Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #2

Singular_Transform wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:

How Gorbachev Destroyed the USSR's Military Space Program, & What It Cost Russia



https://sputniknews.com/military/201705141053608174-gorbachev-soviet-military-space-program/

I'm sad about the cancellation of the CCCP space program, but otherwise that was a huge financial burden to the SU.

Example the GLONASS satellites in the 80s had magnitude shorter life than the US ones, means the whole space program had one magnitude higher running cost than the US one.


But of course there is no excuse for  the devastation that the whole gorbacsov management did.

Your cost estimate is simply nonsense. The Soviet command economy did not run on prices and costs. It ran on
command directives for resource allocation (including jobs). The ruble was a voucher to make daily consumer
transactions simple. The USSR designed pressurized satellites instead of vacuum systems that is why they
did not last long. Now Russia designs vacuum exposed satellite control systems and the lifespan has shot up.
But the USSR could conduct vastly more launches than Russia, where things that could be done easily 30 years ago
are now too expensive, so the lifetime was not a limitation to ongoing coverage.

PapaDragon wrote:

How Gorbachev Destroyed the USSR's Military Space Program, & What It Cost Russia



https://sputniknews.com/military/201705141053608174-gorbachev-soviet-military-space-program/

James Oberg is posting in the comments section with his usual contrarian drivel. This is the clown who claimed
that Gagarin's first flight did not count since he did not land at the same spot that he took off. F*cktard.

Gorbachev was indeed a comprador stooge who pave the way for Yeltsin and his gangster's paradise.

kvs wrote:

Singular_Transform wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:

How Gorbachev Destroyed the USSR's Military Space Program, & What It Cost Russia



https://sputniknews.com/military/201705141053608174-gorbachev-soviet-military-space-program/

I'm sad about the cancellation of the CCCP space program, but otherwise that was a huge financial burden to the SU.

Example the GLONASS satellites in the 80s had magnitude shorter life than the US ones, means the whole space program had one magnitude higher running cost than the US one.


But of course there is no excuse for  the devastation that the whole gorbacsov management did.

Your cost estimate is simply nonsense. The Soviet command economy did not run on prices and costs. It ran on
command directives for resource allocation (including jobs). The ruble was a voucher to make daily consumer
transactions simple. The USSR designed pressurized satellites instead of vacuum systems that is why they
did not last long. Now Russia designs vacuum exposed satellite control systems and the lifespan has shot up.
But the USSR could conduct vastly more launches than Russia, where things that could be done easily 30 years ago
are now too expensive, so the lifetime was not a limitation to ongoing coverage.

Cost = human working hours.

The pressurised satellite bus cost more than a not-pressurised one, and has shorter lifespan.


Of course Russia is way more effective than the SU was.

Russia manage to way more with the available resources .

Well, at least Russia isn't ignoring the issue. KOSMOS 2504 is an example.

The long-awaited launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle is once again postponed

According to the publication "Air & Cosmos" in the article Nicolas Pillet "Nouvelles incertitudes sur le retour de Proton", the launch of the EchoStar-21 satellite, produced by Space Systems / Loral, for the first quarter, was postponed due to malfunctions in the RD-0201 engine of the second stage of the rocket Carrier "Proton-M".

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2610966.html

George1 wrote:The long-awaited launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle is once again postponed

According to the publication "Air & Cosmos" in the article Nicolas Pillet "Nouvelles incertitudes sur le retour de Proton", the launch of the EchoStar-21 satellite, produced by Space Systems / Loral, for the first quarter, was postponed due to malfunctions in the RD-0201 engine of the second stage of the rocket Carrier "Proton-M".

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2610966.html

Good news.

Sooner this Proton stupidity and all it's associated mafia goes down the toilet, sooner more useful and non obsolete platforms will finally get proper attention.

This ancient ponzi scheme should be thrown to the trash once an for all before it takes down entire Russian space program with it.

