -- fine -- but only after we learn the paramters of a generation starship colonization. Then, build one and send it back and forth between here and Mars long enough to prove the design. Then send a real one off to start more eggs in another basket.

      If the tourists can pay enough to sponsor terrestrial planet searches, building generation starships, cleaning up their rockets' mess [bovik.org], in addition to the travel expenses, then more power to them. Don't count your rich tourists before you find a place to hatch more of them.

      • Since we aren't even ready to visit planets in our own solar system, I don't see what the big hurry in finding extrasolar terrestrial planets is. Even if we found an Earthlike planet in the Alpha Centauri system, it's not like we'd be ready to even start sending a spacecraft there in the next several decades.

        By contrast, the space tourism industry could revitalize the entire space industry (that has been slowly squeezed of funding for years).
        • The sooner we know the distance to likely colonization sites, the sooner we will know the parameters of a generation starship colonization mission. Before we know how far we have to go, we can't really even start planning such a mission. Once we do know the distance, we could probably build a decent generation starship with the materials and technology we have today.
      • It's a resource allocation issue: We should not be sending tourists up temporarily when we know of nowhere perminant for them to go.
        Yebbut sending rich tourists into space makes money, so your premise of competing resources is false.
        • sending rich tourists into space makes money

          So does drilling for oil.

          All I'm saying is that unless the tourists are paying enough to speed and not hinder the development of terrestrial planet finders, and after such planets are found, unless they are paying enough to support the unencumbered development of appropriate generation starships and pertinent technologies, and they are paying enough in addition to offset the costs of the trip and mitigation of the polution as a result of their trip, then they shouldn't be going.

          In fact, I fully support U.S.-launched space tourists, if the conditions above are met.

          • I don't understand your logic. From where I sit, if they pay $1 more than the cost of their launch, then they have made the space agency $1 they wouldn't otherwise have had. That's a good thing.

            Maybe you are thinking that such missions draw engineers away from productive missions, but I don't think there's a shortage of smart engineers who want to work for the space program. Some engineers can go and make $1 for the space program, and others can continue to do the kinds of work you want them to do, as though the space tourists didn't exist.

            • I guess I think that we, as a species, should have been doing stellar occluding cameras for atmospheric O2, H2O, N2, and related spectral signatures a long time ago, and the fact that we have not constitutes a (non)existence proof that there is a shortage of smart engineers who what to work for the space program, and an abundance of mindless sheep who will do whatever this decade's NASA administrator decides without questioning.

              Perhaps I am wrong, but, as Dr. Dieter Britz says, if we can't get a team of scientists to maintain a decent habitat in the middle of Arizona, then what hope do we have of terraforming Mars? I suppose that one could just as easily question whether there is any hope of maintaining a generation starship, but that's why we need to know the parameters (e.g., distance) of the colonization mission to prove the generation starships.

              Once we know that, we might as well try to send one each to both Mars and Venus and see then what we are capable of.

    • Well, its one of the "mars" requirements. If you can create a reusable relaunchable spacecraft, that works on earth, then it "should" work on mars (baring atmospheric calculations and lack of runway. taking that into account should be intresting).

      In addition, i read somewhere that the russian research is allocated in 5 years block cycles (or something large like that) instead of half-yearly reviews by senate comms.

      Admitidly, the senate comms have to review half-yearly because nasa is quite bloated / highqualified scientests are expensive, but thats another part of the problem.

      -Tim


      • Send a number of robotic contruction drones to the surface of Mars. Send them with BASIC construction materials and have them get the rest of the materials on the Martian surface. I am certain that some materials (Other than the limestone) could be found on the surface to make a concrete material.

        These drones could spend 24 hours a day completing the landing strip. Then send the first team of "colonists" to Mars. They could oversee the construction of a launching platform and fuel refinery systems.

        After that, a few more construction crews can be sent to Mars to build more suitable permanent habitats and regular colonists could arrive later. The kind that have scientific knowledge and know-how for making life on Mars work.

        After 50 or so years, then regular tourists and corporations can setup offices on Mars. Then another 50 or so years later, we can have that Mars-Terra conflict that is always talked about in science fiction novels.

        That would be fun...

        -.-
    • Yeah, we're working on tourism stuff too... we're just doing it the 'American way.' We've got the X-award floating around out there. And hey, it's not a government operation, so it may actually get something done, but it's mostly unpublicized.
  • Bubble-naut?

    "Man in bubble floats down from sky to the cheers of thousands of on-lookers, his space-disease fully contained for future study."

  • IRDT (Score:5, Informative)

    by c.emmertfoster ( 577356 ) on Saturday July 13, 2002 @04:34AM (#3876246)

    The technology for this was originally developed by the Russian Mars program: "Inflatable Rentry and Descent Technology" [weblab.dlr.de] is a nifty replacement for parachutes, IMHO.

    The russians have done this before [globaltechnoscan.com], though not from a submarine succesfully [russianspaceweb.com] until now :)

    • I don't think the submarine part is all that important. This was to be a test of a new reentry method. The submarine launched missile was just a convenient way to get it out into space to see if it worked.

  • Inflatable Technology (Score:4, Funny)

    by LastToKnow ( 449735 ) on Saturday July 13, 2002 @01:47PM (#3878200) Homepage
    ...at Sluggy Freelance [sluggy.com]

  • inflatable space station (Score:4, Interesting)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Saturday July 13, 2002 @11:40PM (#3880158)
    In fact, inflatable structures could be great for all sorts of space applications. In the absence of gravity or wind, you really don't need much in the way of structural support. Inflatable structures can give you a huge volume with very little weight. And, yes, they can be made safe against puncture by space debris--probably safer than rigid structures.

    Unfortunately, even though an inflatable module was considered for the ISS, it was not built. Pretty much all our space engineering seems to be done in terms of big, heavy, metal structures.

    Interest seems to be picking up, though. There has been a workshop at ESA [estec.esa.nl] recently.

  • ...for peaceful purposes
    From the article
    The Demonstrator-2 blasted off from underwater, aboard the Ryazan submarine in the Barents Sea, into orbit on a converted Volna SS-N-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, the Russian navy said in a statement.

    Well now if all nations on Earth used their missiles for peaceful purposes, we wont be needing those treaties :)

    A2.6k
  • You can bid on the lost russian inflatable spacecraft by clicking here [ebay.com].
  • Russians: "It went perfectly! Now we just have to FIND it!"
  • How do the russians launch an ICBM from a sub without making U.S. defense crap their pants? Was America notified in advance?
    • Yes, that's the way it always goes. Whenever there is an ICBM or SLBM test/launch/whatever, other countries are always notified to avoid any 'mishaps'.

      I heard a story about an incident around 10 years ago in which a satellite was launched off of the coast of Scandinavia, and it was headed roughly towards Moscow. The rocket had very similar flight characteristics to a Polaris missile, and since it was launched from the coast, it looked to the Russians as if it had been launched from the water. Yeltsin crapped his pants and nearly pushed the big red button (he was a bit drunk I think). All ended well though.

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