Antique Russia
Are We On The Brink Of Another Space Race?
Russia has a rather strange yet privileged position in modern space travel. With the American shuttle programme grinding to a halt by June, Russia will be the only nation with regular space flight capability. It’s a poetic image: the first time since the late 50s that the Russians have been alone in space. Soyuz rockets have been the workhorses of the International Space Station for some time, and they’ll be responsible for all travel to and from it until NASA finalises a successor to the Space Shuttle program. However, this is the rocket that was supposed to take Cosmonauts to the moon 45 years ago, a veritable antique of the Russian space programme.
The Soyuz-TMA-M that flies today is of course very different from the 60s Soyuz, but for much of the last 45 years, there have been old standards that have lingered in the design beyond what would be considered ‘normal’ for a spacecraft. Being confined in a Soyuz cockpit isn’t quite like Holidays to Barbados, but it’s not an unreasonable craft by any means. Whilst NASA’s new National Space Policy leaves the United States without a viable method of space transit for some time, Soyuz is a proven, efficient and cost effective way to low earth orbit.
But this Russian monopoly on space isn’t the entire picture, and the new party may be one NASA isn’t even invited to. China and India have joined the space elite in the last decade, China having already put Taitonauts into orbit. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is also concerned that the Russian space program is completely incapable of financing space travel without foreign collaboration. Nonetheless, Medvedev is keen to focus the occasionally vague goals of the Khrunichev research centre. Mars is a goal that Russia has been ambling towards for some time. Indeed, Russia is currently conducting the Mars500 experiment, which simulates the nearly two years of confinement that any trip to the red Tropical Sky of Mars would include.
With China’s Shenzou and India’s Orbital Vehicle Programs joining the spaceflight fracas, the future of Russian spaceflight will have to be secured with craft beyond Soyuz’s scope. But perhaps the one ace up Russia’s sleeve for the meantime is the private sector, something that the other agencies have never been all that interested in. From everything to simply tourism to Weddings Abroad , you can assure your place on a Soyuz craft with fifty million dollars per head.
Old Arbat street in Moscow, Russia – June 02, 2011 (Part 1/2)