“Russia could learn from U.S. space program”, RIA Novosti, 9/6. Andrei Kislyakov opinion piece, reiterating what was mentioned in my previous entry.
Space Daily: “Two Suits For Shenzhou”; “China manned space flight set for October”.China is to launch Shenzhou-7 with 3 taikonauts aboard in October, one (or maybe two) of whom will perform a spacewalk.
“Google co-founder aims for space”, Cosmic Log, 11/6. More ambitious Russia-related space tourist plans were announced last week by Space Adventures: it is to purchase a Soyuz flight and fly 2 space tourists with a cosmonaut pilot, one of who will be Sergei Brin (a founder of Google), but Anatolii Perminov denied that he had information about any of these plans. ‘There is simply no room for space tourists,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘Space tourism will be suspended.’ ” The professional cosmonauts, many of whom have been waiting for their first flight for more than 10 years, won’t be impressed! As I have grumbled many times before, the Russian space program has degenerated into a Soyuz taxi service, not a real exploration program. Tourism should be done by private operators (if they ever manage to get viable spaceships going).
