A Domestic Newspaper Warns of the Russian Space Program's 'Rapid Collapse' (arstechnica.com) 76
A long and strikingly critical article that reviews the state of the Russian space program was published in the state-aligned newspaper MK this week. This article was written by Dmitry Popov, who has worked at the publication since 1992. Ars Technica reports: The article, translated for Ars by Rob Mitchell, is titled "The Space Program Is Rotting from Within." It begins with the declaration that Russia's space program has a shortage of competent and highly qualified staff, obsolete facilities and technology, and "systemic leadership weakness." And that's just the opening paragraph. Popov goes on to state that Russian space companies are delinquent on promised deliveries for hundreds of contracts. For example, the Khrunichev Center agreed to deliver 10 booster cores for the Angara A5 rocket five years ago. The first five cores were delivered only in March of this year, and the other five are not yet completed. [...] Popov said Roscosmos is struggling even to build its mainstay vehicles, the Soyuz rockets and Progress spacecraft. Consider a recent docking issue with the Progress vehicle, which carries supplies to the Russian segment of the International Space Station.
Popov further expressed concern about reliance on Germany to help fuel the Soyuz rocket and the Soyuz spacecraft that launches humans. The issue is that vernier thrusters on the Soyuz boosters and in the de-orbit engines of the Soyuz-MS spacecraft use a special grade of highly refined hydrogen peroxide. Production of this hydrogen peroxide in Russia, however, depends on deliveries of chemicals produced by a German company called Evonik Resource Efficiency GmbH. These deliveries are subject to limitation by international sanctions against the Russian Federation. "That is, the West can stop Russian space launches with a single keystroke," Popov wrote.
The article also discusses the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a spaceport in eastern Russia that has been a priority for President Vladimir Putin. However this project, under Rogozin's stewardship, has been beset by construction delays and corruption, such as embezzlement. Of the nearly 1,200 structures planned for construction at the spaceport, only about 200 have been completed, Popov wrote. Construction has yet to begin on more than 40 percent of them. Already, the planned launch of Angara A5 rockets from Vostochny has been delayed from 2021 to 2023, as criminal investigations continue. Popov then turns to Russia's so-called Moon program, which requires development of the Oryol, or "Eagle," spacecraft to fly cosmonauts into deep space. This vehicle was intended to both replace the Soyuz for transporting cosmonauts to the International Space Station and to form part of the lunar program. But aside from that, everything is going swell with Russia's Moon program.
Popov also criticizes Rogozin for over-promising on Russian launch efficiency and under-delivering. For example, Roscosmos said there would be 44 space launches in 2019, and 25 were conducted. In 2020, 40 launches were planned and just 17 conducted. This year, Russia has conducted fewer than half of its planned 47 launches. Roscosmos, therefore, has decided to no longer publish its planned number of launches. The overall portrait Popov paints of Roscosmos is that of a wasteful, increasingly decrepit enterprise where almost no money is being invested into the present or future. Instead, the focus seems to be providing high-paying jobs for a handful of technocrats, whose salaries are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Meanwhile, the average monthly wages for technical specialists who build the country's rockets and spacecraft range from $500 to $1,000 a month.
Popov further expressed concern about reliance on Germany to help fuel the Soyuz rocket and the Soyuz spacecraft that launches humans. The issue is that vernier thrusters on the Soyuz boosters and in the de-orbit engines of the Soyuz-MS spacecraft use a special grade of highly refined hydrogen peroxide. Production of this hydrogen peroxide in Russia, however, depends on deliveries of chemicals produced by a German company called Evonik Resource Efficiency GmbH. These deliveries are subject to limitation by international sanctions against the Russian Federation. "That is, the West can stop Russian space launches with a single keystroke," Popov wrote.
