No More American Astronauts on the ISS?!!!

Yep you read that correctly.  I first started hearing about this from my science guy.  He stated that he had heard that the Russians were threatening to ban American astronauts from the International Space Station due to our reaction to their annexation of the Ukraine’s Crimea. 

This sounded so very bizarre that I had to Google it to see what the skinny was and there it was on Extreme Tech's web site:

• Russia is threatening to ban the US from using the International Space Station. Furthermore, and perhaps more significantly in the short term, Russia will ban the US from buying the Russian RD-180 rocket engines that are currently used by the ULA’s Atlas V launcher to put the US military’s satellites into space.   

Now here is where it gets a bit confusing for me.  Sure they can stop the U.S. from getting RD-180s and certainly refuse passengers after 2020, but how can they physically or legally prevent U.S. astronauts from entering the ISS?

Right now, since the retirement of the Shuttle fleet,  we do no have the ability to ferry personnel to the station.  However, after 2020, I can not imagine that the man rated version of Space X's Dragon capsule will not be be in service, by that time.  

To that end, Elton Musk of Space X presented Dragon V2 that will be able to carry seven astronauts for several days, visit the ISS and land where-ever needs to under its own power.   Check it out HERE

Russia to Abandon the ISS by 2020

According to an article on the CNN U.S. blog site   Russia has said that it does not plan to use the ISS past 2020.  This move puts into doubt whether or not NASA will be able to make an argument for extending the life of the laboratory to 2024 or longer.  

Officials in Russia have stated that Russia will redirect it's efforts in different directions and on to other projects after 2020.  

From the article:

• NASA released a statement saying that the U.S. space agency "has not received any official notification from the Government of Russia on any changes in our space cooperation at this point."

Since NASA retired the shuttles the only way to reach the ISS has been aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. 

Read the full article HERE

 

Vostochny Space Launch Centrer - Remember That Name

Here is a name you will be hearing a lot about in the next decade:  The Vostochny Cosmodrome  or quite literally the Russian:  "Eastern Spaceport".   This new Russian space launch facility's   Raison d'être  is, according to the Wikipedia,   to reduce Russia's dependency on the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is located in Kazakhstan.

The planned total area is over 342 miles and almost 20 miles in diameter and construction costs have been estimated  over 13 billion.

Plans call for the building of seven launch pads at the site, including two for manned flights and two for space freighters.  (and three for hummmmmmmm) 

Of course not all is vodka and caviar in Amur Oblast land.  From the Wikipidea file:

• In November 2012, press reports indicated that the Russian government is having difficulty in finding a good use for the new spaceport, and that other government ministries have been avoiding the project while "calling the project a 'dolgostroi,' which is Russian for an endless construction boondoggle (aka Boston's Big Dig).

In any case The first launch from Vostochny is unlikely to occur until 2018 at the earliest due to construction delays.

Expedition 30 Launches

With the Russian space effort taking a few knocks lately, it is good to see that Soyuz TMA-22 lifted from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Expedition 30 flight launched 04:15am on 11/14/11 carrying 1 American astronaut and 2 Russian cosmonauts. With the current ISS crew set to return to Earth on 21 November.

With the new crew now on it's way, fears that the ISS would be unmanned for 2012 due to repeated failures in the Soyuz crew capsule, have been allayed.

The Daily Galaxy

Russians Building Tunnel to Alaska?

Hey tell me this don't sound like science fiction! According to this article in Dvice - Russia is spending 65 Billion dollars on a tunnel under the Bering Straight to Alaska. The word is that within 10 year you will be able to take a train from N. America and travel to eastern Europe and do so in about an hour. The tunnel will be about twice the length of the Chunnel at 64 miles and will cost $12 billion just to dig the tunnel itself. The balance will be the cost of rail lines connecting the Bering Strait area with the rest of the Russian rail network.

Now it is not completely a Russian government undertaking, but rather some sort of commercial partnership that is not completely clear, but the U.S. has been "invited" to participate.

Check out the artwork of the proposed project. It might be pie in the sky, but it is definitely on the edge thinking, I like it just for the scope.

Post Atlantis Soyuz Rides Cost What?!!

Well, since the shuttle Atlantis is home and NASA now completely dependent on Russia for rides to the ISS, I thought I would check to see if the figures I had been quoted for each ride were insanely wrong. So I checked an article Space Daily and this is exactly what I got from the article.

Get ready...here it comes:

• NASA has signed a deal worth 306 million dollars with Roskomos for six rides to the ISS in 2012 and 2013, or a charge of 51 million dollars per US astronaut.

I thought that was insane but now that Russia has a monopoly it plans on increasing those costs significantly. CBS Evening News site is quoting 60 million as the ongoing charge now for training and a ride.


