Energia Reveals New Russian Spacecraft 356
colonist writes "Russian space officials unveiled a full-scale model of the Kliper spaceship. If funding is provided, Kliper will replace the Soyuz space capsule as Russia's human space vehicle. The spaceship, designed by RKK Energia, is twice the size of the Soyuz and will carry a crew of six. It has two main parts: a reusable re-entry craft with a lifting body design, and an orbital module. Like the Soyuz, it has a rocket to pull the spaceship away from the launch vehicle in an emergency. See this photo gallery, Encyclopedia Astronautica and RussianSpaceWeb.com."
The US's Space Program (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially considering that Russia has a mere fraction of the money available to us.
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:5, Funny)
What do you mean? We're exploring Iraq.
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:2)
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:2)
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:2)
Collateral damage.
It's all in the outcome, the progress towards something better. Saddam would have continued to torture/kill.
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:5, Interesting)
Your retort would be more valid if NASA was actually making similar progress: ie, designing possible STS replacements and giving its own manned programme some sort of direction. As it is, NASA seems to be (if you'll pardon the pun) in a terminally decaying orbit.
Whereas NASA's manned programme once had a clear vision and message - using the STS in conjunction with the ISS as a stepping stone to more orbitally-based research and then on to bigger and better things - now it's unclear where exactly NASA is heading.
Manned missions to the Moon? To Mars? Well, sure, those have been mentioned in "rallying the troops" kind of fashion after the Columbia disaster but where's the substance?
The reality of the situation is that the STS is grounded, and even when (if) it returns to flight status it's going to be a lame duck. And I don't even want to contemplate how disasterous another shuttle loss would be.
So, relatively speaking, given the inactivity of NASA, this Russian programme is flourishing. I don't know about you, but I'm glad that people with as much experience of manned spaceflight as the Russians haven't cashed out of this game just yet and are still willing, scientifically if not politically, to develop the technologies to further our exploration of space.
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:2, Insightful)
If you ask me, NASA should provide funds to organizations like the XPrize and let man's natural motivations (greed, glory lust, etc) provide the drive to get to the moon. NASA could also facilitate things by making things available (wind tunnels, comp
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:4, Informative)
NASA should do what they're best at: research. Unfortunately, we've been making them fly a research craft for the past 2 decades (the shuttle). A research craft which was given half the budget it needed during design time, at that, leaving it with an aluminum cold frame and solid rocket boosters instead of liquid drop tanks and a titanium hot frame. We wouldn't have had any of the major problems that we've had with the shuttle if we'd gone with the original design, and maintainance costs would have been far smaller. We really need a next gen craft that takes advantage of what we learned from the shuttle (and the massive amount of reentry research that has gone on, too). It won't be as expensive now, either - titanium doesn't cost nearly what it used to, although it is still quite expensive.
Also, I used to agree that a moon base wasn't that great of an idea - until I started reading about exactly why He3 fusion is so nice: you can contain it electrostatically, instead of magnetically like current fusion devices. In short, there would be no containment problems, the principal problem in conventional hydrogen fusion methods. And while it takes a lot of lunar regolith being heated to produce a little He3, a moon base will be heating it anyways when it refines regolith for building materials (although not nearly enough of it for a large quantity of He3 to be produced). Transport costs back to earth are a fraction of the He3 total value, although the big question will be whether processing 10 million tons of regolith for 1 ton of He3 (worth over 1 billion dollars, so it'd be about 100 dollars per ton of regolith processed) is viable. Of course, there are other potential, non-natural sources of He3 on earth (for example, high energy neutron bombardment of lithium in fission reactors to produce H3, which will slowly decay to He3), so it's really too soon to say.
Nonetheless, I'd like to see off-earth refining equipment developed and put into use at the very least.
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:2)
Unless the Russians can sell a few of these new vehicles it isn't going to get built, they don't have that kind of budget. How far they are in the design is questionable, the article say this just a
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:5, Insightful)
Has the shuttle program been all it was cracked up to be? Probably not. But it does give us signifigant capabilities that other "industrial countries' space programs" still don't have.
