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ISS Space

Russia Unveils Model of Proposed Space Station After Leaving ISS (theguardian.com) 108

The Russian space agency has unveiled a physical model of what a planned Russian-built space station will look like, suggesting Moscow is serious about abandoning the International Space Station (ISS) and going it alone. The Guardian reports: Russia wants to reduce its dependency on western countries and forge ahead on its own, or cooperate with countries such as China and Iran, after sanctions were imposed by the west as a result of the invasion of Ukraine. Roscosmos presented a model of the space station, nicknamed "Ross" by Russian state media, on Monday at a military-industrial exhibition outside Moscow.

Roscosmos said its space station would be launched in two phases, without giving dates. For the first phase a four-module space station would start operating. That would be followed by two more modules and a service platform, it said. That would be enough, when completed, to accommodate up to four cosmonauts and scientific equipment. Roscosmos has said the station would afford Russian cosmonauts a much wider view by which to monitor Earth than their current segment. Although designs for some of the station exist, design work is still under way on other segments.

Russian state media have suggested the launch of the first stage is planned for 2025-26 and no later than 2030. Launch of the second and final stage is planned for 2030-35, they have reported. The space station, as currently conceived, would not have a permanent human presence but would be staffed twice a year for extended periods. Dmitry Rogozin, the previous head of Roscosmos and a hardliner known for his tough statements against the west, has suggested the new space station could fulfil a military purpose if necessary.

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Russia Unveils Model of Proposed Space Station After Leaving ISS

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  • LOL (Score:5, Funny)

    by Notabadguy ( 961343 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @03:13AM (#62793025)

    If their space station's military purpose holds up as well as their domestic military has, I look forward to the fireworks.

    • Space station wars in 5..4..3..2..

    • Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @03:53AM (#62793063)

      The best way to cripple Putin's ambition is to encourage Russia's best and brightest to emigrate to the West.

      We should have liberal visa policies for educated young Russians to move to the EU or America.

      Russia's brain drain is our gain.

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        This is why we need to toss the entire H-1B system and if someone is good enough that they can work in the US on a visa citing special talents, they should have permanent residency status.

        China spends a huge chunk of their GDP wooing talent, everything from their Thousand Talents program, to offering a lot of benefits to people who are worried about how Western countries are doing. The US won defectors because of stability and access to health care back during Cold War I, as well as protection of free spee

        • Re: LOL (Score:3, Insightful)

          It canâ(TM)t be the subject of debate in China and that tells you everything you need to know.

          • You can debate free speech all you like in China. You can even organize massive protests against some government action which you feel unfairly inhibits free speech or leads to undue surveillance, this happens all the time in China.

            What you can't do is protest against one party rule, or do anything to try to make yourself a threat to the national government (you can blame local government for bad implementation and call for their ouster instead), or post online about a trending controversial topic with a vi

        • by TWX ( 665546 )

          Chinese healthcare is not state-provided. They're no better off than the US is, and may well still be behind the curve if one can't pay for even emergency services.

          Chinese communism isn't set up like Soviet communism was. The state doesn't guarantee benefits or provide the sort of safety nets that the Soviets ostensibly did. The Chinese system takes that which benefits the state, and pushes the costs off on the individual.

        • You obviously havenâ(TM)t lived in China if you think itâ(TM)s crime free.
      • by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

        Russia has had brain drain since decades, mostly because it seems they completely neglected their academia...

        I'm not even sure how much brain you could drain out of that country at this point. There is absolutely no reason to believe their sciences have been spared the corruption that is evident in their military.

        • Re:LOL (Score:5, Informative)

          by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @06:18AM (#62793195)

          Russia has had brain drain since decades

          The evidence from Ukraine is that the talent drain has hurt them dearly. So we should encourage more of it.

          they completely neglected their academia...

          This is a result of the resource curse [wikipedia.org]. A "normal" country benefits from the skills and talents of its workforce. But a petrostate just needs to keep the population from interfering with the pipelines, and academia is just an annoying source of dissent.

          I'm not even sure how much brain you could drain out of that country at this point.

          There is still plenty of talent in Russia, and many young people are looking for an exit. Georgia allows visa-free entry for Russians and there is a thriving Russian-speaking tech industry in Tiblisi. Israel is also sucking in Russian talent.

          • That's about half right. Russia, being the husk of the former USSR was a fully functional empire with world-class academic institutions and excellent R&D ... thirty years ago. They never managed to keep up with the explosive pace of electronics development that we had in the west because they handicapped themselves with a substandard economic model, corruption and, of course, had the geographic disadvantages of being a vast Asian land power.

            Russia could possibly have held on to its technical talents,

          • by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

            The question is do we want 140 million unemployed people in the east with anger issues and no way out of the hole they're in?

            Granted, there's QUITE a difference between the Germans of the 1930s and today's Russians... but still... just imagine the breeding ground for hatred... And then they have nuclear weapons... one hopes they're as dysfunctional as the military but I'm not sure I want to take THAT gamble.

