Thinking of how the Ukraine war has left Russia WRT to the rest of Europe and the West vs what could have been. I wonder what will be written in retrospective by the space oligarchs that survive Putin? I suppose there will be hardware and moon-rides to be had from China?
Most probably not. The PRC has excruciating problems of its own and it’s far from clear if its space ambitions will advance much further than Russia’s by decade’s end – or whether there will even still be a PRC at all. Not the least of these problems was choosing to buddy up to the Russians in the first place. Covert assistance to Russia’s war on Ukraine has already earned Western sanctions for a couple dozen PRC tech companies and more are likely to be added to the list.
With the Russians looking decreasingly able to provide any consequential help to PRC lunar ambitions, any Russians riding aspirational PRC Moon rockets – should any such eventuate – will be late to that party and be charged full retail fare.
The head of the rocket forces is among the disappeared.
There was no need for them to be our enemy. Our foreign policy people failed. But what of the future?
I don’t think Russia cam compete on launch but would we let them have access to space? If so, they can still have a bright future doing things in space.
Even with their current launch vehicles, they can out compete everyone by SpaceX and India (I guess an Indian rocket scientist is even cheaper than a Russian one). The problem is wholly political. And the upgraded Soyuz-2 could be made semi reusable (the 0110 steering engines could land the boosters and core on pads down range). Interestingly, the KVTK trans stage would fit on top of a Soyuz-2 using the existing Fregat-M family of mountings. The end result would be an 18 metric ton LV that could put Oryol in a polar orbit from the existing Soyuz pad at Vostochny (and the Plesetsk pads too, though aborting a crew into the Arctic Ocean might be pointless).
The best way for a journalist to declare themself full of shit is to deploy the phrase “Potemkin Village.” That said, the recent change in future Tiangong plans says Russia’s not going to buy back the ground spares. The hardware for the ROSS already exists, much of the delay because of the need to convert NEM-1 to do the duty of a DOS (of which no more exist, the Chinese ground spare is the last one). NEM-2, UM-2 and the Gateway Airlock already exist/ The Soyuz factories continue to produce spacecraft and rockets (despite assertions that every launch is the last). RD-193 is in production, so the Soyuz 2,1 re-engine program is under weigh (ultimately adding 3-4 metric tons to what 2.1b can lift). Angara is in production. Soyuz-5 would be nice but is unnecessary. Yep! Potemkin! I’m sure of it!
A close second is “poking the bear.”
Both are hackneyed cliches.
How about joining me in poking the Potemkin Bear?
But first, how fast are you at running 50 yards?
Faster than you!
Good answer….
I can think of at least 50 more conclusive ways for a “journalist” to make that declaration. “Potemkin Village” is a cliche for the same reason most other cliches exist – they are short names of things that recur often enough to be worth conveniently labeling.
That said, the Russian space program is no longer even really a Potemkin Village. There are, to be sure, some mockups and dusty vintage hardware bits left that could be arranged along a convenient riverbank were Putin to float by in the wake of Catherine the Great. But these days Russia’s unachievable space ambitions mostly take the form of PowerPoint and CGI files – rather as if Potemkin had commissioned a painter to render a village on canvas rather than carpenters to run up some stage flats.
I find myself wondering just how much boobularity *is* actually necessary. No one can possibly be this stupid, which one would have to be in order to think one could be taken seriously (or even to think that even the dumbest person imaginable would be fooled). On the other hand, watching contemporary politics, maybe I’m wrong about all that…
“Boobularity”. Turns out that word does not mean what I thought it meant.
Drats.
Funny how words change meaning, innit? When I was a kid the boob tube was TV. Now it’s an article of clothing. Now I think the children of the Boomers should be called the Boobies…
“During the discussion, Borisov added that Russia is also hard at work on the “Sfera” megaconstellation to satisfy the country’s large demand for communications.”
Starlink?
Will Musk allow Russia to have starlink?
Russia has a lot isolated rural area.
But Musk seems to be having enough political problems, probably best to ignore Russia, and not even do what he is doing with Iran.
The Russians turned down potential use of both Starlink and OneWeb well before their most recent invasion of Ukraine. Like the PRC, the Russians want no truck with LEO broadband that cannot be censored.
Despite Muskhater honkings to the contrary, the LEO constellation sats are neither difficult nor expensive to build (especially if you don’t need laser links to support stock exchanges). And Russia does have what is arguably the world’s cheapest expendable launch vehicle on a per launch basis. I don’t know how soon RD-193 will be deployed. I guess when we see on swapped onto a 2.1v for testing we’ll know. A re-engined 2.1b is a 12 tons to LEO rocket, with long range potention for 16 tons.
