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Space News

Russian Kliper not Funded by ESA 101

Posted by samzenpus from the you're-cut-off dept.
anzha writes "It seems that while the Russians are making plans for the future, they are doing so alone. Space.com has an article profiling the Russian Kliper program. Largely seen as a response to the American CEV, the Russians had been stating the ESA would be supporting the enterprise as well. However, this week, ESA decided not to fund the project."
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Russian Kliper not Funded by ESA More

Russian Kliper not Funded by ESA

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  • Possible Reason (Score:3, Funny)

    by bullitB ( 447519 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @12:35AM (#14208212)
    Maybe the ESA was concerned the Kliper would have too high a chance of success, thus ruining their pass project record.
    • This was a pretty stupid decision, especially granted the UK's recent statements about wanting to pursue a manned space program. Am I making that up? Google can't find it but I seem to recall at least two stories about it.

      Kliper is robust, versatile, cheap, and based on proven technology. What the hell is the problem?
    • "would have too high a chance of success" Kliper has already had MORE success than CEV we just don't hear about it in the West :P

      • Re:Possible Reason (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        i dont think success has nothing to do with ESA supporting something or not.

        the issue is trust. i know a pretty big bunch of russians. if i take an average 10 russians, i would trust saving my life to 3 of 10, but wouldn't trust my wallet to 8 of 10. i dont really think it's their fault that they don't have the trust, it's more that their government has demoralized and pressured them for such a long while that they just have lost it somewhere. (tin foil didn't help either ...)

        and i guess this is the very sa
        • so there is this one russian guy you trust to save your life but take your cash for it? He must be the doctor.

          besides, same numbers are true all over the world. around three in ten will save your life (as long as it's not that difficult, and around eight out of ten would steal your wallet if you "trusted them with it". And the guy who saves your life but steals the cash, is the doc.

    • Also (Score:3, Informative)

      by StarKruzr ( 74642 )
      I forgot to mention that a member of the astronaut corps [livejournal.com] (hasn't earned his wings yet) came to speak at my school not too long ago. He was talking about how Shuttle operations were supposed to stop by 2009-2010. If this really happens (though I'm not sure I buy it), that's a hell of a lot less access to space that the ESA has. As it is now, they rely on us and the Russian Soyuz-TMA for their manned space transport. And since you KNOW they're not going to get the CEV ready on time... the ESA may become d
    • Regarding a very recent slashdot post [slashdot.org]:

      Is there any chance that the ESA wants a contract with NASA for transporting payloads? Or, similarly, does the ESA in their own understandable self interest wish to prevent Russia from gaining that contract with its Kliper? Surely if the Russian space program was making money on a NASA contract, one of those benefactors allowing it to happen at all -- the ESA -- wouldn't exactly enjoy not receiving a piece of the pie.

    • Re:Possible Reason (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dr_LHA ( 30754 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @05:15AM (#14209071) Homepage
      I know your post is marked "Funny", but I wonder why you have this opinion that ESA is such a failure? ESA has had extremely high success with many of its missions, and probably has a similar if not better hit rate than NASA.

      I'm speaking as someone who currently works on a NASA mission here.

      • Re:Possible Reason (Score:3, Informative)

        by iamlucky13 ( 795185 )
        They've been doing ok. While Mars Express has had no problems that couldn't be resolved, and Hguyens did fairly well, Hguyens failed to return a big chunk of it's data, and Beagle is a crater. I seem to remember a problem with a climate monitoring satellite recently, too.

        The real issue seems to be that none of the EU member states is interested in spending any money on space. I think the ESA's budget is somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 that of NASA's, and that's reflected in the number and scope of missions
        • the ESA/NASA budget per year is 2.8/16.

          I think the main reason to reject the clipper is the return policy, germany has call the attention even to the another 16 ESA partner about it.
    • Maybe they just would rather jump on Virgin Galatic? Branson's and Burt Rutan's new spaceline looks promising; even if they aren't talking about orbit for atleast another generation or two down the road; spaceship version that is.

      I'm only half kidding...

  • ESA? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08, 2005 @12:36AM (#14208214)
    In Soviet Russia, ESA funds you.
    • I think you messed up the joke. It should go:

      In Soviet Russia, Kliper funds ESA!

      Or should it?

      • Re:ESA? (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        If it were the same old Soviet Russia joke, then yes, you're spot on.

        But it isn't. It's a pastiche on the entire genre of Soviet Russia jokes that goes from predictable to subversive, relying on the fact that the actual topic is on Russia.

        However, you'll notice that it's not on Soviet Russia, it's on modern Russia.