Know any other countries that could send not one, but two different robotic rovers to Mars and control them for over a year?
Hell, for that matter, just which other industrial countries are even doing anything in space right now? Ok, Russia--let's see if they find the funds to put these things in use. China--ok, China is using borrowed Russian tech to get where we were 40 years ago. True they do show more nationalistic pride in space endeavours, but then again so did we--40 years ago.
I'm not a NASA apologist--I for one think the future of space exploration will be best served by private hands...but we're not there yet. I don't see the point of bemoaning how far behind we are, when no one actually competes with us anymore (Russians simply don't have the cash anymore).
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:3, Insightful)
I love NASA, I really do, but they and the government as a whole need to set some long term plans, and a way to carry them out.
Re: "significant capabilities" (Score:4, Interesting)
The Shuttle is the equivalent of a pickup truck that's been tasked with replacing tractor-trailers, Greyhound busses, garbage trucks, and NASCAR race cars. Sure, it's capable of performing all those funcitons, just don't expect it to perform any of them well.
Consider what space exploration would be like today if the Saturn V (or VI or VII) were in service today, in concert with a crew-only vehicle to transport the sentient meat. [terrybisson.com] Use the Saturn booster to take the large, heavy ISS sections into (a useful) orbit, and haul the people up and down on a vehicle designed just for that. And while we're at it, just how do any future missions plan to escape earth orbit (to go places like, say, the Moon?) The Shuttle is incapable of getting out of LEO, so you ain't gonna use that. The Saturn series were the only ones that could get useful[*] payloads into a lunar insertion orbit. The Delta IV Heavy [boeing.com] might be able to do it, but it'll be a smaller payload than a Saturn, and it'll be sans meat.
[*] I use the term "useful" here because it's obvious we can get 1000kg to Mars or to the Moon or to interesting comets. But in terms of establishing a manned presence on another planet/moon, we need to send lots more than that
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:2)
Mars eats probes. It's eaten a smaller percentage of ours
U.S. fund Kliper? Maybe that's the idea. (Score:3, Insightful)
As to "NASA's culture is far too arrogant to do something that smart", there is a lot more to the story. That James Oberg fellow who wrote one of the linked articles worked for NASA a long time ago but has been an independent author and consultant on these matters. It is s
The US is doing a lot of space exploration... (Score:5, Informative)
We have probes to many of the planets, Mars in paticular, we are going to smack a asteroid soon, and there are plans to a new space observatory.
Considering the costs associated with space I think the US is doing just fine. Hell, I like to wonder, where is everyone else?
Besides this is just a mock up, it is no more valuable to space travel than a brochure from marketing... actually that is what it is, an attempt to stir up interest in what they do.
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/india-02i.html [spacedaily.com]
the difference is that while developing countries/ or financially contsrained countries go through extensive optimisation. several factors too exist which spirals the costs upwards:
1) US usually wants to dominate any sector it chooses - this will cost plenty.
2) bleeding edge technology involves taking huge risks, plenty of writeoff on obselete
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:2)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-
They do a *lot* of research, on a lot of great things. I'm still hoping that they can manage to make Alane hybrid boosters.... that'll be the day!
Re:The US's Space Program (Score:2)
See this... (Score:3, Funny)
He just had to tempt the fates, didn't he?
Re:Chinese Ambitions in Space: Not Funny At All (Score:2)
Yes, the militaristic Chinese, who are so militaristic that they spend 1/20th as much on their military as we do, with their economy that's over half the size of ours.
(/sarcasm)
Russia is back in space? (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's hope everyone - in contrary to recent US projects concerning space defense systems - remembers treaties about peace in space.