Even crazier is the fact that the original plans were to decom the iss in 2015 and ditch it in the ocean. Luck has it that the other partner countries are negotiating the station life out to 2020 (glad someone has sense)

comments?

pic CBS evening News

ISS Future in Question

If you feel like you might have missed something over the last few days, don't feel like the lone ranger. I have been hearing ever so much more frequently lately, from varied political camps that renewed considerations should be given to halting shuttle service flights to the ISS at the "end" of the fleet's service life. Those of you that have listened to me long enough know that I have harped on the "all your eggs in one basket" mentality that seemed to be rampant at NASA. Having no fall back or rescue craft seemed incredibly short sighted. And then halting shuttle flights with no stop gap seemed well passed foolhardy. But when I start hearing those sentiments echoed by politicians not known to be all that interested in anything past their political boundries, I have to pause and think...wait...just whats going on? I know, I hear ya saying, well with the Russian/Georgia thing going on, it strains our working relationship. Your right but only to a point. It seems a lot of the ill will is the waiver that Russia had been enjoying for a time now is about to expire. That waiver being, signing the accord to abide by a rulling not to participate in proliferation of WMDs. (I know there it is again. someone screaming about WMDs) The thinking is that with tensions building and the exemption about to age off, we are likely to find personel in a position of not being able to get to or return from orbit. From the Wired blog:

• Without a new waiver, U.S. astronauts would be stuck without a ride from 2011 until a new human vehicle is ready around 2015. NASA needs the waiver approved this year to get a Soyuz by 2012 because the Russian spacecraft take three years to build. Many think that this waiver will be harder to get given Russia's recent actions.

Of course it's not as simplistic as saying don't halt shuttle missions. The reason being the ISS depends on the Russian Soyuz and support craft for supplies and rescue. So without the Russian contingent we couldn't go to full crew on the ISS or stay for anything longer that a week or two. The other problem is that the Shuttle program is not in full swing and then just stops. NASA started phasing out shuttles TEN years ago. It's now a problem of parts, service and replacements that have been totally removed from the equation. This train wreck is going to happen if we like it or not.

<- More from Wired ->

Russia tests monkeys for Mars trip

I had to check the date to make sure this wasn't some sort of late April Fool gag, but it seems to be real. Of course Shaun is having great fun with it saying: "Planet of the apes? Or a new job for Bush at the end of his current term? " All joking aside, the Russian space agency is taking a brilliant step backwards and plans to test monkeys for effects of extended space trips like those to Mars and even stranger, plans to send monkeys to Mars on future tests. The Sochi Institute of Medical Primatology reportedly said "People and monkeys have approximately identical sensitivity to small and large radiation doses," explains the institute's director, Boris Lapin. "So it is better to experiment on the macaques, but not on dogs or other animals."

This has got to go into the WTF department. If for no other reason than they state that a Mars mission is at least 10 years away. So excuse me? What can they really learn that technology can not address 10 years from now? In the past...yes, totally unknown arena but there is nothing new here but the destination. This has Bogus science and BS all over it!

But if you think I am joking, click the article title to go to the complete BBC News story

Crater From 1908 Russian Space Impact Found

Almost a century after a mysterious explosion in Russia flattened a huge swath of Siberian forest, scientists have found what they believe is a crater made by the cosmic object that made the blast.
The crater was discovered under a lake near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in western Siberia, where the cataclysm, known as the Tunguska event, took place. In their new study, a team of Italian scientists used acoustic imagery to investigate the bottom of Lake Cheko. The basin of Lake Cheko is not circular, deep, and steep like a typical impact crater. nstead it's elongated and shallow, about 1,640 feet (500 meters) long with a maximum depth of only 165 feet. "We suggest that a 10-meter-wide [33-foot-wide] fragment of the object escaped the explosion and kept going in the same direction. It was relatively slow, about 1 kilometer a second [0.6 mile a second]," said Luca Gasperini, a geologist with the Marine Science Institute in Bologna .

Click here for complete article

Secrets of 1957 Sputnik Launch Revealed

From Wired.com

When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, to the world it seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph. But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age. And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket, according to Boris Chertok, one of the founders of the Soviet space program. Chertok couldn't whisper a word about the project through much of his lifetime. His name, and that of Sergei Korolyov, the chief scientist, were a state secret. Now, at age 95 Chertok can finally give full voice to his pride at the pivotal role he played in the history of space exploration.

Click the article title or here for the complete story

AP Photo/Bob Child

Russia Shoots for Moon, Mars

The Russian space agency announced a plan to send a man to the moon by 2025, to establish a permanent base there a few years later, and possibly even send a man to Mars by 2035, in an aggressive plan reminiscent of the 1960s space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

But Russia's plan to shoot for the stars is expensive, which is why it is looking for international assistance while relying on funding from its lucrative space tourism program.

One former American astronaut said while the Russians plan may be in motion, it is beginning from a difficult starting point.

"The Russians have some big ideas, but their space program is coming up slowly from being in a position bankruptcy," said Walter Cunningham, a former Apollo 7 astronaut.

Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post

Billionaire blasts off for space station

While Martha Stewart watched on.....

A Russian rocket carrying Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the international space station.

the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan on Saturday. The Soyuz TMA-10 capsule lifted off at 11:31 p.m. local time (1:31 p.m. ET) and it is scheduled to rendezvous with the station Monday. Simonyi, a 58-year-old native of Hungary, paid $25 million for the 13-day trip, the fifth such paying “space tourist,” or “spaceflight participant,” as officials prefer to call them.

Submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

Russia, China aim for Red Planet

China will launch a joint mission with Russia to Mars, a "milestone" in space co-operation between the two countries. The move follows pledges by Moscow to work more closely with the Chinese on missions to Mars and the Moon. A small satellite developed by China will piggyback on the Russian launch of a spacecraft called "Phobos Grunt", probably in October 2009. There was no mention of a timetable in the Chinese space agency statement. But earlier Russian reports said the launch window for the 10-11 month voyage to Phobos, Mars' largest moon, will be in October 2009. The mission plan so far is to have the Russian craft orbit Mars. Then the Chinese micro-satellite will detach from the Russian spacecraft, and probe the Martian space environment. The Russian spacecraft will touch down on the Martian moon Phobos and collect soil samples for return to Earth.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders