Russia Announces It Will Create Core of New Space Station By 2030 (reuters.com) 99
"Despite its domestic space program faltering even before sanctions due to its invasion of Ukraine, and at least one very public failure on a less ambitious project, Russia has announced it will begin construction of a Russian-only replacement for the ISS and place it in a more difficult-to-access polar orbit," writes longtime Slashdot reader Baron_Yam. "Russia is motivated by military and political demands to achieve this, but whether it has the means or not seems uncertain at best." Reuters reports: Russia is aiming to create the four-module core of its planned new orbital space station by 2030, its Roscosmos space agency said on Tuesday. The head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, signed off on the timetable with the directors of 19 enterprises involved in creating the new station. The agency confirmed plans to launch an initial scientific and energy module in 2027. It said three more modules would be added by 2030 and a further two between 2031 and 2033. [...]
Apart from the design and manufacture of the modules, Roscomos said the schedule approved by Borisov includes flight-testing a new-generation crewed spacecraft and building rockets and ground-based infrastructure. The new station will enable Russia to "solve problems of scientific and technological development, national economy and national security that are not available on the Russian segment of the ISS due to technological limitations and the terms of international agreements," it said.
Apart from the design and manufacture of the modules, Roscomos said the schedule approved by Borisov includes flight-testing a new-generation crewed spacecraft and building rockets and ground-based infrastructure. The new station will enable Russia to "solve problems of scientific and technological development, national economy and national security that are not available on the Russian segment of the ISS due to technological limitations and the terms of international agreements," it said.
Use the ISS (Score:2)
Re:Use the ISS (Score:5, Interesting)
Because this has nothing to do with space stations. Russia is pretending sanctions haven't had a serious hit to their economy while at the same time seizing assets to continue to pay for their war effort. This is a hollow announcement pretending they have spare money.
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"Everything is normal, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
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I don't think sanctions have had the expected effects.
For whom. I think you had different expectations of what sanctions were going to do than the people who put them in place. For the record BRICS predates the war in Ukraine, as does the move for using an alternate trade currency than the USD. Incidentally the biggest sanctions came not from the USA but from the EU so the move away from USD as a trade reserve isn't just not new, it doesn't make a lot of sense either.
As to what effects have been had, the USSR is back. That is to say their monetary policies of
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The Russian section of the ISS, the only part they can lay claim to, is the part that's in the worst condition. I can't see NASA or the other international partners letting the Russians have the rest of it, and given the operating costs of the ISS, $3 billion/year, the Russians frankly couldn't afford to operate it even if they were given it, that's like their entire space budget.
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The original plan was in fact in decoupling Russian part from ISS, and Russian part was designed from ground up to be independent of the rest of the station.
But the issue is that it's indeed really worn out. Maintaining it as an independent station would be extremely costly.
The real question is "are they ready to join the Chinese space station instead?" Because economy-wise, Russian space program is likely pivoting towards better ISR rather than civilian uses like the space station. Ukraine war demonstrated
Re:Use the ISS (Score:5, Interesting)
If that's the real question, the answer no, is they cannot do it practically. There's no way for Russian vehicles launched from any of the current Russian launch sites to reach the chinese space station due to the more southern inclination of the Chinese space station. The only way they could join the Chinese space station would be to have China launch all the russian modules for them with their own rockets, and also have China launch Russian cosmonauts.
The whole reason the ISS is in the orbit it is in is so that Russian rockets can reach it. If it was just an American space station, it would have been launched into a more southern inclination not unlike the chinese space station. Unless the forthcoming private American space stations are purposely placed in an orbit that the Russians can reach, these too will be out of reach to the Russians in the future.
I guess one possibility is for China to allow the Russians to launch Russian rockets from Chinese soil. But given that Russia is pulling out of the Kazakhstan Star City launch facility mainly because it is in a different country, I can't see them wanting to pay China for the privilege.
Given the reality of Putin's Russia, this whole thing is rather moot in my opinion.
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China has notions on the kazak facility so they can stop dropping rocket parts on villages, so that may be the connection.
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That's our propaganda. In real life, they already have a space station in orbit, they run interplanetary lander program, etc. You never hear about it in Western mainstream because NASA was forced to cut cooperation with them by law. Which also disconnected Roscosmos from Chinese as well because you couldn't cooperate with both NASA and Chinese at the same time, and Russians co-run ISS with NASA so they couldn't cooperate with Chinese on any significant level.