        • the thing is thats not actually a model of 'what it would look like on the outside', that IS the space station, full size.
      • by nucrash ( 549705 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @08:11AM (#62793367)

        Conservative policies have done similar things to the Midwest. Missouri being one of the trigger states is starting to suffer more as they can't hire teachers or techs. The situation is going to get worse instead of better. Mental Health workers are remoting in because of the lack of desire to move here.

        I am all for snagging Russia's thinking pool. We capitalized off of it before when the Soviet Union fell. We should capitalize off of it again. I just wish someone would consider what's going on here as well.

        • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @09:06AM (#62793493) Journal

          > Missouri...Mental Health workers are remoting in because of the lack of desire to move here.

          Hotline: "Mental health hot-line, how can we help?"

          Caller: "Uh, I live in Missouri."

          Hotline: "Oh dear. That's a tough one. Let me get you our top therapist..."

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by jellomizer ( 103300 )

          I think around the Election of George W Bush, The conservative parts of the country started to reject intellectuals and made it a political stance.

          I use be a conservative person, and I kinda wanted to work in a quite midwest area, however I valued education, and the idea that rational thought mixed with education as well my normal intuition can help make lives better. These area who have pushed an Anti-intellectual stance, in general caused my life to change directions as I don't want to live my life figh

        • by Coren22 ( 1625475 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @11:42AM (#62793871) Journal

          Conservative policies have done similar things to the Midwest. Missouri being one of the trigger states is starting to suffer more as they can't hire teachers or techs.

          That is a nationwide issue right now, I live in Maryland, and it is just as much happening here. The counties are running advertising campaigns at Ocean City begging people to apply as teachers.

          Maryland generally swings blue in the elections, though we do have a Republican on paper as our Gov, he is very..."moderate".

          • For reference:

            https://www.wmar2news.com/news... [wmar2news.com]

          • There are many reasons that being a teacher is a lousy job. Teachers are not treated like professionals by the administration and they aren't treated with respect by students. They don't have the type of autonomy that educated white collar workers usually have. I know many people who wanted to teach for the opportunity to have a positive impact on the world. A year later, they decided that their degrees could be put to better purpose. I am very fortunate that my teachers were, for the most part, wonder
        • by Bradac_55 ( 729235 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @11:42AM (#62793873) Journal

          Are you stupid? Missouri mints more teachers out of the MU college system than any other program including nursing to the point they have to leave to find work. The only problem with the MO teaching unions is that there are so many paper qualified teachers that they can roll them over so fast tenure is never reached.

          As a Design Network Eng for T-Mobile (Sprint) I can tell you there is no lack of STEM talent in the state but then a help-desk tech would probably not understand the difference.

      • by ddtmm ( 549094 )
        I think that's the last thing you want to do. Half of them will still be working for the Russians.
        • Half of them will still be working for the Russians.

          Millions of Russians have emigrated, and there is little evidence they have any loyalty to Putin's regime.

          Putin runs a kleptocracy. There is no ideology or vision for the future to inspire loyalty.

          Once Russians emigrate, they focus on building a new life in their new home.

      • by Syberz ( 1170343 )
        This has already started, with Russia's forced military service, many bright young men are immigrating to other countries to work and study in order to avoid having to join the military. Hiring Russians has become more complicated and time consuming of late however due to the sanctions, some relaxing of the rules should indeed be made.
      • Those with advanced degrees that openly renounce Putin and Russia's wars of conquest? Perhaps, in limited numbers. Tourist visas to the EU? Hell no, stop that and revoke all existing tourist visas.
      • Theyre mostly already gone and there’s no upcoming generation of scientists/engineers/lawyers/academics/intellectuals to replace them. Theres been a lot of analysis of this. But it wont stop Putin. It actually makes his life easier in the short term.

        Long term, the country is f^%$ed but Putin doesnt give a rats ass about that.
    • If their space station's military purpose holds up as well as their domestic military has, I look forward to the fireworks.

      Yes, the fireworks [twitter.com] are pretty [twitter.com] this morning in Crimea

    • Let's hope no one drops a cigarette somewhere...
    • USA has the bigger body count in space, comrade

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @03:16AM (#62793027)

    Derek Zoolander: [Looking at model [youtube.com] of Russian-built space station in TFA.]

    What is this? A space station for ants?
    How can they be expected to study space science... if they can't even fit inside the space station?
    I don't wanna hear your excuses! The station has to be at least three times bigger than this!

    He's absolutely right you know.

  • by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @03:24AM (#62793033)

    Anyone can cobble a model together with some plastic cups, toothpicks, paint, and glue. You’re telling me they couldn’t even pull together a quick visualization in the weeks since they announced this plan? If a physical model is the standard for them showing they’re “serious”, I’d say the bar has been lowered.

    I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if some model hobbyist comes out of the woodwork in the comments here to tell us which model kits those pieces were pulled from.

  • If it's in space instead of on the moon, or at least in orbit of the moon, they failed.

    • Why?

      Thats just assuming that someone else is failing because they havent done the same thing as you - regardless of their goals, if they arent competing with you on your basis then they are failing?

      If you want to make fun of Russia, its easy enough because this space station wont happen at all, its the equivalent of a petulant child moving out to live in the play house in the neighbours garden before they find that food and water and toilets and all the other luxuries dont happen for free.