Don't forget India and private companies (Score:5, Informative)
India is also looking at lunar [cnn.com] and manned [spacedaily.com] programs and already has launched its own satellites [spacetoday.org], etc. Private entries from the US [scaled.com], Canada [canadianarrow.com] and the UK [starchaser.co.uk] (and other countries) can perhaps be considered separately from the goverment operations. There are now many players, some major (some declining, some expanding) and some minor (some expanding, some perhaps will never get off the ground). Exciting times ahead, I hope.
Space Race (Score:3, Insightful)
Again...
Maybe this time it will have some staying power. Na, the US government critters cannot see past the next election
Re:Space Race (Score:2)
The Space unRace (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, how many presidencies has US manned space flight endured again??? Yeah, too bad they axed that one after JFK. And what race are you talking about? I think we'll sit here a moment and take a breather while everybody else catches up.
Earth to NASA. (Score:4, Insightful)
I Agree (Score:3, Interesting)
It appears to me that the Russians are used to working on a budget and design stuff to get the job done effectively. They may not be able to do all the things that NASA would like to do but are they necessary? Is that little bit extra worth 10x the cost?
One nice thing about the shuttle was you could do
Re:I Agree (Score:4, Insightful)
Repairing a satelite doesn't make sense when the repair mission costs more than a replacement satelite.
So this design makes sense until you get launch costs down. But that's OK, because if you got launch costs down enough, spacecraft construction will be a booming business.
Re:Earth to NASA. (Score:3, Insightful)
They were. Even after the shuttle was built, replacements have constantly been at the same design stage this Russian thing is at.
No. (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA is not guiltless in budget management, but you can only do so much.
Re:Earth to NASA. (Score:5, Informative)
Where the hell have you been?.
CEV [wikipedia.org], X-33 [wikipedia.org], X-34 [wikipedia.org], X-37 [wikipedia.org], X-38 [wikipedia.org], X-40 [wikipedia.org], X-43 [wikipedia.org].
Not to belittle this Russian effort which I think is terrific, but at this point, the Russian vehicle is no more than a concept and a full-scale mock-up.
NASA has been working on such projects for decades; whether or not they are funded is beyond their control...
Back to Reality... (Score:2)
Sure, now it might be time for a change, but I'd say the current shuttle has served it's intended purpose pretty damn well.
Didn't qualify ~ Typo (Score:2)
Didn't didn't DIDN'T.
Damn typos.
Re:Back to Reality... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well you'd only say that if you were ignorant. It costs almost 500 million dollars to launch a shuttle, hardly affordable. The shuttle isn't really reusable as it has to be reassembled by a team of thousands of technicians every time it comes back to earth in preparation for the next launch. NASA was originally talking about seven day turnarounds for the shuttle, that never happened a
Re:Back to Reality... (Score:4, Informative)
http://flightprojects.msfc.nasa.gov/faq.html
It carries 27,500 kg payload to LEO. So, 16k$/kg. Compared to 10k$ for Ariane-5, and 7k$ for a Proton rocket. However, the shuttle has many advantages to them (much larger payload capacity for larger satellites, the best safety records of any manned rocket with a large number of launches under its belt, much greater in-orbit maneuverability and other in-orbit capabilities), etc, so the extra cost is justified in *some* circumstances. Also, the space shuttle itself doesn't really cost 450 million dollars per launch; that number is arrived at by looking at the annual budget to the shuttle, and dividing by the number of launches. However, the shuttle's budget also goes toward research on and improvement of the craft, among other things (some projects are even barely related to the shuttle). A more realistic number is around 13k$/kg.
> The shuttle is a piece of shit
The safest man-capable spacecraft in the world is a "piece of shit"? It's expensive, but it's not a "piece of shit".
> isn't quite so good at killing astronauts
A less than 2% failure rate on man-capable craft is pretty damn good for the space industry.
> go back to expendible vehicles such as the Saturn V
We can't make Saturn V's any more, end of story.
Addendum: If we'd given the shuttle development the budget that it needed (instead of *halving it* without cutting scope), it'd be a titanium hot frame craft with no SRBs, and consequently not had any of the problems that have plagued it and increased its maintainence costs.