Meanwhile, back in a universe *not* dominated by expressions of Neocon spooge, I do wonder what made the Chinese Tiangong expansion go from Plan B (telescope service module) back to Plan A (ground spares to orbit)? Sooner or later the explanation will leak out. My guess is the Russians can’t fabricate two service modules by 2028.
What?!?!?!? The Russians can’t fabricate two service modules by 2028?!?!?! I thought the Russians can do anything, that they are the masters of everything space – certainly more so than the evil Musk – and that they certainly beat everyone else on Earth to the Moon, Mars, and, well the rest of the Solar system, along with Alpha Centauri, and Andromeda, with the cheapest launch vehicles ever conceived, and…and…and…
It turns out Souyiz 2.1 is cheaper than LVM3, with twice the payload of PSLV. So maybe Russian rocket scientists are cheaper? I started to say, name one rocket as cheap as Soyuz 2.1 with a comparable payload, not made by SpaceX. Then I realized “as cheap as” didn’t matter. Just name another rocket in that class not made by SpaceX or India. Then I remembered, all those rockets are called Long March.
Absent SpaceX, the US has zero medium or larger rockets in production. (I’ll count Rocket Lab when I see Neutron). Atlas V? Leftover Russian engines, so not in production? SLS? Museum piece engines, and maybe when they’ve flown more than one. ESA zero. Japan? Not yet.
People love to poop on the Russian space program. But absent SpaceX, it’s a fuck of a lot more than the US has. And there’s an awful lot of Muskhaters trying to kill SpaceX.
Long below the fold, but some news. It turns out the story about the doubling of Tiangong is probably false, just some so-called journalist reacting to the display of an obsolete display model. It seems the plan is still to launch a “extension module” to add docking ports and a service module for the co-orbital space telescope. In other words, Plan B is still on. I won’t know if it’s Russian built and Chinese finished (the way Axiom and the later ISS modules were Italian built and US finished) until I see it. But that’s the way to bet. The idea that the Chinese space program was due to a one time technology transfer is Neocon spooge. Although the idea the Russians will barter back the ground spares (with oil ) is William Barton spooge, so it all evens out.
Thinking of how the Ukraine war has left Russia WRT to the rest of Europe and the West vs what could have been. I wonder what will be written in retrospective by the space oligarchs that survive Putin? I suppose there will be hardware and moon-rides to be had from China?
Most probably not. The PRC has excruciating problems of its own and it’s far from clear if its space ambitions will advance much further than Russia’s by decade’s end – or whether there will even still be a PRC at all. Not the least of these problems was choosing to buddy up to the Russians in the first place. Covert assistance to Russia’s war on Ukraine has already earned Western sanctions for a couple dozen PRC tech companies and more are likely to be added to the list.
With the Russians looking decreasingly able to provide any consequential help to PRC lunar ambitions, any Russians riding aspirational PRC Moon rockets – should any such eventuate – will be late to that party and be charged full retail fare.
Have no idea if this has any truth but it is interesting and Xi did behave strangely in South Africa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy12VLc_oAQ
The head of the rocket forces is among the disappeared.
There was no need for them to be our enemy. Our foreign policy people failed. But what of the future?
I don’t think Russia cam compete on launch but would we let them have access to space? If so, they can still have a bright future doing things in space.
Even with their current launch vehicles, they can out compete everyone by SpaceX and India (I guess an Indian rocket scientist is even cheaper than a Russian one). The problem is wholly political. And the upgraded Soyuz-2 could be made semi reusable (the 0110 steering engines could land the boosters and core on pads down range). Interestingly, the KVTK trans stage would fit on top of a Soyuz-2 using the existing Fregat-M family of mountings. The end result would be an 18 metric ton LV that could put Oryol in a polar orbit from the existing Soyuz pad at Vostochny (and the Plesetsk pads too, though aborting a crew into the Arctic Ocean might be pointless).
The best way for a journalist to declare themself full of shit is to deploy the phrase “Potemkin Village.” That said, the recent change in future Tiangong plans says Russia’s not going to buy back the ground spares. The hardware for the ROSS already exists, much of the delay because of the need to convert NEM-1 to do the duty of a DOS (of which no more exist, the Chinese ground spare is the last one). NEM-2, UM-2 and the Gateway Airlock already exist/ The Soyuz factories continue to produce spacecraft and rockets (despite assertions that every launch is the last). RD-193 is in production, so the Soyuz 2,1 re-engine program is under weigh (ultimately adding 3-4 metric tons to what 2.1b can lift). Angara is in production. Soyuz-5 would be nice but is unnecessary. Yep! Potemkin! I’m sure of it!