Roscosmos assets would be liquidated asap if they were to completely collapse. Which wouldn't be a bad thing. Sometimes restarting an agency or organization is better when doing it from ground up. Easier with previous assets.

But this is getting ridiculous. It means that Roscosmos could be sitting idle with no contracts till Angara is released.

miketheterrible wrote:Roscosmos assets would be liquidated asap if they were to completely collapse. Which wouldn't be a bad thing. Sometimes restarting an agency or organization is better when doing it from ground up. Easier with previous assets.

But this is getting ridiculous. It means that Roscosmos could be sitting idle with no contracts till Angara is released.

Roskosmos dogmatically clinging to obsolete platforms is what is holding back Angara.

Money wasted on annual rent of Baikonur alone would be enough to plug all budgetary gaps for Angara, Vostochni and Federation combined and leave some to spare.  

And don't even get me started on Proton because you would be looking at a wall of angry text...

Well, Angara will be released close to schedule since they are moving production to Omsk and doing heavy production testing.

It turned out that there are plenty of fresh news about Russian space program (AKA reason I am here to begin with) but apparently nobody bothers to translate them to English. WTF?  
What became if that notorious Soviet propaganda apparatus that MSM thought me dread since childhood?  

I guess I have to do job instead of the Bears... there is couple of fresh articles on Federation tread too...



RSC Energia: it is cheaper to create a new super-heavy rocket than to reproduce Energia

http://tass.ru/kosmos/4259841



The launch of the Spektr-RG observatory was postponed from March to September 2018

http://tass.ru/kosmos/4257908



Even transport companies don't want to have anything to do with this crap. One more step towards getting rid of this junk

Roskosmos did not find contractors to deliver Proton to Baikonur to launch ISS module

http://tass.ru/kosmos/4255581

Module in question was Nauka and fiasco surrounding it is a whole new and exciting story in itself. I smell same Proton/Baikonur related group of rats at work.

So I take it that Soyuz-2 will be Russia's main launch for satellites for some time then until Angara is ready?

miketheterrible wrote:So I take it that Soyuz-2 will be Russia's main launch for satellites for some time then until Angara is ready?

Angara won't replace Soyuz variants. A1.1/A1.2 are smaller, and the larger A3 isn't going to be developed (at least not for the foreseeable future), and is probably redundant if Phoenix/Sunkars gets a go ahead.

many news and all of them bad...
like i predicted russian space program is in shambles , its a wreck , and major malfunctions and resource wastefulness is continuing on unprecedented scale. (losing customers ,paying penalties for delayed launches).
all the while usa private sector is steamrolling ahead....

Rmf wrote:many news and all of them bad...
like i predicted russian space program is in shambles , its a wreck , and major malfunctions and resource wastefulness is continuing on unprecedented scale. (losing customers ,paying penalties for delayed launches).
all the while usa private sector is steamrolling ahead....

All GOOD news and all related to Proton and Baikonur. Long may they continue until that junk is finally replaced.

This is only bad news if you are Borat's cousin.



Question: will USA private sector be launching VKS military satellites? Or anything Russia related? Didn't think so.

So while USA private sector pumps the PR with government subsidies, Angara is coming along (or you still subscribe to Zak's bullshit theories?)

And when subsidies dry up? Oh humanity....

How does the heaviest version of the angara achieve the delta V required when existing nonnuclear chemical energy fuels are so pathetically weak?

Singular_Transform wrote:

kvs wrote:

Singular_Transform wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:

How Gorbachev Destroyed the USSR's Military Space Program, & What It Cost Russia



https://sputniknews.com/military/201705141053608174-gorbachev-soviet-military-space-program/

I'm sad about the cancellation of the CCCP space program, but otherwise that was a huge financial burden to the SU.

Example the GLONASS satellites in the 80s had magnitude shorter life than the US ones, means the whole space program had one magnitude higher running cost than the US one.


But of course there is no excuse for  the devastation that the whole gorbacsov management did.