        Modern Russia is not getting funding for the Kliper project from the ESA. A responce to this could be, "If this were Soviet Russia, you would get funding from the ESA."

        Or rephrase, "In Soviet Russ

  • rtfa (Score:5, Informative)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @12:42AM (#14208246) Homepage
    RTFA.

    The ESA has tenatively decided not to fund the project for now citing political concerns that may be addressed by Russia in the future in order to gain much-needed financial support.

    Nothing has been decided. Russia will probably try to sweeten the deal if the ESA flat out decides not to support the project.

    On the scientific side of things, I hear that Kliper is very promising, and has already progressed further along than the CEV, and is technically superior. This is on top of the fact that Russia already has a suitable lifting body (and has another in development nearing completion). (I'm no rocket scientist -- can anybody here elaborate on the advantages/disadvantages of the two designs?)

    • Also (Score:3, Interesting)

      by StarKruzr ( 74642 )
      The CXV [transformspace.com] being tested by t/Space has a lot of promise too. It is less capable than either the CEV or Kliper, but will probably get to production a hell of a lot faster and can do the job the Shuttle is mostly doing now - transferring personnel back and forth between the ISS.

      • Re:Also (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Rakishi ( 759894 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:59AM (#14208865)
        The Soyuz already exists and can do that, although if they can get the CXV to work it may be cheaper than anything else planned. That is a big if imho, it's an interesting design and that usually means "there are a lot of new things that can and will go wrong" (and with a low-mass/low-cost design the consequences may not be pretty). I'm not sure how much Kliper will cost however it is bound to be a pretty penny, mostly for the rockets which alone cost more than the $20mil that they claim CXV will cost. (which I am also skeptical of). Either way we'll know in 4 to 5 years.

        I doubt whatever NASA is planning will compare to either design (CXV or Kliper) however they'll use it anyway. Between needing to convert rockets to something they weren't designed for, designing something they have little experience with, massive bureaucracy and no desire to make something which is useful I doubt the result will be anything but another shuttle-like disaster.

        Also, the Shuttle's main job right now is to sit in a hanger. It's main job while flying is two fold from now on:
        1) Bring large sections of the ISS to orbit, perform work on the ISS (ie: attach the sections), bring cargo to ISS
        2) Bring large experiments/general garbage down to Earth.

        Sending people up and down can be done by Soyuz; the Shuttle is usually used because it's being sent up anyway and because otherwise it'd have nothing to do.

    • Re:rtfa (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rakishi ( 759894 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @01:56AM (#14208479)
      I am in general a bit weary of Russian designs, especially now that they're low on funding. Look at the Soyuz, darn thing seems to be able to survive anything and get it's occupants down alive. That would be a good thing if hadn't had to use those large margins multiple times already. In other words a good design yet lacking in implementation and attention to details. Granted the newest revision seems to be working problem free or close to it. I'd still trust the Russians over anything NASA builds in this area, by a large margin.

      Personally I find the Kliper design very interesting, at least the newest one. You have a very good safety mechanism like the Soyuz, where launch failures don't kill the crew. In addition, it's re-usable in all the right ways unlike the shuttle. The crew vehicle is launched separately and is the bare-minimum, meaning that any extra safety margins require the least cost. The parts you don't need to send back to Earth aren't sent back or burned up (ie: everything beyond the bare minimum), so you don't need to send them up over and over.

      In essence: the Kliper does only what it needs to do, get people to and from orbit, without trying to be a jack-of-all-trade/shitty-at-everything. Moving things within orbit is separate, as it should be, and isn't sent up over-and-over. Living and experimentation is yet again separate, maybe they'll finally use the ISS for something.

      The only thing which bothers me is the amount of parts and that some will stay in orbit, which makes things more complicated and introduces potential problems that are hard to deal with.

      • Re:rtfa (Score:2)

        by Rei ( 128717 )
        Soyuz isn't as safe as many people give it credit for; it's lucky. People often site the last time a cosmonaut was killed by a Soyuz. Yes, but over 50 ground grew have been killed by them. The last fatal Soyuz accident was just a couple years ago, in which an unmanned Soyuz detonated on liftoff, and debris killed a soldier. Unmanned Soyuz keep failing; the passengers on the manned versions have just gotten lucky.

      • Granted the newest revision [of Soyuz] seems to be working problem free or close to it.

        Out of six flights to date - four have had serious problems of one kind or another, hardly even close to problem free.

        I'd still trust the Russians over anything NASA builds in this area, by a large margin.

        Within the bounds of statistical confidence, which isn't very confident due to the low number of flights of both craft, their safety records are essentially indistinguishable. Any choice of one over the other is a m

    • Re:rtfa (Score:2, Informative)

      by Zoxed ( 676559 )
      > Nothing has been decided.

      To further support this, from ESA's website [esa.int].

      "The Clipper Preparatory Programme
      ...
      An in-depth investigation of the content and modalities of such cooperation will be performed in a two-year (2006/2007) Clipper Preparatory Programme, with a view to preparing a decision on a joint development and future operations preparation programme at the Council meeting at Ministerial level in 2008."

    • On the scientific side of things, I hear that Kliper is very promising, and has already progressed further along than the CEV, and is technically superior.

      In what ways? But Kliper and CEV are reusable. Both use solar power. Both support a crew of 6. Kliper appears to be quite small because of the legacy Soyuz rocket used to launch it. CEV has a lot more interior volume. Both are launched by conventional launchers. Kliper has not announced details about its thermal protection. The CEV will use a lightwei

    • Re:rtfa (Score:3, Informative)

      by DerekLyons ( 302214 )
      On the scientific side of things, I hear that Kliper is very promising, and has already progressed further along than the CEV, and is technically superior.
      I'd stop listening to whomever is telling you those things... Kliper is currently at about the same state as CEV - mostly paper, powerpoints, and some pretty models. OTOH CEV is mostly funded for the near term.

      Both designs are far too immature for serious comparison.

  • Response to CEV? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Thursday December 08, 2005 @01:08AM (#14208342) Homepage Journal
    Seeing as the Kliper has been in development since before Bush took office I think not. The Kliper is a response to the space shuttle not the CEV. The sole reason why the Kliper is expected to be worth the cost is that, unlike the space shuttle, it will actually be highly reusable. This gives it a major advantage over the Soyuz, although I personally think the Soyuz is the "little spacecraft that could" and the RSA should focus on reusing modules of the Soyuz in space instead of letting them burn up in the atmosphere. David Anderman has suggested [thespacereview.com] that spent Soyuz/Progress modules could be used to build a space station at the Moon/Earth L1 point. The RSA recently said they could take paying customers on a trip around the Moon within the next 5 years and that, with sufficient funding, they could land paying customers on the Moon within the next 10. That is, they could land a sufficiently enthusiastic billionair on the Moon before the CEV has even launched. Of course, talk is cheap, but the RSA has proven they have the skill and experience to provide manned space services.
    • This gives it a major advantage over the Soyuz, although I personally think the Soyuz is the "little spacecraft that could"

      Yes, definitely the C130 of low Earth orbit.

      spent Soyuz/Progress modules could be used to build a space station at the Moon/Earth L1 point

      Yes, also WRT the chinese shenzhou which does leave its orbial module in orbit, as a makeshift satellite. But these modules are small, and I wonder if it is a good idea to build a space platform with so many potentially leaky joints.

    • It always seemed to me that the response to the american space shuttle was Buran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran [wikipedia.org] which the russians purposedly capped down in order not to unbalance the scale of power of the time (so says wikipedia, anyway). But all in all, I have much more confidence in Russian designs than in American ones, it's like that old comparison between a P-51 Mustang and a P-47 Thunderbolt. If you want to show it to your girlfriend, show the American designs, they are beautiful. If you want th
    • The Kliper is a response to the space shuttle not the CEV.

      No. The Buran [astronautix.com] was a response to the space shuttle. The Phase 1 contract for the CEV was awarded in 2004 (before the elections; meaning the idea was out there long before that). The initial press release for the Kliper was in 2004 as well. The Kliper was a response to the CEV.

      -everphilski-

    • Seeing as the Kliper has been in development since before Bush took office I think not. The Kliper is a response to the space shuttle not the CEV. The sole reason why the Kliper is expected to be worth the cost is that, unlike the space shuttle, it will actually be highly reusable.

      What are you talking about? The orbiter Discovery has 25 flights on the airframe? How much more reusability are you looking for? Kliper will still be lauched by a conventional throwaway booster. I assume a Soyuz, but the Russi

      • What are you talking about? The orbiter Discovery has 25 flights on the airframe? How much more reusability are you looking for? Kliper will still be lauched by a conventional throwaway booster. I assume a Soyuz, but the Russians haven't been clear.

        I think the original poster is referring to the amount of refitting and overall work needed to turn the spacecraft around and relaunch it. The shuttle requires so much work to be done between flights (inspecting and fixing tiles, completely rebuilding the engin

      • How would the spent modules get to L1?

        Try reading the article I linked to.
    • "unlike the space shuttle, it will actually be highly reusable."