A close second is “poking the bear.”
Both are hackneyed cliches.
How about joining me in poking the Potemkin Bear?
But first, how fast are you at running 50 yards?
Faster than you!
Good answer….
I can think of at least 50 more conclusive ways for a “journalist” to make that declaration. “Potemkin Village” is a cliche for the same reason most other cliches exist – they are short names of things that recur often enough to be worth conveniently labeling.
That said, the Russian space program is no longer even really a Potemkin Village. There are, to be sure, some mockups and dusty vintage hardware bits left that could be arranged along a convenient riverbank were Putin to float by in the wake of Catherine the Great. But these days Russia’s unachievable space ambitions mostly take the form of PowerPoint and CGI files – rather as if Potemkin had commissioned a painter to render a village on canvas rather than carpenters to run up some stage flats.
I find myself wondering just how much boobularity *is* actually necessary. No one can possibly be this stupid, which one would have to be in order to think one could be taken seriously (or even to think that even the dumbest person imaginable would be fooled). On the other hand, watching contemporary politics, maybe I’m wrong about all that…
“Boobularity”. Turns out that word does not mean what I thought it meant.
Drats.
Funny how words change meaning, innit? When I was a kid the boob tube was TV. Now it’s an article of clothing. Now I think the children of the Boomers should be called the Boobies…
“During the discussion, Borisov added that Russia is also hard at work on the “Sfera” megaconstellation to satisfy the country’s large demand for communications.”
Starlink?
Will Musk allow Russia to have starlink?
Russia has a lot isolated rural area.
But Musk seems to be having enough political problems, probably best to ignore Russia, and not even do what he is doing with Iran.
The Russians turned down potential use of both Starlink and OneWeb well before their most recent invasion of Ukraine. Like the PRC, the Russians want no truck with LEO broadband that cannot be censored.
Despite Muskhater honkings to the contrary, the LEO constellation sats are neither difficult nor expensive to build (especially if you don’t need laser links to support stock exchanges). And Russia does have what is arguably the world’s cheapest expendable launch vehicle on a per launch basis. I don’t know how soon RD-193 will be deployed. I guess when we see on swapped onto a 2.1v for testing we’ll know. A re-engined 2.1b is a 12 tons to LEO rocket, with long range potention for 16 tons.
Meanwhile, back in a universe *not* dominated by expressions of Neocon spooge, I do wonder what made the Chinese Tiangong expansion go from Plan B (telescope service module) back to Plan A (ground spares to orbit)? Sooner or later the explanation will leak out. My guess is the Russians can’t fabricate two service modules by 2028.
What?!?!?!? The Russians can’t fabricate two service modules by 2028?!?!?! I thought the Russians can do anything, that they are the masters of everything space – certainly more so than the evil Musk – and that they certainly beat everyone else on Earth to the Moon, Mars, and, well the rest of the Solar system, along with Alpha Centauri, and Andromeda, with the cheapest launch vehicles ever conceived, and…and…and…
It turns out Souyiz 2.1 is cheaper than LVM3, with twice the payload of PSLV. So maybe Russian rocket scientists are cheaper? I started to say, name one rocket as cheap as Soyuz 2.1 with a comparable payload, not made by SpaceX. Then I realized “as cheap as” didn’t matter. Just name another rocket in that class not made by SpaceX or India. Then I remembered, all those rockets are called Long March.
Absent SpaceX, the US has zero medium or larger rockets in production. (I’ll count Rocket Lab when I see Neutron). Atlas V? Leftover Russian engines, so not in production? SLS? Museum piece engines, and maybe when they’ve flown more than one. ESA zero. Japan? Not yet.
People love to poop on the Russian space program. But absent SpaceX, it’s a fuck of a lot more than the US has. And there’s an awful lot of Muskhaters trying to kill SpaceX.
Long below the fold, but some news. It turns out the story about the doubling of Tiangong is probably false, just some so-called journalist reacting to the display of an obsolete display model. It seems the plan is still to launch a “extension module” to add docking ports and a service module for the co-orbital space telescope. In other words, Plan B is still on. I won’t know if it’s Russian built and Chinese finished (the way Axiom and the later ISS modules were Italian built and US finished) until I see it. But that’s the way to bet. The idea that the Chinese space program was due to a one time technology transfer is Neocon spooge. Although the idea the Russians will barter back the ground spares (with oil ) is William Barton spooge, so it all evens out.