Re:Back to Reality... (Score:3, Insightful)
Design vs. Function? (Score:2, Interesting)
How much of that has to do with design and how much has to with the function of things like the reentry tiles and hull shielding?
Re:Design vs. Function? (Score:5, Informative)
Things that get Really Fsking Hot are black because the only thing that will handle the heat is a carbon-carbon composite.
Things that get Not So Hot are white because it's either that or beige or black when it comes to high temperature ceramics.
There are other alternative coatings like metal, but given that the Russians have already flown a craft with shuttle-like tiles, it's probably the case that they'll stick with those.
Except, of course, that when the Russians coppied the idea of putting tiles on their shuttles, they made them a smidge sturdier.
Paint has undesirable properties, so you want to minimize it's use on the higher-temperature surfaces. If you look at the shuttle, except for small red maintenence markings, they pretty much stuck with that.
Carbon-carbon confusion (Score:3)
Things that get Really Fsking Hot are black because the only thing that will handle the heat is a carbon-carbon composite.
The carbon-carbon panels on the space shuttle are grey, not black. The black tiles on underside of the space shuttle are silica based, not carbon composites.
Russia Vs. Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
energy for all (Score:2)
Wasn't the Russian space shuttled called Buran? (Score:2)
As in this Buran [nasa.gov]? Means 'snow storm' in Russian. "Ptichka" ("Little Bird" in Russian) was the name of the 2nd one built, which never flew. Energia did make the booster.
Re:Wasn't the Russian space shuttled called Buran? (Score:2)
Re:energy for all (Score:2)
Okaaaaay.... (Score:4, Interesting)
--
Incremental progress? (Score:5, Interesting)
Aside from the obvious color scheme borrowed from the US orbiters, this seems like it's really just incremental progress. Going from a 3-person Soyuz to a 6-person Klipper seems very much like one of the crew reentry vehicle concepts that have been floating around in the US for a while. One of those took an Apollo capsule, and extended it downwards a bit, to fit six people instead of three.
On the other hand, the "lifting body" design is interesting, if it'll work enough of the time (I'm gathering the parachute reentry option is for when the runways aren't available or weather doesn't cooporate).
On the gripping hand, I'm having Six Million Dollar Man flashbacks.
Re:Incremental progress? (Score:5, Insightful)
Radiates? (Score:2)
Re:Radiates? (Score:2)
Re:Incremental progress? (Score:3)
Of course. Incremental progress is what gave Russia the Soyuz, the cheapest, most reliable man-rated spacecraft in the world. Incremental progress is good if you want to put humans on board. (Won't the Klipper end up carrying the same number of people as the Shuttle?)
The place to start playing with radical new technologies is with unmanned vehicles. If one of those blows up, nobody cares but the accountants.
The lifting body is for reentry (Score:2)
The parachute reentry option is for a version that doesn't have wings. The body shape alone won't give enough lift to put you gently onto a runway at low speeds; it'll just give enough lift to let the craft spend more more time in higher, thinner atmosphere, so it can decelerate more slowly and shed
A we back to tiles and long-re-entries? (Score:4, Interesting)
This looks rather like a step back towards thermal tiles which can be a problem in themselves when Soyuz uses one-big-heatsheild.
Also, the shape of the re-entry vehicle is rather like a Buran nose which suggest to me a somewhat longer re-entry than the Soyuz module which 'gets it over and done with'
I'm sure I've heard several times that the Shuttle/Buran re-entry technique is 'less-safe' compared with capsule re-entry due to the duration that the craft is actually being heated.
Just reminded me .. (Score:2)
The demo'ed tiles that were about 4" x 4" and a half inch think or so. They had really impressive bit where the tile was resting flat on the palm of some girl and it was blasted with oxy-acetylene torch from the top. The spot under the torch was red hot, yet the girl was alive and smiling
Why more than three people? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you need more than three, the obvious solution is to launch twice.