      Don't you think when the shuttle was just blueprints, NASA and their contractors made the same claim?

      Nothing new under the sun here.

  • Bad move by the ESA? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Travoltus ( 110240 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @01:19AM (#14208373) Journal
    Russia has had quite a good track record with their space program. The ESA wants control over Russia's program and they can't have it, so they're taking their ball and leaving.

    I'm not sure if this is a bad move or a good move, but the motivations as stated sound really stupid. If you can't control it, don't be involved in it? That doesn't make sense. There's got to be more to this. Does anyone know?
    • Hey I dont mind paying the Russians for the space programs. I dont care if it isnt my country building the spaceship, and us Canadians have been involved in others' spaceships anyway. Might as well be Russia so the money doesnt go down the drain so much.

      Heck if I see the Ruskis build and launch the ship, I'd be proud my tax dollars were partly responsible for it.

    • Russia has had quite a good track record with their space program. The ESA wants control over Russia's program and they can't have it, so they're taking their ball and leaving.

      Who can blame ESA? Why should they fund Russian technology development to the detriment of their own?

      I'm not sure if this is a bad move or a good move, but the motivations as stated sound really stupid. If you can't control it, don't be involved in it? That doesn't make sense. There's got to be more to this. Does anyone know?

      • Who can blame ESA? Why should they fund Russian technology development to the detriment of their own?

        ESA's trying to play with the "Big Boys" (NASA, RSC) but yet they can't even manage a human space program. This was their shot to get their fingers on a human space program with minimal investment.

        Oh yea, and about the CryoSat mission... linking to one mission failure (one data point) is not an example of consistent failures by Russia. In fact it was ESA's fault for selecting a refurbished ICBM. They were

        • Oh yea, and about the CryoSat mission... linking to one mission failure (one data point) is not an example of consistent failures by Russia.

          Nonetheless, the high profile failure, an Russia's poor handling of it afterward have caused ESA to go negative.

          What this all boils down to is that RSA is trying to run with the big boys but they just can't seem to keep up. Even China is leaping ahead of them, and Japan isn't far behind. ESA will become a joke if they don't step it up.

          Not true. ESA has the sec

          • While the Chinese failure was tragic you cannot discount an entire program over 1 failure. I don't agree with their government's handling of the situation just like I don't agree with the NASA's beaurocracy. They have made some great progress. The Japanese as well have made some great progress as well in the area of VTVL SSTO technology.

            The Arianne V is a decent launch vehicle.

            Decent, I guess. Russian launchers are cheaper with [the same|better] success rate. And they still don't have a manned program.

            • While the Chinese failure was tragic you cannot discount an entire program over 1 failure. I don't agree with their government's handling of the situation just like I don't agree with the NASA's beaurocracy. They have made some great progress.

              But I do. They bought a Soyuz spacecraft from Russia and are dancing in the streets after flying it on a simplistic mission is if it was their own. Their booster design is also Soyuz like in size and configuration. When they do the least thing in original fashion,

  • Where have I seen this before? (Score:5, Funny)

    by shaneh0 ( 624603 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @01:26AM (#14208394)
    The fastest growing job in the space industry has got to be doing concept drawings.

    Ohhhhh yeeeaaaah, we have a surrrrging aerospace industry. Our engineers drew almost 1.2 Trillion--with a T--dollars worth of spaceships, last quarter alone. This is a *10% increase* over the same period last year, where only 1,120,234,323 tons of spaceship were drawn.

    Analysts are expecting another great year of spaceship drawing in 2006. Even amid these boom years, some are warning against irrational exuberence. "It may seem crazy now, but we could reach a point where people actually stop responding to concept drawings of spaceships and may want actual spaceships." You be the judge.

  • why do we spend $795 million to bring back space rocks...?
    • why do we spend $795 million to bring back space rocks...?

      First of all, that's a pretty lowball figure... we've spent alot more then that.

      Secondly, and more to the point, because it's worth it. Well, not the rocks. But you get the point. In other words, your question is essentially the same as: Why did I spend 6000$ just to make some electrons hit xeon and neon gas.... Yes it seems silly when you put it that way, however no one can argue with truth of my findings based upon my experiment: boobes + pl