Your cost estimate is simply nonsense.   The Soviet command economy did not run on prices and costs.  It ran on
command directives for resource allocation (including jobs).   The ruble was a voucher to make daily consumer
transactions simple.    The USSR designed pressurized satellites instead of vacuum systems that is why they
did not last long.   Now Russia designs vacuum exposed satellite control systems and the lifespan has shot up.
But the USSR could conduct vastly more launches than Russia, where things that could be done easily 30 years ago
are now too expensive, so the lifetime was not a limitation to ongoing coverage.

Cost = human working hours.

The pressurised satellite bus cost more than a not-pressurised one, and has shorter lifespan.


Of course Russia is way more effective than the SU was.

Russia manage to way more with the available resources .

Are your serious? The only thing that the capitalist Russian space program has done is mismanagement and sabotage of soviet leftover technology and doing announcements of postponement. If the soviet union still existed, the light angara would be already in service.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:How does the heaviest version of the angara achieve the delta V required when existing nonnuclear chemical energy fuels are so pathetically weak?

What are you asking exactly? Fuel is fine.

PapaDragon wrote:

Rmf wrote:many news and all of them bad...
like i predicted russian space program is in shambles , its a wreck , and major malfunctions and resource wastefulness is continuing on unprecedented scale. (losing customers ,paying penalties for delayed launches).
all the while usa private sector is steamrolling ahead....

All GOOD news and all related to Proton and Baikonur. Long may they continue until that junk is finally replaced.

This is only bad news if you are Borat's cousin.



Question: will USA private sector be launching VKS military satellites? Or anything Russia related? Didn't think so.

So while USA private sector pumps the PR with government subsidies, Angara is coming along (or you still subscribe to Zak's bullshit theories?)

And when subsidies dry up? Oh humanity....

yes ,yes ,malfunctioning rockets are a  good thing but only in papadragons selfdelusional world.....

KomissarBojanchev wrote:How does the heaviest version of the angara achieve the delta V required when existing nonnuclear chemical energy fuels are so pathetically weak?

it cant , they are streching the design to its limits and exposing to higher risks of something going wrong....

PapaDragon wrote:

KomissarBojanchev wrote:How does the heaviest version of the angara achieve the delta V required when existing nonnuclear chemical energy fuels are so pathetically weak?

What are you asking exactly? Fuel is fine.

As you see the impulse of existing rocket fuels is unbelievably shitty. Rockets that use liquid hydrogen have extreme trouble getting loads much lighter than those that the angara is advertised to carry to even LEO. With such shitty impulse, and such massive weight, how do we expect the angara to be revolutionary?

Without the invention of metallic hydrogen or nuclear propulsion rocket technology will never progress.

yes ,yes ,malfunctioning rockets are a good thing but only in papadragons selfdelusional world.....

I'm gonna break it down for you one more time rmf just because you are not ultron:

Proton is finished

Baikonur is finished

Kazakhstan is redundant

Either you move on to new platforms or your space program becomes scientific equivalent of North Korean or Iranian military

With every failure of Proton they are one step closer to moving on from useless toxic obsolete Soviet junk

I assumed that once Angara gets off the ground they will fast track dumping of Proton but Mafia has dug in to deep

This should dislodge them good and proper

Let the bitch burn, future waits for no one

KomissarBojanchev wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:

KomissarBojanchev wrote:How does the heaviest version of the angara achieve the delta V required when existing nonnuclear chemical energy fuels are so pathetically weak?

What are you asking exactly? Fuel is fine.

As you see the impulse of existing rocket fuels is unbelievably shitty. Rockets that use liquid hydrogen have extreme trouble getting loads much lighter than those that the angara is advertised to carry to even LEO. With such shitty impulse, and such massive weight, how do we expect the angara to be revolutionary?

Without the invention of metallic hydrogen or nuclear propulsion rocket technology will never progress.

Angara is not supposed to be some sci-fi revolution. So don't spread BS.

Russia is actually developing a 1 megawatt class nuclear ion engine for space propulsion. That is revolutionary since the USA has only been
promising inertial trips to Mars. Active propulsion would cut the trip down from six months to about one month.