Depending where you look, the cost of a Soyuz manned launch is between $20million and $30million. For that money, you can launch one crew, then another, then another, then another.....
And eventually, you will arrive at the cost of one $500million, 7-seater Shuttle launch.
Re:Why more than three people? (Score:2)
No the big deal is we need more than 2 on the ISS. This delvieres more people and provides for 6 to reenter in one craft (after NASA canceled its lifeboat lifting body project due to cost overruns).
Re:Why more than three people? (Score:2)
You would of course, need 2 or more Soyuz standby return vehicles and a docking point for each.
I'd take it as being, you can already have 2x Soyuz modules docked with the ISS (the lifeboat + one at the UDM)
So, if you were to launch 3 Soyuz crews (2 crew per capsule + cargo) and replace the Shuttle dock with a dock costing the same as the Pirs one (which is also an EVA staging module) at $32 million + launch cost, You'd be n
To get NASA more funding... (Score:4, Funny)
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
The KDE team [kde.org] announced they will sue the Russian government over the use of the "klipper" name, which, as everybody knows, is the name of the KDE clipboard. An outraged free software community is currently demonstrating and marching on Capitol Hill and the Kremlin to demand that justice be meeted out of the space agency. In a gesture of goodwill, the Russian space agency has decided to rename their spacecraft "firefoks". News at 11...
Re:In other news (Score:2)
Kliper (Score:3, Interesting)
It's like deja-vu [nasa.gov] all over again!
Re:Kliper (Score:2)
I miss the DCX. :-(
Re:Kliper (Score:2)
From the site:
Although the first orbital flight of Buran was unmanned, it demonstrated much promise. The autopilot that landed the shuttle was able to overcome a 34 mph crosswind to land within 5 feet of the runway center line. Also, of the 38,000 heat shield tiles that covered Buran, only 5 were missing.
Wow. Very impressive indeed.
I wonder what would it take for someone like Rutan or Branson to hire some of these engineers and really make space travel affor
Re:Kliper (Score:2)
It's not coincidental, in the sense that both refer to a word [wikipedia.org] of longer history than both countries' space programs taken together.
About damn time (Score:2, Interesting)
RTA, Soyuz in use since 1966 (Score:3, Informative)
There have been some recent updates but essentially the design is almost 40-years old now.
Wow, take a look at those rockets (Score:5, Informative)
I got interested in the launch vehicles and found this site [astronautix.com]very informative, it has illustrations and information on various Russian launch vehicles. Its amazing how much smaller the Zenit is compared to some of the others, specifically the RLA-150 and Vulkan.
My heart still goes with the Saturn V though.
Re:Wow, take a look at those rockets (Score:3, Insightful)
(tinfoil hat time): Of course, if they still had them we'd know whether it could have really got to the moon
Re:Wow, take a look at those rockets (Score:3, Informative)
And it doesn't matter because you can launch a mars shot in two or three launches of a shuttle derived booster [astronautix.com] anyway.
No In Soviet Russia jokes?! (Score:2)
but i think this is great for them but we are breaking into the commerical space market with spaceshipOne. we will win, again.
i think commercial space industry will be the next big thing, thank god we are getting in on it first
Re:No In Soviet Russia jokes?! (Score:2)
Secondly the Russians have launched space tourists at commercial rates of about 2*10^7 USD a few times now.
Moscow is Mocking NASA (Score:2)
Re:Moscow is Mocking NASA (Score:2)
Re:Moscow is Mocking NASA (Score:5, Informative)
Ever heard of Shuttle-Buran? Yeah, it looked very much like a US shuttle about 20 years ago this is the same group (Energia was the name of the group and of the booster that was used to launch Buran,) only the Buran flew once and without a human on board, it was totally automated.
So first of all, they don't need to copy the US shuttle, they can just reuse some of their research from Buran. Secondly the color scheme? The color scheme has specific physical properties - white reflects radiation while black stores it. Besides, the compounds for the reentry shield tiles are never painted, and the silica based compounds are black, while carbon based compounds are gray.