The article also discusses the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a spaceport in eastern Russia that has been a priority for President Vladimir Putin. However this project, under Rogozin's stewardship, has been beset by construction delays and corruption, such as embezzlement. Of the nearly 1,200 structures planned for construction at the spaceport, only about 200 have been completed, Popov wrote. Construction has yet to begin on more than 40 percent of them. Already, the planned launch of Angara A5 rockets from Vostochny has been delayed from 2021 to 2023, as criminal investigations continue. Popov then turns to Russia's so-called Moon program, which requires development of the Oryol, or "Eagle," spacecraft to fly cosmonauts into deep space. This vehicle was intended to both replace the Soyuz for transporting cosmonauts to the International Space Station and to form part of the lunar program. But aside from that, everything is going swell with Russia's Moon program.
Popov also criticizes Rogozin for over-promising on Russian launch efficiency and under-delivering. For example, Roscosmos said there would be 44 space launches in 2019, and 25 were conducted. In 2020, 40 launches were planned and just 17 conducted. This year, Russia has conducted fewer than half of its planned 47 launches. Roscosmos, therefore, has decided to no longer publish its planned number of launches. The overall portrait Popov paints of Roscosmos is that of a wasteful, increasingly decrepit enterprise where almost no money is being invested into the present or future. Instead, the focus seems to be providing high-paying jobs for a handful of technocrats, whose salaries are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Meanwhile, the average monthly wages for technical specialists who build the country's rockets and spacecraft range from $500 to $1,000 a month.
Exageration (Score:4, Interesting)
They have built a new integrated production facility for Angara. They built a Soyuz pad in Vostochny. They are building Soyuz 5.
Sure there have been delays. The decreased launch rate reasons are well known. It isn't due to lack of rocket manufacture. It is because of a lack of payloads. i.e. satellites. Because of US/EU sanctions on sales of space grade electronics a lot of programs had to be cancelled or changed to use different electronics. Only recently did they start solving those issues.
Sure there are delays and missteps, but just look any of the other national space agency led programs and you will see plenty of those as well.
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Hey, Rogozin, you forgot to relogin.
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A newspaper paid to publish Kremlin propaganda is pushing US propaganda?
Re: Exageration (Score:3)
And Americans are so jealous of the Russian space program that they had to crawl at night into the Russian segment of ÐoeÐsÐ in order to drill a hole in a spacecraft there.
Re:Exageration (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is though, how real is any of it?
The problem with Russia is that there is widespread corruption; there are significant problems with things being "built" that end up then not actually working, end up collapsing, end up missing important safety features and so forth. So beneath the thin veneer of existence of these things, all too often there lies nothing but an empty void of impracticality.
We've seen it a lot over the last decade; Russia's aircraft carrier sailed to Syria, and lost two aircraft off the deck, and ended up having to be towed home because it broke down. Upon undergoing repairs in a floating dry dock, that dry dock capsized causing further damage to the carrier. Despite the expense of recovering it, they did so to try and continue to pretend they have at least one single functioning aircraft carrier, only then it set on fire resulting in a few deaths and further significant damage.
Their Su-57, supposedly an F-22 competitor has been absolutely plagued by problems, to the extent that their partner nation in building it, India, was banned from inspecting it when one of a handful of prototypes caught on fire on a runway. Planes crashing or being destroyed aren't unheard of, but banning partner nations from finding out why is precisely demonstrative of the fact that deep down, the Russians know is because they can't build what they're proclaiming to build. It's got entirely non-stealthy engines in it because the intended engines have been constantly beset by problems, so they stuck Su-27 engines in it for now. It has absolutely no stealth characteristics from behind which means it's entirely useless in the deep penetration role (i.e. hitting command centres, or SAM batteries at the start of a war), because the second it passes over any radar site it'll be trivially shot down; it can therefore only practically make use of stealth in a defensive role which undermines a key reason of having stealth. It's been such a disaster that Russia dropped there orders to 12, which, when you consider you never have all ordered aircraft in service at any one time - some have to be available for training, and testing weapons systems and avionics upgrades through their lifespan, others have to be available to be butchered for parts, means they were going to have effectively no real Su-57 fleet other than one or two at any given time to pretend it's a real threat - it isn't, it's just another facade, a lie. Putin being called out on this upped the order to 76 again by 2028, but production is so slow they have absolutely no chance of hitting that number, and have only done with costs being dropped 20%; this isn't the US where aircraft manufacturers are private entities that make billions, these are extensions of the state. What do you think will happen with cost dropping 20%? Do you think the oligarchs involves will cut their share? or do you think it'll become even more of a trainwreck?