The "rocket falls on village" is a side effect of
Re:Use the ISS (Score:5, Interesting)
The "rocket falls on village" thing is (A) not remotely propaganda, and (B) has nothing to do with "rapidity" and instead everything to do with Cold War-era launch siting decisions . The Chinese government was afraid that their coasts were too vulnerable and so went for (deeply suboptimal) inland launch sites. They're moving more southward and coastward now with new launch sites, but the old launch sites remain and continue to be actively used.
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Intentional misunderstanding, as expected. I clearly stated that
>The "rocket falls on village" is a side effect of rapidity of that space program.
Which makes your statement of
>The "rocket falls on village" thing is (A) not remotely propaganda
A bold faced lie by omission.
Propaganda is the part that Chinese need Baikonur
>China has notions on the kazak facility
When they obviously do not, as not only are they quite well ahead, but they also have much better launch sites already. You may notice that Bai
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You're free to be wrong on the internet if you choose.
The existing launch sites can't just spontaneously relocate themselves. Regardless of how "rapidly" you want to go or not. The siting is a Cold War relic. End of story.
Assembling T-72 turrets (Score:5, Funny)
The new russian space station will be made exclusively of an assembly of multiple T-72 turrets
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Do they have any left in usable condition?
Re:Assembling T-72 turrets (Score:5, Funny)
Most of them are already in orbit...
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The ones I see flying don't look very serviceable to me, but then it is the ruzzian space station. It probably doesn't need much in terms of comfort.
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Do they have any left in usable condition?
Yes, for large definitions of usable. Based on satellite imagery, Russia may have around 3,000 tanks still in open air storage [newsweek.com]. How many of those can be repaired and refurbished is the question. It appears that rather than try to refurbish/repair the various T-72s sitting around and rusting, Russia is instead going with the older T-62 and T-55 models because they don't have the complicated auto-loader [forbes.com] the T-72s do.
After all, when you don't care about how many troops you lose to gain a meter of ground, wh
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The T72s are definitely better tanks than the T62 and 55. I think the general opinion is that the T72s are harder to restore due to being more complex to the point where T55s are a better bet. Anything can be restored with enough effort, but given limited industrial capacity (never mind trained tankers), if restored T55s are a better option than T72s then the T72s must be in pretty bad shape.
This is why they're sending troops in motorbikes and golf carts.
Re:Assembling T-72 turrets (Score:4, Interesting)
There's also the fact that for any given tank type, there's widely varying conditions, and you - as a general rule (except for hauling tanks out to cannibalize for parts) go down the inventory in order from "least effort to restore" to "most effort to restore".
Most of the T-72s that are left are rust buckets. It's unclear how many of them will ever be worth restoring. By contrast, a higher percentage of the older tanks are in semi-decent condition and require less restoration effort, simply by virtue that the older inventory hasn't been drained as much. But that has its limits too. It's hard to imagine that Soviet inventories will contribute much from next year onward - and current losses are far higher than production.
Russia is making up for the dwindling numbers of armoured vehicles by sending solders into battle on Chinese-made motorcycles and ATVs (derisively referred to as "golf carts"). They're not militarily ineffective - they're certainly mobile - but the losses appear to be pretty terrible. An artillery shell can take out unprotected infantry even ~50m away, and cluster munitions take out infantry across a whole grid square. There's a reason why modern armies around the world don't just issue their soldiers motorcycles - humans are quite squishy.
Russia has many advantages, but one big disadvantage is that it has to be self-sustaining, while Ukraine does not. It steadily ships out its accumulated wealth - national and private - to either be destroyed or exported for the funds to fund the war (more things to be destroyed). Its creation of new wealth - far slower than the spending of past wealth - relies on manpower, but it's seen a brain drain of higher end workers and it's been throwing lower-end workers into the meat grinder. And Ukraine keeps - slowly - getting increasingly better and more willing to target the infrastructure that Russia uses to generate its wealth. If the west doesn't back off in its support for Ukraine and Russia can't get China to fully pitch in behind it, the long-term picture doesn't look great for them. Of course, their theory of victory at present is primarily about trying to get the West to abandon support for Ukraine, and the current intense resource-draining offensives are a key part in that.