      • its the equivalent of a petulant child moving out to live in the play house in the neighbours garden

        ...where the child intends to start continuous bombardment of the main house until they've murdered everyone as a show of their dismay at their parents behavior.

  • Yeah, they could drop it on someone, if Ukrainian farmers don't get to it first.

  • Upstage them by getting everybody who's anybody together to create a more advanced rotating wheel space station.
    • Okay but just to be clear, it needs hookers and blackjack... for uhm, "tourism".

    • Upstage them by getting everybody who's anybody together to create a more advanced rotating wheel space station.

      Why?

      If you want gravity, you've already got it: stay on Earth. The whole purpose of going into orbit is to get microgravity.

      • Not really true. A space station can have manufacturing and be a port for spacecraft that will take us further into the solar system.

        One of the plans for going to Mars includes a space craft that would never land or enter any atmosphere. As such, all the work required for these endeavors means extended stays for crew which does terrible things to the body without gravity. Thus, even if manufacturing is in microgravity, it will be extremely beneficial to have an environment close to 1g.

        • If you want gravity, you've already got it: stay on Earth. The whole purpose of going into orbit is to get microgravity.

          Not really true. A space station can have manufacturing

          For the most part, the only reason to be manufacturing stuff in space would be because you want microgravity. If that's not important, do it on Earth.

          and be a port for spacecraft that will take us further into the solar system.

          Well, that's possible. But to date, that hasn't been the use of space stations; all missions so far beyond the Earth don't stop at a space station first.

          One of the plans for going to Mars includes a space craft that would never land or enter any atmosphere. ...

          The logistics of using a space station as an intermediate destination are a bit tricky. It turns out to be harder to stop in Low Earth Orbit when you're arriving from Mars than it is to go all the way back to

  • Ah finally real Russian space station. No Americans drilling holes in Russian modules to sabotage. Putin make Russia great again!
  • Is it that hard to spin part of it for artificial gravity? I'm sure the crew would appreciate slowing down the loss of muscle mass and all the other effects of prolonged time in microgravity. You could have people up longer, so there wouldn't have to be as many crew exchanges.

    The engineering challenges must be greater than old science fiction led us to believe.

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      It's not hard. It's expensive.

      Making a space station with artificial gravity is roughly equivalent to suspending it in the equivalent gravity field. If you want 1 g, it's like hanging the thing from a bridge. Not that hard, but the structure has to be a lot stronger, which makes it heavier, which is expensive to launch.

      There's also the issue that if you don't want people puking all the time it has to be a certain size, which again makes it more expensive to launch.

      Something like the London Eye would probabl

      • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

        The first one doesn't have to be 1G. Just 1/3 or even 1/6 would be useful. This is nothing but another tin can floating around in space. In other words a step backwards, and a waste of resources. We are not going to do anything serous in space just floating around in a null g.

        • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Lighter gravity is easier, but has the same problems. FYI, London Eye size would likely be less than 1 g.

          Developing orbital infrastructure, including construction, is essential to making further progress.

  • Now, where have I heard that name before?
  • ....models are pretty damned cheap.

    AFAIK, their entire space program is/was funded by lofting *western* scientists, supplies, and satellites into orbit.

    I'll believe it when I see it.

  • it's not a true model of a russian space station unless there's a model of a ukranian tractor pulling it along

  • Raise your hand if you don't have an armed space station.
  • ... it will be written across the sky in fire.
  • It's not practical to conduct acts of aggression against the ISS if you're actually present there yourself.

  • All made in Taiwan!
  • Russia isn't launching a new space station anytime soon and probably never will again.

    They simply don't have anywhere near the capabilities they used to have. The most recent example is that they very recently launched Iran's "Khayyam" spy satellite and then announced that they were going to borrow it for a while. With a resolution of 1.2 meters or less, it's not even that great of a spy satellite and doesn't come close to what some commercial providers have. But, Russia needed it because they don't a
    • USA was using Russia for space taxi and space delivery truck for 17 years... guess USA didn't have anywhere used to the capabilities they used to have D

      • by cstacy ( 534252 )

        USA was using Russia for space taxi and space delivery truck for 17 years... guess USA didn't have anywhere used to the capabilities they used to have
        D

        Exactly true. For the last 20 years, the USA has been re-developig their Space capabilities. Both in the private sector and the government. So we're in great shape, and no longer need Russia for anything.

        Meanwhile during that time, and especially the last 10 years, Russia has been focusing on kleptocracy, repressing their people, and international aggrssion such as invading Ukraine. Their economy is in tatters and they are pariahs.

        Spae-wise, they've lost whatever they had 20 years ago, and also made it near

        • haha, virtue signalling and minting social coin is all you're trying to do.

          Yet even thought Russia bad their rocket industry is still around, huge and kicking, has military applications after all and Russia does spend on military applications!

  • Ahh.. Oh well....

    Is Potato!

  • ... could fulfill a military purpose ...

    Space-stations are undefended, high-maintenance machines: It is not a good place to store or launch, offensive or defensive weapons. But this will be the start of a new cold war.

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