But these examples aside, it's worth looking at the bigger picture as to why Russia is full of shit on technology programmes like this. Russia is only the world's 11th largest economy, barely bigger than Australia, and economically almost half the size of even imperial has-beens like the UK and France. Despite this it has a population of 145million, much more than twice the size of the UK and France, and 5.5x the size of Australia. On top of that it has more land than anywhere else; that means more road and other infrastructure to build and maintain due to the sheer distances they have to cover. To make matters worse, they're one of the most corrupt countries in the world with billions being skimmed off of every project by corrupt leaders.
So given countries far richer than Russia, with far less expenditure, and far less money lost to corruption, and far less flight of intellectual talent, struggle to fund things like nuclear weapons programmes, modern military programmes, nuclear submarines, space programmes, then why on earth would you believe Russia can?
Russia's modus operandi has always been
The Russian empire still exists (Score:2)
'They've always been jealous and bitter of never having been able to achieve empires on the scale of their European near neighbours like France, the UK, Spain, or even the Turks'
Nah - they've got a massive empire, it's just that it consists of mostly useless land. It survives the independence movements of the 20th century because it's a land empire - unlike that of the British or the French; if Chechnya had been separated from Russia by water its independence would have been obvious. Of course it was shorn
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"How real is it"... Ever since the Soyuz pad at Vostochny was built they did 11 launches. 10 successes and 1 failure. This includes 6 launches with 36 OneWeb satellites each. Five launches just this year. They bench tested the RD-171 engine for the Soyuz 5.
We have also seen an F-35B fall into the drink in the Queen Elizabeth carrier. But people don't automatically assume the Royal Navy is hopeless as a result. A lot of the Russian naval infrastructure was poorly maintained in the 1990s and they have had to
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So if you believe that because Russia says it's done something or is doing something that it's done, or doing something. Then you're naive and oblivious to Russia as it is now, and Russia as it's always been.
Oh it's actually worse than it sounds. After WWII, the USSR sent the red army to kidnap 2,200 German scientists and engineers in many fields, not just rockets (though they especially needed them for rockets.) It all went down in just one night as well, and without warning. The soldiers knew exactly where their targets lived, and even got keys to their residences. They just stormed in, kicked them out of their beds, and told them to get up because they're being moved to Russia to work.
Not only were they forc
Remember Potemkin's village (Score:2)
A legend of appearing to create what the boss required but actually only producing a non-functional façade. An idea with the Russians have blessed the world...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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This is rather long, but none of this is covered in the Western press so apologies in advance for the size of the rant.
After USA, EU and UK jointly sponsored the coup in Ukraine and the following annexation | reunification (depends whom you ask) of Crimea, the Russian economy was supposed to topple under sanctions and Russia to be relegated once and fo
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Ignoring David Ricardo's 200 year old theory of comparative advantage, you still have a "tail wagging the dog" theory - Russia's 1.4T GDP vs the world's 80T GDP. It's Brexit, writ large - the UK may have told itself that the EU needed it more than it needed the EU, but reality called and is going to
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Because of US/EU sanctions on sales of space grade electronics a lot of programs had to be cancelled or changed to use different electronics.
There are things Russia could do about that you know. Little things like oh say, not invading Ukraine for example, or maybe not assassinating expats who don't give the Kremlin a 5 star review. These little things go a long way.
Sure there are delays and missteps, but just look any of the other national space agency led programs and you will see plenty of those as well.
In TFA the author makes a direct comparison to SpaceX. Basically both the Oryol and the Crew Dragon began development at about the same time. The Crew Dragon is already in fully operational use as of 6 months ago, while the Oryol is still in the mockup stage. There's other little tidb
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So what. The Boeing Starliner capsule is not ready yet either.
The Russians have Soyuz so they are in no rush to make a different capsule. Which will require a launcher which isn't even operational yet.
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We could also talk about the US equivalent to the Oryol, the Lockheed Martin Orion capsule but that wouldn't look pretty either.
