Space again becomes Russian

This article was published yesterday in the Russian press. I found it interesting - if only as a look into their national psyche (though I think it's more) - so here's a translation.

American space technology specialists are sounding the alarm. In their estimation, America will in the very near future lose the ability to put people and cargoes into space. Three space shuttles are scheduled to be retired within two and a half years, and there is nothing to replace them. In the best case America will not be able to produce any new spaceships before 2015. As a result, it is Russia that will maintain the functions of the International Space Station (ISS). The Americans will have to come cap in hand to Moscow, or else the US will be deprived of the possibility of getting a complete return on the significant investment which they have made in the station.

In theory the US could turn to someone other than our country: to the European Union, whose member states have developed a rocket named after the science fiction author Jules Verne. However, just how reliable that cargo ship is is still hard to say. The Jules Verne’s launch has been postponed more than once due to various malfunctions.

At the present there is, besides Russia, no other country in the world possessing the proven and efficient technology needed to deliver people and cargo to the space station. Therefore, it’s most likely that the USA will be forced to pay for flights on Russian space ships. Thus, the crisis in the American space program will not only be a blow to the tax-payer, but also a foreign policy embarrassment for a country which only recently was convinced of its unambiguous and indisputable leadership in all areas of life.

For America this situation is compounded by the fact that in recent years its relations with Russia have grown worse. Apparently Washington will be forced to rein in its pride and soften its tone when speaking with Moscow.

It is characteristic that the Americans drove themselves into this snare. In their time they undertook an ambitious program to produce ‘space shuttles’ capable of repeatedly going into orbit. To a remarkable degree this was inspired by propaganda reasons. During the ‘cold war’ American propaganda trumpeted the technical superiority of the new family of space ships, which at the time the USSR did not possess. In response, the Soviet Union produced its own ‘shuttle’, the famous ‘Buran’, which was in no detail inferior to its American counterpart. However at the same time we continued work to refine the older vessels which had proven their efficiency.

Now it is obvious that the expenditures of our domestic rocket designers have proved golden. And at the same time the American program has collapsed with a bang. In and of itself the “shuttle” project has turned out to be extravagant; the working cost of using multi-use ships was unjustifiably high, not to mention that the safety of the flights, to put it mildly, leaves something to be desired. On the other hand, the new Russian rockets, the logical extension of technology from back in the 60s, remain unrivaled to this day.

Apropos of this it’s important to point out that there is yet another area in which domestic space technology has the lead. This is the production of space stations. The present international space station would not have been possible without Russian participation. The Americans may have money, but they don’t have all the necessary technology. While in its day our country launched the one-of-a-kind ‘Mir’ station. Nothing like it could have been produced by the Americans, no matter how hard they tried. So only our country knows how to produce reliable means for delivering people and cargo and also for maintaining them for long periods in orbit.

Now everyone has the chance to be dramatically convinced how drastically the USSR outstripped the Americans in the space race. But that’s in the past; the Soviet Union is long gone. Therefore the present generation is faced with the mission of preserving and developing that competitive edge which is their legacy.

Source: Ekaterinburg On-Lajn via KM.RU portal, no byline, published 09 March 2008, 19:43