Okay European Space Agency! (Score:3, Interesting)
Calling Lance Bass... (Score:2)
color scheme (Score:4, Funny)
Launch dreams and orbital wishes (Score:2)
Space vehicals like the Buran space shuttle! [spacedaily.com] No, wait... That was designed by NASA too...
Re:Launch dreams and orbital wishes (Score:3, Interesting)
In Soviet Russia (Score:2)
Oh, great! (Score:5, Funny)
ROFL (Score:3, Interesting)
Poor talented but discarded engineers.
The best part of the entire article (Score:4, Funny)
And I'm thinking to myself, its a MODEL you assclown, you don't have it either... otherwise I'd have a B-17 bomber.
Peaceful spaceship or weapon of war? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Peaceful spaceship or weapon of war? (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh. These are the mount points for the emergency escape system that is supposed to sit on top in the launch configuration. This, like the Soyuz, and unlike the Shuttle, features an escape system which is operational in every stage of launch all the way from launchpad to orbit insertion.
Re:Peaceful spaceship or weapon of war? (Score:4, Funny)
Noooooo....
That's what they WANT you to think.
Those are really the new and improved Mark III Ion Cannons which are disguised to look like mounting points for the emergency escape system.
finally (Score:2)
Ariane 5 could mount Kliper! (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's hope that there will be a close cooperation between Europe and Russia. Rumours about Russia joining ESA already surface now and then. AFAIK the main prolem (next to authoritarian, non-democratic tendencies in Russia) is that the cuurent ESA treaty requires every member to pay a share of the common space projects. The treaty would have to be altered to allow Russia to pay it's share in hardware and services.
Nevertheless, this seems as a promising opportunity to me. Especially as a the article on russianspaceweb.com [russianspaceweb.com] states that a major portion of the 10 bn. Rubel development costs is for the Onega booster, which wouldn't be required if Ariane 5 could be used.
kilper? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why would this thing not roll over? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stupid question, maybe one of you know (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stupid question, maybe one of you know (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why?! (Score:3, Informative)
To help you out here - most people agree that at least taking off from a runway doesn't make sense for large launches. Getting to orbit takes a LOT of energy, typically more than 7 times the mass of the ship in the highest energy mass density fuel available (hydrogen)! So, in order to lift off horizontally, you need wings that can carry all that mass at takeoff. It turns out the wings are too heavy if strong enough to support the fuel mass. It can be done with staging (l
Even in Trek, the US isn't boss (Score:4, Funny)
Even in Star Trek, Americans don't rule the world. The Vulcans rule the world - they're massively overrepresented in Starfleet high command and in the Federation government, every time we see the top brass there are pointy ears everywhere. But we notice that no Starfleet ship ever has more than one or two Vulcans on board, and the occasional representative of one of the other Federation races. What's going on here?
Answer: the Vulcans, nervous about their Klingon and Romulan neighbours, found a culture just emerging from pre-warp savagery and made contact. Since then they've been quietly manipulating Earth, making sure it's always humans in the front line doing the fighting and dying and Vulcans in High Command, and placing Vulcan agents on all starships to ensure political control of the fleet, like the KGB used to do with the Soviet navy.
Of course, humans aren't stupid and a lot of them have caught on to what the Vulcans are up to. So what have they done about it? Answer: exactly what the Vulcans did, on a smaller scale. Notice how not only are Starfleet crews predominantly human, but predominantly American? No coincidence. And the occasional Scottish engineer or suspiciously English-sounding French captain? Yep... political control again.
Note that the Federation government is based in Paris (IIRC), while Starfleet Command is in San Francisco. Who's giving the orders, and who's doing the fighting? Right.
Re:Even in Trek, the US isn't boss (Score:4, Funny)
From this tirade, we can all safely assume you have never had consensual sex with a woman.
It's a FREAKING TV SHOW, allright? Not real life. You should have listened to your mother when she told you to go play outside, join a team sport, and make new friends.