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Russia needs an Elon (Score:2)
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What is notable, however, is that a major Russian media outlet has published such a revelatory article for a domestic audience.
It's not notable, it just means that someone somewhere needs money for something, and this is a way of triggering the transfer of Russian state funds into a private pocket under the guise of fixing up the space program. Last I heard Putin's Palace still needs a lot of remediation work [bbc.com], maybe it's that?
Not as much wealth as you think (Score:2)
Re: Not as much wealth as you think (Score:2)
This is nonsense. Another idiot who never heard about purchasing power adjusted GDP. Please refrain from commenting next time on issues related to economics.
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Fine, Russia's economy is almost as big as Germany's.
If we really want to dig into this specific issue, we should really be calculating PPP based on the basket of goods needed to run a space program, and probably look at the cost of imports required (if any) by Russia for the space program and the exports Russia has available to pay for them.
I assume they won't be able to do a repeat of the Holodomor that Stalin used to pay for the machine tools needed for industrialization in the 1930s, so if they don'
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Fine, Russia's economy is almost as big as Germany's.
Whoop dee do. California's economy is larger than Russia's.
Yep, one state in the US has a larger economy than all f Russia- all of it.
So, what was your point again?
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Well if you go by GDP, California, Texas, New York, and Florida each have larger economies than Russia.
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Well if you go by GDP, California, Texas, New York, and Florida each have larger economies than Russia.
Russia has long been known to fake everything and try to do things on the cheap because they can't afford to match the West in spending raw dollars.
For example, Chernobyl blew up because they wouldn't/couldn't spend the money to build a safer reactor (like almost every other country did). That's just one example. In general, everything they do is on the cheap, and a lot of it just doesn't pan out in the long run.
When that Russian fighter pilot defected to Japan with his MiG-25, American engineers where agha
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That's good for labor.
and Russian labor is now cheaper than chinese labor in many fields-- which shocked me.
But it's not so good for things that are sold at the world market price- like hard resources.
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And slightly bigger than Australia's, which has about 1/6th the population:
https://countryeconomy.com/cou... [countryeconomy.com]
That's an interesting site to compare countries, btw.
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From the people who brought you "The Potemkin" Village.
So where's NASA in all this? (Score:2)
I thought the Russians were NASA's partners and it's been obvious for a few years now that they've been dropping the ball (interesting that the uncommanded docked thruster firings that caused the ISS to lose attitude control wasn't mentioned).
So where's NASA's Inspector General on this and what is their plan to mitigate missed commitments by the Russians?
I would think NASA should be having daily calls to Gwen Shotwell about increasing ISS support capacity - SpaceX seems to be NASA's only reliable partne
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Correction (Score:3)
This article was written by the late Dmitry Popov.
I kid, I kid...
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Dmitry Popov? Is mistake. Is no Dmitry Popov.
Forgive an old space fan...but (Score:2)
" 'That is, the West can stop Russian space launches with a single keystroke,' " Popov wrote.
This should be good. Having spent decades gutting NASA (both parties), the Free World (New Year's Eve Sound Effects Here) can now offer as a replacement Bezos' dick-shaped spacecraft capable of grunting its way into low Earth orbit or Musk's similarly craptacular monument to what NASA did in the early 60's.
Yay!
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" 'That is, the West can stop Russian space launches with a single keystroke,' " Popov wrote.
This should be good. Having spent decades gutting NASA (both parties), the Free World (New Year's Eve Sound Effects Here) can now offer as a replacement Bezos' dick-shaped spacecraft capable of grunting its way into low Earth orbit or Musk's similarly craptacular monument to what NASA did in the early 60's.
Yay!
I must have missed it. Please point me to a 60's version of this: SpaceX nails triple booster landing - BBC News [youtube.com]. I MUST see it, in all of it's 60's black and white, grainy glory, preferably with Walter Cronkite narrating.
No? Yeah, didn't think so.
Re: Forgive an old space fan...but (Score:2)
That triple booster landing is like art. Of all the engineering feats of the last few years, this is probably the coolest. Can't wait to see the rest of SpaceX's progress over my lifetime, even if targets musk sets are often overly aggressive.