    • Re:honest question.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Belseth ( 835595 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:52AM (#14208645)
      Columbus spent a lot of money trying to find a new trade route to the far east and discovered something far more important, America. The sensible thing might have been to stay home but in the end would have cost Spain countless millions in lost revenue from the find. Bringing back Moon rocks proved that the Moon is rich in Helium 3 that can make large scale fusion possible. With out vast amounts of electricity much of the world would have to go back to candles for light and shadow puppets for entertainment. The technology we have wouldn't exist without pushing the practical limits. Remember a little over a hundred years ago most people were farmers and they plowed with horses. It was just over a hundred years ago that powered flight happened and around a hundred years ago that electricity started to be a common thing in cities, a hundred and fifty years ago it was still largely a curiosity. If science keeps pushing forward what happens in the next hundred years? There was less than seventy years between the first powered flight and landing on the moon. There's beating your dinner over the head with a rock or watching your plasma TV, as a previous poster mentioned, and eating delivered pizza. Since it's impossible to know where the next big break through is coming from it's impossible to pick and choose. The safe bet is to choose knowledge over ignorance. You might be able to live without the TV but remember life span used to average 35 years. I'm nearly 45 and by the standards of a few hundred years ago would be an old man. As it is I'm middle aged and could live past a hundred. Not all science is a waste of money, at times the benefits aren't obvious but they are there.
      • Helium_3 [wikipedia.org]
      • Spain didn't really "find" much wealth. But they sure the hell stole a lot of it!

      • Columbus spent a lot of money trying to find a new trade route to the far east and discovered something far more important, America. The sensible thing might have been to stay home but in the end would have cost Spain countless millions in lost revenue from the find.

        I'm not sure that's the best example, since the gold Spain looted from the Americas financed the European wars and dynastic conflicts that wrecked the country to the point that they're still feeling the effects. They probably would have been bet

    • What really makes me wonder is the persistence American people display when discussing Apollo program costs. Why nobody ever discusses Vietnam war costs in this context? I believe that Vietnam war was valued at more than 111 billion dollars for 8 years (1964 - 1972). Infinitely more useful, Apollo program only took 25.4 billions over 11 years. In this light, Apollo program was essentially very cheap.

      I'm using 1969 dollars in this comparison - no inclination for stupid "effective present cost" amounts.
    • Obviously the correct answer is so that we can have more marketing material to make postcards. So next time you visit Langley you too, can buy a moon rock, yours for only 9,99$ and send it to your friends. Next possible step is to put them in cerial boxes, oh, no, wait, they've done that already. Well...
    • "why do we spend $795 million to bring back space rocks" Another way to word this question is "Why did each America contribute four bucks to the space rock project?" Figure there are 250,000,000+ people. At four bucks each you get space rocks and change back. I'd much rather read about the rocks for $4 than go see a movie for $8. And we didn't realy _spend_ the money rere-cycled it. The money is not gone it was dumped rigt back into the economy beacue almost all of the cost is labor(payroll checks) it

  • Already building something... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by richdun ( 672214 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @01:45AM (#14208449)
    ESA is already scheduled to build the ATV, or Autonomous Transfer Vehicle, to haul cargo to and from the ISS. The first, the Jules Verne, should be close to being ready to go as soon as the Space Shuttle can get back to a regular construction schedule and deliver the Columbus module (ESA's lab module). Maybe they are just figuring that they can trade cargo space for a passenger seat or two with the US or Russia, so they don't need a direct stake in a passenger craft.
  • I'm sure there's a joke in there involving KDE, Clippy and Soviet Russia just waiting to be made. But I'm not the one who's gonna do it.

    Any takers?

  • now i'm really proud to be an eu-citizen but: (Score:3, Funny)

    by legalize.ganja.now. ( 923280 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @04:47AM (#14208993) Homepage
    "the Russians had been stating the ESA would be supporting the enterprise as well."
    which enterprise? SS NX-01? USS NCC-1701? A,B,C,D,E,J?
  • Hi. We're really smart scientists from Russia. Cool! We've got some cool ideas on how to transfer humans back and forth from space. Great! We've done all of the design work. Wow! Now give us money so we can build it. No. Fudge.
  • The ESA got already burned once with a spacecraft of the same class as the Kliper project. The ill-fated Hermès reuseable manned spacecraft [astronautix.com] looks eerily similar to the Kliper. It was marred by cost overrun, political infights and technical difficulties.

    The link doesn't mention it, but I remember reading an article about then-curring edeg FEM (finite element method) thermal simulations on the Hermes nose cone. Computations showed that the nose cone would overheat during reentry and that the material

  • The most likely future for NASA involves buying flights on whatever Russia builds to replace Soyuz and probably paying Russia to build the Clipper instead of trying to build its own spaceship.

    The Soyuz was incredibly complex, involving 3 modules connected by an intricate system of hatches, which had to be jettisoned to reenter the atmosphere. In keeping with Russia's tradition of making incredible complex systems to do simple tasks, the Clipper is supposed to require a space tug to transport it to the spac

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