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To be clear: throwing away preaccumulated wealth doesn't necessarily mean "ripping up things and sending them out of the country"; there's many ways it can happen. For example: Russia has spent vast sums build its transportation and energy infrastructure. It can always save money and free up labour by just cutting maintenance on them, and that works fine - for a while. But bit by bit, you're slowly consuming the wealth that was invested in building that infrastructure as it slowly falls apart. You're in
Re:Assembling T-72 turrets (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes that's a good point: they've used all the good T72s. Now what's left is so bad that T55s are more worth the effort. They won't so much run out of tanks as slowly grind away down to the point that restoring the tank is as much effort as making a new one.
There's a reason why modern armies around the world don't just issue their soldiers motorcycles - humans are quite squishy.
They've attempted to make armoured warbikes. That is not going well and unlike mad max they don't even look good.
And Ukraine keeps -
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And the entire "might and power" of the West cannot supply 1/5th of the number of artillery shells that Russia does.
Whence did you come up with this gem?
The z-pederation doesn't supply a lot of new artillery shells at all. In 2022-2023 they burned through the Soviet stocks, which were immense. Since the beginning of 2024 they are burning through the stocks of North Korea. At the rate they are shooting, they'll burn through that in less than a year.
Meanwhile, they have little to show for it.
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Well they're on the verge of losing Crimea to show for it.
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Yes, they are.
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The ISS isn't in a polar orbit, and the North pole is a strategic focus for the world as global warming opens more of it to navigation and resource exploration. It's also borders Russia's North so there are military and defense advantages to a polar orbit
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No they won't. ruSSia won't exist in ten years and NO ONE will call themselves ruSSian.
Don't count them out. The new Russian space station will be using a state of the art Vodka Core for its power. It's still a state secret guarded by Putin, but the way it works is apparently they double dip. They are going to have conventional solar panels, but also directly collect and concentrate it to the Greenhouse Module. They harness the solar energy that they can get to run the Greenhouse Module, which produces plant products like potato or grain. Then they use the heat released by the exothermic fer
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You joke, but seriously, look up the history of the Tu-22, aka the "supersonic booze carrier" ;) The cooling system for the cabin ran on 40% ethanol, e.g. basically vodka. While there was some legitimate loss of coolant during operation, crews and technicians spread misinformation that the rate was extremely high due to leaks, and even planted evidence (such as drops of ethanol in the breathing air supply during inspection to give the smell of leaks) so that they could get away with stealing the coolant.
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You joke, but seriously, look up the history of the Tu-22, aka the "supersonic booze carrier" ;) The cooling system for the cabin ran on 40% ethanol, e.g. basically vodka. While there was some legitimate loss of coolant during operation, crews and technicians spread misinformation that the rate was extremely high due to leaks, and even planted evidence (such as drops of ethanol in the breathing air supply during inspection to give the smell of leaks) so that they could get away with stealing the coolant.
"Comrade Captain! Our cups runneth dry!"
"Comrade Engineer! Open the engine coolant! We must have sustenance!"
"Comrade Captain! It tastes like engine oil!"
"Ah, yes. It is true Soviet vodka!"
Polar orbits have military significance (Score:3)
Without the shared oversight that assures the peaceful use of the ISS. A Russian platform in polar orbit would be very provocative militarily. While vulnerable, itself, it could serve as a maintenance and deployment depot for co-orbiting Nukes, or directed energy weapons.
Re:Polar orbits have military significance (Score:5, Interesting)
You're thinking too grand here. This is a military strategy but not the one you think. Russia is in the midst of a financial crisis. They are actively seizing assets to pay for their war efforts. The world sees the problem, while Russia is pretending to their allies that they aren't broke by announcing big grand projects which won't happen. Or in some cases announcing cheaper smaller projects to pretend they don't care about alienation.
It was quite funny watching Russia in the Olympics... sorry I meant BRICS games since they claim they voluntarily don't want to be part of the Olympics anymore and instead hosted a "major international event". Russia won a gold medal in freestyle swimming. It was very weird watching the swimmer accept it by himself on the podium... as the only one in the event.
Right now Russia is doing its darndest to get it's image up, it's not working though.
