Posted on 01/21/2004 5:52:36 PM PST by ambrose
Russian Firms Eager to Join Mars Race
By Sergei Blagov
CNSNews.com Correspondent
January 21, 2004
Moscow (CNSNews.com) - President Bush's plan to send men to the moon and Mars and has been welcomed by Russian space executives and scientists, who see an opening to join the ambitious projects.
The Kremlin, however, is restraining the high hopes of Russian experts over the U.S. space plans.
A program to explore Mars by Russia is "technically feasible" but has yet to be planned, deputy Prime Minister Boris Alyoshin journalists in Moscow on Wednesday.
"This is not a question of technologies, the real issue is rational use of available resources," he said.
Russia hasn't ruled out further cooperation with the U.S. in space exploration programs, Alyoshin said.
"If the U.S. makes offers, we discuss them," he said.
However, he made it clear that Russia did not plan working on or funding programs to send men to the moon or Mars or other planets in the near future. Alyoshin also ruled out any plans to build a new Russian space station and hailed ongoing cooperation between NASA and Russia on the International Space Station (ISS).
Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft are currently supplying the ISS and transporting crews to the station, following the demise of space shuttle Columbia, which broke up over Texas during re-entry last February. In 2004, Russia plans to launch two Soyuz and five Progress spacecraft to the ISS.
Yet despite the government's discouraging statements, Russian researchers are pledging to prepare for missions to Mars anyway.
On Jan. 21, Russia's Institute of Medical and Biological Problems announced a launch of an experiment to imitate a flight to Mars. Six people are due to live in a spacecraft-like facility for 500 days, during which they will have three tons of water and five tons of food.
"The experiment will start no later than in 2005," the Institute's spokesman Mark Belakovsky said.
As President Bush called for a new mission to the moon in 2015 as a step for manned missions to Mars and beyond, Russian research centers voiced hopes to sell Russian know-how to build future U.S. spacecraft.
Russians have claimed they could quickly develop spacecraft for future interplanetary missions for a fraction of projected U.S. costs. Russia's RKK Energia, which builds Progress and Soyuz spacecraft, claimed it had designed a new spacecraft that could carry a crew to Mars within a decade at a cost of $15 billion.
Russia must join international projects to explore Mars and the moon, RKK Energia deputy head Vyacheslav Filin said, adding that Energia has a lot of built-up know-how.
Moreover, NPO Lavochkin, which built the Soviet Lunokhod remotely controlled rover that traveled across the moon in early 1970s, claims it could build its successor in three years at a price of one "space tourist" ticket, some $20 million.
Earlier this month, NPO Lavochkin announced that it designed a new system of "planetary protection" called "Citadel."
The would-be orbital system armed with nuclear weapons is designed to destroy or divert asteroids and comets threatening to collide with the earth. NPO Lavochkin concedes that the project exists only on paper so far, but it warns that some 400 asteroids and 30 comets may threaten the earth in the coming years.
NPO Lavochkin has a record of futuristic designs. In early 1950s, it designed Burya (Tempest), an intercontinental cruise missile. In canceling Burya in 1960, the Kremlin did give up a technology that could have evolved into a shuttle-like recoverable launch vehicle. Subsequently, one of NPO Lavochkin's designers worked on surface-to-air missiles.
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LOL! . . . Yeah, right. Remember the shrug and the look Don Corleone gave Sollozzo when the latter proposed that the Godfather pony up most of the money, the political connections, the protection, the judges, etc., for a mere pittance of the proceeds? LOL. It was priceless. That's what Dubya should do to Putin over this hare-brained scheme.
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