Mars-105 completed

The Mars-105 isolation experiment was concluded yesterday (14th) at 10:00 UTC, the 6 participants emerging in good spirits. One wonders if the same will be the case after 500 days! I suspect not. Mars-500 is currently due to begin in early 2010. “Mars flight simulation experiment ends”, MSNBC.com, 14/7, has some details. Having no Internet access would be a major deprivation for me!

NASA’s fifth launch attempt of STS-127 Atlantis was unsuccessful, so they are trying for a sixth today! (22:03 UTC) The record for the most launch attempts is 6 for STS-61C in 1985-86 (launched on the 7th attempt). The External Tank is certified for 13 refill cycles before it is no longer usable. There are 7 flights left before the Shuttle program ends.

Moon melancholy

The 40th anniversary of the first Apollo Moon landing is coming up, so there is a lot of blather and angst in the media and on various forums. No Russian cosmonaut has yet been out of low Earth orbit – one wonders if they ever will. The anniversary has inevitably brought out the Paranoid Patriots, as evidenced in these quotes:

Now potential rivals such as China seek to challenge US dominance in space, and some see the new space race as once again a battle between ideologies.

“From the point of view of the future of the western world and its Asian allies it’s imperative that the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada and other like-minded countries be competitive in deep space,” Moonwalker and geologist Harrison Schmitt told AFP.

Schmitt said he believed that “non-democratic nations of the world, China, Russia and maybe others, fully intend to be dominant in space…[and] gain that kind of prestige, that kind of advantage in technology and education and other fields that come with being the dominant space power.

“With the Apollo program we taught them how,” said Schmitt, who was the last astronaut to step out of a lunar craft and onto the moon surface in 1972.

– “Space, man’s greatest challenge, 40 years after Moon walk”, Space Daily, 12/7/2009

STS-127 Atlantis is still trying to launch; it has had 4 scrubs so far! Originally to have launched on 13 June, the first delay was due to a hydrogen gas vent leak; the second because of a work light knob embedded between the pressure pane on Atlantis’ pilot window and the dashboard panel, and the last two because of thunderstorms. The next attempt is in a few hours. A very frustrating process for all involved, as the orange External Tank has to be drained and refueled each time, and the Shuttle crew has to prepare themselves, only to be disappointed. (Maybe they should try sacrificing a goat.) The Soyuz manned rocket launches are, in contrast, rarely delayed (I don’t know if any have been).

Posters at the Novosti Kosmonavtiki forum are not too impressed with the proposed names (6/7/2009 entry) for the next 3 Russian ISS modules, describing them as “utilitarian”, lacking in romanticism, difficult to pronounce (i.e. too long) and imitating NASA’s pointedly symbolic names. Some proposed are: «Спектр», Spektr (Spectrum), «Природа» Priroda (Nature), «Радуга», Raduga (Rainbow), «Горизонт», Gorizont (Horizon). The names are “recycled” (used on previous projects, such as the Mir space station) but are nicer than the officially-proposed ones.

Progress M-02M successfully performed a re-rendezvous test today to verify the new passive KURS-P system antennas and TORU target installation accuracy at the SM PkhO (Service Module Transfer Compartment) zenith port. There was some nervousness about this as a similar 1997 Progress (M-34) rendezvous with Mir bumped into the space station.

Quit whinging!

The front page of the Roskosmos site featured a graph showing government funding of the civil space programs of various countries for 2008. The figures, in billions of dollars, are:

1. USA: $17.903
2. ESA: $4.216
3. China: unknown
4. France: $1.748
5. Japan: $1.692
6. Russia: $1.538
7. India: $0.92

The USA, represented by NASA, gets more funding than the other countries put together! People on space forums keep whinging about NASA’s supposed lack of funding, but compared to what little Russia and other countries have to make do with, NASA is comfortably well-off.

Future directions

Anatolii Perminov gave some indications of the future directions of the Russian space program when he answered the questions of Russian and foreign students:

Answering one of the questions, Anatolii Nikolaevich said: “Designs of this type are not carried out in Roscosmos entities. On the other hand, these issues are studied in some R&D institutes. My opinion, not as a manager, but as a specialist, is that it is necessary to search for new energy-generation forms and ways based on different principles for space exploration. However my personal point of view may differ from the views of scientists…”

Foreign students were interested in development of the lunar habitation.

“Currently, we carry out an outstanding international project Mars-500. It intends to test feasibility of human spaceflight to Mars and return back to the Earth. Roscosmos and ESA researchers are involved in the project. The experiment is controlled from the Mission Control Center. NASA’s lunar base project has been approved. But now some changes may occur in their program due to changes of NASA Administration. We discussed it with NASA representatives in Paris. Today it is unclear if the USA will build the lunar base on their own, or involve some international partners. Lunar projects on different development stages exist in China, India, Japan, and Russia as well,” Mr. Perminov said.

Roscosmos Head also explained about perspectives of the Vostochnyi space port construction in Amurskaya region:

“Russian Government defined that up to late 2011, design and research on-site activities are to be completed and Vostochnyi construction plan is to be prepared. That is, what we are doing now on the funding appropriated. This funding is not so big, but still sufficient to accomplish this objective. Then, we will report to the Government which is to make the decision about the date to start the construction. Roscosmos believes that the construction shall start in 2012. This is in line with the space exploration strategy approved by the Russian Government, which intends maiden launch of the first cargo vehicle from Vostochnyi in 2015, and the first human spacecraft launch in 2018.”

“Aldrin thinks U.S. should set its sights on Mars”, MSNBC.com, 6/7. Apollo astronaut/Moon Man №2 Buzz Aldrin, who is outspoken on space matters, is of the opinion that:

• the U.S. “oversee” an international team of lunar explorers, which includes China.
• While other countries are occupied there, the U.S. sneaks off to Mars and gets there first.

I would, of course, like to see a Russian manned mission get to Mars first! Would be compensation for missing out on the Moon.

Module names

Anik posted some names for the next 3 Russian ISS modules suggested by Roskosmos to Energiya:

• MRM-2: Поиск/Poisk/Search (or Quest ;-) )
• MRM-1: Развитие/Rasvitie/Development
• MLM: Перспектива/Perspektiva/Perspective

Hmm…not very evocative? I would like to continue with the theme of the first two modules, something like:

• Zarya, «Заря»: Sunrise
• Zvezda, «Звезда»: Star
• Svet, «Свет»: Light
• Voskhod, «Восход»: Dawn
• Avrora, «Аврора»: Aurora