Re: Polar orbits have military significance (Score:2)
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Don't they still get insane amounts of money from the oil gas and a few other commodities that we still pay them for?
Not so much. Most of the western world has stopped buying Russian oil and gas entirely. Europe is still buying some, but in much smaller quantities than before the war, and working towards stopping entirely. Russia is still selling a lot to China and India, but those countries are paying well below market rates, which they can do because most of the world won't buy it.
The sanctions aren't hurting Russia as much as we hoped, but they are hurting a lot.
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Don't they still get insane amounts of money from the oil gas and a few other commodities that we still pay them for?
Depends. If you look to their reported profits then yes, but those profits are propped up by seizure of JV assets that have been dissolved. Rosneft for example looks good on paper. Revenue is where it's always been. Except that it is the result of staged assumption of assets written down from bp over time. Underneath their expensive quality crude is being sold for cheap, and while their trading volumes are quite okay (not high, but not bad) they aren't making anywhere near the money they claim.
The gas world
They face a significant hurdle (Score:5, Funny)
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They have an even worse problem - payments originating there aren't accepted on aliexpress anymore.
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You pointed me to an interesting story. Apparently Russia was using the platform to sell copper and other plundered materials from Ukraine. Which...I guess shutting them down entirely is easier than policing the junk on the junk web site.
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You pointed me to an interesting story. Apparently Russia was using the platform to sell copper and other plundered materials from Ukraine.
They'd have been better off selling it to China so they can produce even more CCA. At least some of which would hopefully end up back in Russia.
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North Korea [nytimes.com] probably.
Re:They face a significant hurdle (Score:5, Interesting)
Russia has some disadvantages when it comes to space stations now. The main one is that each module has to have its own propulsion system. Instead of taking it up in a Shuttle or similar, and then using an arm (Canadarm) to attach it to the other modules, they have to be self propelled and dock themselves.
That means some of the space and mass budget is taken up by the propulsion system. Sometimes the system can be re-used to move the station itself, but it's mostly redundant after assembly.
China has the same issue, but is better placed to solve it.
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This is actually an advantage, given that there isn't any shuttle to take up modules any more. The Chinese could launch Russian designed modules to build a new space station (and with a fair bit of Chinese innovation in between, this is basically what they do), but no one at present can launch the sorts of modules that were launched on the shuttle. No current vehicle can take up such large loads and then place them where they need to be. Any space station parts launched now NEED to be able to move themselve
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China has a space plane that has flown a few missions, but it doesn't seem to have payload deployment capability. Maybe they just haven't tested that feature yet, or maybe it's more like the US one. Nobody really knows what the US one is for either.
In any case they seem to be more focused on the moon at the moment. They have a heavy lift rocket in development, Long March 9, which can put 150 tons in LEO or about 55 tones to TLI. Very similar to SLS and Starship in that respect.
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Is there any particular reason they couldn't build an arm of their own and ship that up at some point?
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Quite frankly, based on their recent ISS issues and their Moon mission, I'd say they lack the required combination of skill and resources to do the job properly.
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While true, that isn't what I'd call a "particular" problem. As in, that's a problem that will result in them being incapable of building a station in general, not just not being able to build an arm to put on it.
For any station, I think that once it reaches a certain point an arm is just practical.
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I'm probably crazy, but I think given the current state of robotics it might be worth putting four arms on an oversized RCS pack with a camera package and building a giant robot space monkey. Three limbs for grabbing a station, one for moving a payload. Put hold points on the hulls that contain induction power supplies.
I've seen some interesting stuff done with S&R robots navigating complex environments by showing their motion plans to a human for confirmation before implementation. It's faster than
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No particular reason, other than the same ones that prevent them building super heavy lift vehicles and the like. Russia doesn't have the money, and maybe not the talent.
They are also screwed by geography that makes it difficult or impossible to reach some orbits.
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Note: My orbital experience is nearly 100% Kerbal Space Program. So I know about the orbit thing. Them getting a near polar orbit is actually easier than equatorial.
Sort of like why the USA has a launchpad up in Alaska. Useful for very specific orbits.
And yes, that's a reason, but not a "particular" one. It's what is likely making their "we're going to build our own space station!" to be more vaporware.