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They went to the Moon in the 60's, fucktard. Show me again where they've managed to get past LEO.
Please point me to the 2000's version of a manned expedition past the decades old space station. I'll wait.
Fucking idiot.
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They went to the Moon in the 60's, fucktard. Show me again where they've managed to get past LEO.
Please point me to the 2000's version of a manned expedition past the decades old space station. I'll wait.
Fucking idiot.
You'll wait. Wanna bet on how long? :D My bet is about 5 more years, and again at 1/100 of the cost of Apollo program :D
:D
:DDDD
You socialists were so fond of saying "wake me up when private sector can put man in orbit". Well, wake up darling, rise and shine, and remember to go on to clutch dearly to the last holdout of big govt "achievements", the moon landing. You got 5 years, make the most out of it
And then the race to Mars is on, wanna place any bets on big govt side and against Musk?
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So in other words, you've got nothing. Like what you have in the place occupied by a brain in the heads of human beings. Fucking moron.
Here is why (Score:5, Interesting)
SpaceX can do this with their rocket engines: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/s... [twitter.com]
All space agencies are fucked. How are they going to compete with that?
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SpaceX can do this with their rocket engines: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/s... [twitter.com]
All space agencies are fucked. How are they going to compete with that?
As usual, the way all government enterprises "compete" with private sector: by suckling on the taxpayer's teat until it becomes sore from chafing. And then some more. And pushing through legislation designed to cripple the private sector in the meantime.
Meanwhile in reality (Score:3)
Meanwhile in reality NASA is playing very well with SpaceX.
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Meanwhile in reality NASA is playing very well with SpaceX.
Yeah, could be worse I guess. Though the suckling is still happening.
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Oh look another mindless, reactionary, reflexively "gubbmint si teh evul" buffoon.
SpaceX wouldn't be doing this if the government didn't lay the ground work. No private company is going to pour money into a sector which takes 60 years to mature. Various governments did, now the sector is mature and private companies can take up the mantle doing much shorter term, much less risky work.
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Oh look another mindless, reactionary, reflexively "gubbmint si teh evul" buffoon.
SpaceX wouldn't be doing this if the government didn't lay the ground work. No private company is going to pour money into a sector which takes 60 years to mature. Various governments did, now the sector is mature and private companies can take up the mantle doing much shorter term, much less risky work.
I'm not talking about the past, because you know very well that the funding was in place only because of the arms race, and NASA stopped making significant progress once the Cold War stopped. Didn't stop the teat suckling though.
No, please tell me, on this day, why does the SLS even *exist*? If "gubbmint si teh best ting evuh" there must be a perfectly good reason that does not involve the word "pork".
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Have you not seen the launch videos of, e.g., the Space Shuttle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgT9-oMXgCU) that shows directional control on the main engines? It's awesome. And built many decades ago. SpaceX is doing some very cool things, but they are far from the first at being able to steer powerful rocket engines.
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Because government priorities and commercial priorities don't always line up. SpaceX is about the only company able to go to the ISS, for example. You can't get Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin, because those companies are far more interested in space tourism than anything else. Sure, maybe eventually they'll do proper space launches and retrievals, but that's not in the cards yet, and if SpaceX wasn't there, NASA would be buying Soyuz rid
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SpaceX can do this with their rocket engines: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/s... [twitter.com]
All space agencies are fucked. How are they going to compete with that?
NASA should not be competing with commercial space. NASA should be pioneering the hard stuff and then turning it over to commercial industry to run once it has been figured out. They should be pushing out into space, like the Moon, Mars, and beyond. At this point leave LEO to Elon and company.
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Blowing up satellites (Score:2)
RIP Domestic Newspaper Man (Score:2)
This is surprising? (Score:5, Informative)
Considering Putin has authorized corruption for his chosen elite, none os this should surprise anyone in the least. One can look at any large scale endeavor in Russia and find massive amounts of embezzlement and overall corruption. And this is on top of shoddy construction. Look at any small scale endeavor and you'll find the same.
Take at look at the palace Putin built for himself [bbc.com]. Massive waste, fraud, and corruption to build the place, then large portions had to be rebuilt due to design flaws and mold. But what does he care, it's not his money.