Metallic hydrogen is something that people who don't know physics would envision as being usable. The core of Jupiter is
metallic hydrogen because of gravitational compression. Without such compression hydrogen gas cannot be forced into a solid sate.
A more extreme variant of this is neutronium. Neutron stars can be composed of neutrons because of extreme gravitational compression
which overcomes the usual neutron decay into a proton and electron with a 22 minute half-life. Trying to have this material exist
in a low gravity environment in some sci-fi construct is physically impossible since it would literally blow up in an explosion of
epic proportions. Metallic hydrogen would decompose explosively as well and no rocket storage tanks can be constructed to keep it compressed.
This is not CH4 and LNG since hydrogen freezes at 14 K.

https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-achieve-early-stages-of-a-new-solid-state-of-hydrogen

No metallic hydrogen solution is going to be commercially viable for rocket propulsion.

kvs wrote:

KomissarBojanchev wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:

KomissarBojanchev wrote:How does the heaviest version of the angara achieve the delta V required when existing nonnuclear chemical energy fuels are so pathetically weak?

What are you asking exactly? Fuel is fine.

As you see the impulse of existing rocket fuels is unbelievably shitty. Rockets that use liquid hydrogen have extreme trouble getting loads much lighter than those that the angara is advertised to carry to even LEO. With such shitty impulse, and such massive weight, how do we expect the angara to be revolutionary?

Without the invention of metallic hydrogen or nuclear propulsion rocket technology will never progress.

Angara is not supposed to be some sci-fi revolution.  So don't spread BS.  

Russia is actually developing a 1 megawatt class nuclear ion engine for space propulsion.   That is revolutionary since the USA has only been
promising inertial trips to Mars.    Active propulsion would cut the trip down from six months to about one month.  

Metallic hydrogen is something that people who don't know physics would envision as being usable.    The core of Jupiter is
metallic hydrogen because of gravitational compression.   Without such compression hydrogen gas cannot be forced into a solid sate.
A more extreme variant of this is neutronium.   Neutron stars can be composed of neutrons because of extreme gravitational compression
which overcomes the usual neutron decay into a proton and electron with a 22 minute half-life.   Trying to have this material exist
in a low gravity environment in some sci-fi construct is physically impossible since it would literally blow up in an explosion of
epic proportions.   Metallic hydrogen would decompose explosively as well and no rocket storage tanks can be constructed to keep it compressed.
This is not CH4 and LNG since hydrogen freezes at 14 K.  

https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-achieve-early-stages-of-a-new-solid-state-of-hydrogen

No metallic hydrogen solution is going to be commercially viable for rocket propulsion.  

Thats the whole point, metallic hydrogen is unlikely and thats why all chemical energy rockets will always be really shitty at escaping the earth's gravity well.

Nuclear ion propulsion is all well and good, but is it space only or can it be launched off the ground. If it can't escape the earth's gravity well, then it will always be tethered to near useless ultra expensive chemical fuel rockets, thus not improving space exploration much.

And there in lies the issue, we simply don't have such propulsion engines and wont for a long, long time.
The only way to partially sidestep this issue is to make a launch platform on the moon, IMO.

I just realized, i haven't ask what would be the Specific Impulse or Delta-V from Russia's upcoming Pulse Detonation rocket engine (PDRE), given it's higher efficiency??

rmf wrote:
it cant , they are streching the design to its limits and exposing to higher risks of something going wrong....

Suffer under the power of cold data:

Max payload:

Proton - 22.800 kg

Angara 5 - 24.500 kg

Borat BTFO  

Actually the future looks more like an air breathing jet powered craft to fly to space and back.

Once scramjets are perfected and the issues of high speed flight within the atmosphere are dealt with an aircraft that takes off horizontally and accelerates up to orbital speed inside the earth atmosphere and then lobs payloads into space to glide back down and land on a conventional air strip is the most efficient way of getting things to orbit.