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1) US ceases to send arms to Ukraine
that's a possibility, it's not at all clear though if trump would really follow through with that, and actually be able to.
2) Ukraine loses the territory currently occupied by Russia
that's already so, that territory is gone (unless you want a world war, and nobody except desperate hardline ukrainians wants this at this point)
3) Russia eventually takes the rest of Ukraine, or else forces a pro-Russia puppet into power
both scenarios are very unlikely. even with the probably ukranian army collapsing russia has no interest in occupying territory that's clearly hostile and deal with that occupation. at the most they would seek a discrete band of territory as bu
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That territory most definitely is not "literally gone".
Russia put all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts in its constitution as integral parts of Russia. It doesn't control all of any of them, and doesn't control most of two of them. What happened when Ukraine swept through huge chunks of the northeast (Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk) oblast in the Kharkiv offensive? Crickets. What happened when Ukraine swept through Kherson oblast, retaking Kherson, the largest city Russia had captured
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Russia put all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts in its constitution as integral parts of Russia. It doesn't control all of any of them, and doesn't control most of two of them.
it will soon, because ukraine hasn't enough population anymore to hold them. nor shells, but population is the definitive factor. even if all of euope and the us started producing shells now like mad (which they won't, they just say so) ... manpower is at least a generation away (given you have a stable country and economy, which they don't). they're nearing breaking point, current average age of ukrainian conscript is 43 years. unless you want to put nato boots on that ground and risk world war.
What happened when Ukraine swept through huge chunks of the northeast (Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk) oblast in the Kharkiv offensive? Crickets.
What happened when Ukraine swept through Kherson oblast, retaking Kherson, the largest city Russia had captured and the capitol of its oblast?
that the ru
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Ukraine is a country of tens of millions of people. There's approximately 1M in uniform, 300k on the front lines. So no.
Ukraine's shell supply is dramatically increasing. Russia ran out of its Soviet stocks and is now having to use lousy junk from North Korea. Western shell production, neglected for years before the war, is now dramatically increasing my orders of magnitude. Russia is an economy the size of Texas under
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Ukraine is a country of tens of millions of people. There's approximately 1M in uniform, 300k on the front lines. So no.
russia is about five times that. so?
Ukraine's shell supply is dramatically increasing. Russia ran out of its Soviet stocks and is now having to use lousy junk from North Korea.
a dramatic increase of 0.01 is 0.02 (warning, imaginary figures). russia has about 10 times the ordnance. and that ratio is still increasing. those shells from the us and eu can't come fast enough. that's what ukranian soldiers are reporting from the trenches too, they fire one shell for every 10 russian shells.
is now dramatically increasing my orders of magnitude.
then why are ukranian servicemen complaining about 10:1 ratio?
Yes. Because young people were deliberately excluded
that changed in 2022. drafting is 18-60. and it's not going well. if those youngsters were excluded i
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Don't be a goddamn clown.
:O)
Russia already went there in Kherson and Kharkiv before getting their asses handed to them. Claiming they have no interest when they've already done it is idiotic. They even attempted it in Kyiv with the same results.
they went to the capital first because that's where the government was which they wanted to depose. they also approached the capital from the northwest to encircle it, and cleared that area pretty quickly once that operation failed. kherson and kharkiv are cultural russian majorities, but also strategic points to control after they failed ... except they failed to hold those too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
As for their "interests" there is no need to guess:
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
broken link., but i would guess that's proof of putin neoimperial ambitions? sigh ...
NATO is by far the worlds largest military power. It is only growing in power while its traditional foe is self destructing its economy, military and future on a pointless war it can't win.
nope, t
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if Ukraine falls, you can bet China will invade Taiwan
If China was waiting on something for this, they're probably not going to wait on that. It seems like the less support the US gives Ukraine, the less China thinks we're distracted enough to do anything.
As long as China can still get a limited supply of chips from Taiwan by one means or another, they are probably going to avoid invading. Because those facilities will likely be sabotaged on a hint of an invasion.
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Speaking of those stores, where are Americans buying their parts in person (not online)?
Yeah, right (Score:3)
The same territory also claimed in 2006 that it will have a base on the Moon by 2015.
https://lenta.ru/news/2006/01/... [lenta.ru]
And at the time it had access to purchase abroad any advanced tech they might need, which they could not make "at home". That is, basically, everything.
