Author Topic: Russians announce big plans (Read 15467 times)

FransonUK · « **Reply #20 on:** 10/26/2005 11:47 am »

"Active Electrical Propulsion" - what engines will that be?

Stardust9906 · « **Reply #21 on:** 10/26/2005 12:02 pm »

Probably some sort of ion engine I would think.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #22 on:** 10/26/2005 08:52 pm »

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"Unlike the US plan to first put astronauts back on the Moon, Russia is likely to be targeting Mars directly, says Logsdon, because the US beat the former Soviet Union to the Moon in 1969.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8210

lmike · « **Reply #23 on:** 10/26/2005 09:52 pm »

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Avron - 25/10/2005 8:38 PM

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lmike - 25/10/2005 8:52 PM

"would someone give us money for our projects (or rather building dachas for our officials)?"

That sounds just like home, except they don't ask, just take...

Ok, back on subject... If Russia, even gets close, will there be a lot of egg on faces at NASA... You, know I don't really care who gets there first anymore, just do something, anything forward..

Now I would not laugh this off so fast, if the Russian get going, it will happen, or at least give it a good try..

I don't know, usually federal agencies use their own government's money to do their projects, or parts of a project and then cooperate on the results, not beg around the world with this 'international cooperation' ruse. Even their private mostly military Angara project is run like that ("How many countries can we get to finance our rocket?") It's a disgrace.

Personally, I wasn't laughing it off at all. I used to follow these big announcements a lot, but got burnt out because of all the BS. I actually think it's quite sad, that once powerful industry that could actually do something is now reduced to recycing 40 year old fantasies that will never be funded to maintain some sort of 'prestige', instead of doing something realistic and actually useful for the country. (When was the last time Russia launched a succesful planetary probe?) It convinces no one and actually hurts their image. The Chinese are much more modest, and they have much more money to burn and a much better active practical sattelite fleet for starters.

Dogsbd · « **Reply #24 on:** 10/27/2005 03:06 am »

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Chris Bergin - 26/10/2005 4:52 PM

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"Unlike the US plan to first put astronauts back on the Moon, Russia is likely to be targeting Mars directly, says Logsdon, because the US beat the former Soviet Union to the Moon in 1969.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8210

More wild speculation by the clueless media. IMHO of course

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