The same conditions exist in occupied Crimea [aljazeera.com]. The ones making money are his pals as they siphon every kopec from the people despite electricity only being available for less than four hours each day or their water supplies on the verge of evaporating.
That the Russian space program is beset by the same incompetence and corruption shouldn't surprise anyone. It's been going on since forever in that third world country. It's a way of life. Why would it change now?
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Russian is going the way of all dictatorships (Score:3)
The people at the top grab all the wealth for themselves while the foundations both economically and socially of the country slowly wash away through lack of investment and distrust of the leadership. Of course onces the foundations rot away enough the whole edifice collapses and brings those at the top down with it but they're all short termist sociopaths so never see it coming. I'll give russia another 20 years before it implodes if it continues the way its going.
Hopefully Putin will die before then and be replaced by someone better though russian history demonstrates it'll probably be someone from the same mold.
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Of course onces the foundations rot away enough the whole edifice collapses and brings those at the top down with it but they're all short termist sociopaths so never see it coming.
Nah, those at the top have stolen enough money most of them would make it out of the country and live quite comfortably in one of a few countries unlikely to let them be held accountable.
They know what they're doing. Their only real threat is a properly honest Russian government being elected but don't hold your breath on that one given the state of their "democracy"
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"in one of a few countries unlikely to let them be held accountable."
Sure, but they tend to be 3rd world shitholes where even your average russian wouldn't want to spend the rest of their lives. Or I guess china or north korea, but same thing.
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3rd world shitholes like Florida, where they all own property? The US will never extradite them back to Russia after they bail.
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Man, if you're a billionaire it doesn't matter what country you're in you'll still be on another planet relative to the rest of us.
Living in a third world "shit hole" with a billion dollars would not at all be a bad experience. With the low cost of labor one could easily afford an army of servants and security. Furthermore anything unavailable in said country could be imported nowadays. Maybe it would cost rediculouse sums to do so but if you have a billion dollars that doesn't matter.
Billionaires effective
RIP, mr Popov (Score:5, Informative)
Russia has just passed a law that makes it illegal to talk about problems in the Russian space program [themoscowtimes.com]
the banned information includes problems that 'hinder the development' of Roscosmos; its target programs, funding and deadlines; as well as data on the technical condition and readiness of cosmodromes and other space facilities.
Russia's space sector has been mired in corruption in recent years, including multimillion-dollar graft during the construction of the new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East, a facility that was meant to become a crowning jewel of the country's space program.
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Yeah, actually formalizing that it's illegal was necessary after people started getting bars installed on their windows so that defenestration was impossible.
More than just the verniers (Score:5, Informative)
The issue is that vernier thrusters on the Soyuz boosters and in the de-orbit engines of the Soyuz-MS spacecraft use a special grade of highly refined hydrogen peroxide.
It's much more than just the verniers. The whole RD-107A/108A engine block uses a hydrogen peroxide gas generator to pump all the propellants (unlike western engines, which use a fraction of the rocket fuel and oxidizer in the generator). Without hydrogen peroxide, none of the Soyuz booster engines would even start.
You're not an empire anymore (Score:2)
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Probably not, that was 30 years ago.
Not surprising (Score:2)
The U.S.S.R. was a global superpower.
Russia is just some shithole country.
This is not surprising. Corruption is what keeps most world economies in the shitter.
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My crystal ball just called (Score:2)
It said in a few weeks the head of the Russian space program will resign from his post due to health issues.
A solution (Score:2)
If they're suffering from problems, they should solve them.
For the corruption, maybe institute an actual justice system that punishes actual corrupt people, taking bribes, or using extortion. Rather than just jailing political opponents.
For the sanctions, they might consider honoring the treaty they signed to not invade or threaten Ukraine, or Crimea.
Things would be going much better for them, and their space program.
So? (Score:2)
Does Russia even need a space program for any reason other than ego? Ok, they need spy satellites, and maybe some satellite-killer weapons. The rest is just vanity. Russia is not a rich nation, and won't be until global warming creates an equable Siberia.