Today - not so much.
There'll be no "core", unless a "core" means one of the Soviet transport spacecraft stuck in orbit and labelled accordingly.
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you misunderstand, the moon base was built and used until 2025 and then abandoned because mission accomplished.
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Ah, ok. It must be my Russian, I learned it when the territory was a part of the Soviet Union. So, outdated.
Lame (Score:2)
It needs to be on the moon. Earth orbit is stupid.
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Russia can't get a stolen tractor back to Russia, they definitely can't get a craft to the moon. Putin's ambition has destroyed them.
yeah right (Score:3)
Compromising (Score:1)
When you negotiate with terrorists, you've already lost. The same is true of compromising aith authoritarian regimes.
When the US had the Space Transport System (STS) AKA "The Space Shuttle" and "money was no factor" (ha!) NASA and the Soviet Union agreed to create the ISS and put in an entirely stupid and useless orbit that served no purpose other than "a camping spot in space". It was positioned at an inclination that was costly (in terms of fuel or Delta-V) to reach from Florida, but was also reachable
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The orbit the ISS is in is what it is because it's what the Russians can reach, due to their more northern launch sites. So even if they manage to build their own station now, it will have to be in a similar orbital inclination, whereas the future American private space stations will all be out of reach to the Russians at lower inclinations.
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They're not going to be launching from Kazakhstan anymore - not unless they start an even bigger war.
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All their launch sites are northern compared to China.
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And actually Russia's main launch site at Vostochny Cosmodrome is even farther north than the one in Kazakhstan was. So that definitely precludes any visits to the Chinese space station.
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1. ISS will be deorbitted. It could easily be shot into space, but no.
That raises a lot of questions. How high is the new orbit you are suggesting? How much delta-V to achieve this? What is the gain from doing this? Are we expensively kicking the can down the road to preserve obsolete and hard-to-maintain hardware?
For no good reason the US will spend nearly a billion dollars to have it come burn in our atmosphere.
For a good reason, if you think about the alternatives and how much they cost.
Scott Manley on space station futures [youtu.be]
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Re:Compromisingh (Score:2)
Yeah... But delta-v gets quickly blunted by mass, which the ISS happens to have a lot of.
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Who knows, but ... (Score:2)
... some of the lame /. comments are funny.
Clearly, by any measure, sanctions against Russia have not worked quite as well as hoped. "They have so, you poopy head!" isn't an argument.
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Russia 19, China 66, US 109
2022
Russia 22, China 64, US 84
2021...
Russia 24, China 53, US 48
2020...
Russia 17, China 35, US 40
2019...
Russia 25, China 32, US 27
The US had more successful launches last year than Russia has had in the past 5. China is also steadily doing better and better. Your right, it wasn't the sanctions. Roscosmos was a shadow of it's former self well before those.
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The entire US empire is apparently administered by people who aren't capable of any higher level of reasoning than that.
Meanwhile the world is rapidly noticing that everything that administrative class touches is broken and dysfunctional and they just keep insisting harder that everything is fine.
Reuters is slipping (Score:3)
I know that journalism and spell check / grammar check haven't gotten along for a while, but Reuters sells news to other newspapers. Misspelling Roscosmos as "Roscomos" is pretty bad and should have been really easy to catch.
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Russia had to sell consonants for war cash.
The only winning strategy Russia knows (Score:2)
That’s particularly difficult in space.
Color me skeptical.
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Don't worry. They recently announced another new leader for their overall war effort - Major General Webelo Zapp Brannigan!
Deluded losers. (Score:2)
National security? (Score:2)
Ignoring the obvious deficiencies in the current Russian economy which render any such plans highly unlikely to ever come to fruition... this bit seems interesting:
The new station will enable Russia to "solve problems of ... national security that are not available on the Russian segment of the ISS due to ... the terms of international agreements" ...
That sounds to me an awful lot like Russia is planning to abandon all pretense of treaty compliance [armscontrol.org], and install a space-based weapons platform on their station.
With what money? (Score:2)
Russia will build our own space station! (Score:2)
With blackjack and hookers! In fact forget the space station.
Wait, what? (Score:2)
Russia still wants to cosplay as a superpower? Going to be tough to pay the bills for that vanity project while also paying reparations.