03.09.2009
Russian Space Program Patriarch
on Future, Problems of Space Exploration, Mars
Roskosmos.ru
August 26, 2009Excerpts from report by Boris Yevseyevich Chertok, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at the 6th International Aerospace Congress in Moscow: "Main problems of cosmonautics" The 6th International Aerospace Congress continues in Moscow. Today, participants in the congress discuss current problems of space exploration (kosmonavtika) in sections, and among other things, continue to discuss a large group of problems which were raised yesterday (25 August) in the report entitled "Main problems of space exploration" by Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Boris Yevseyevich Chertok, former associate of S.P. Korolev. In view of the exceptional importance of the issues which Boris Yevseyevich Chertok touched upon, we publish theses of his report today. As B.Ye. Chertok noted, applied cosmonautics is an entirely new field of activity for the mankind, it is only 52 years old, and manned cosmonautics is just 48 years old. Cosmonautics relies on rocket engineering. For now, we can travel to outer space only by organizing rocket launches. The space rocket hardware poses not only technology problems, but many general global problems-- economic, political and military-strategic. I will mention only the most pressing ones. Last century, many different carrier rockets were designed and successfully tested, which helped start addressing all the pressing problems of cosmonautics, from placing the tiny first artificial satellite into orbit to deploying the expedition on the moon. For different reasons, cosmonautics lost reliable and promising carriers of the 20th century, which were capable of making the next leap. But the present-day US and Russian carrier rockets might provide the opportunity to address these types of problems almost from the scratch in the 21st century. In Russia, the Soyuz carrier, which was developed from the legendary "seven" (R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile) and Proton-M turned out to be the most useful. These carriers were created by the mixed team of academicians Korolev and Chelomey. These carriers are more than 50 years old. In the last 15 years, the carrier missile Angara was developed in Russia, which was shown at the MAKS-2009 (Moscow air show) in all of its splendor. It requires a new spaceport, though. Let me remind you that it effectively took the Soviet industry three years to create both Korolev's "seven" and Chelomey's Proton. By present-day standards, the timetable is entirely unimaginable not only in Russia, but also in the United States. A new family of carriers is in development at present in the United States, which will be available in about five years, and the Space Shuttle program, which supported manned cosmonautics, will be closed in 2010. It turned out that in the process of development of space shuttles, gross mistakes were made, not so much technical as economic. When the program was launched, it was advertised as money saver because taking 1 kilogram of payload to the orbit was to cost the mankind $1,000, and in the future, it was to decrease to $100! But in fact, today taking 1 kilogram of payload to the orbit costs $20,000-$30,000! This is the main reason why NASA wants to stop using shuttles. Those people who will create future carrier rockets will encounter many difficulties because in terms of reliability, especially of the manned programs, their hardware will be compared to Soyuz and Proton, which are very reliable. Russia is far ahead of the rest of the planet in the field of launching spacecraft which are taken to the outer space by reliable old carriers, developed by Korolev, Chelomey, Yangel. Among the most pressing problems of cosmonautics I would mention communications systems. The spacecraft is the core of hundreds of national government or commercial systems which provide security to humanity. Tens of countries have their state communications satellite systems. Practically 90% of the communications satellites are on geosynchronous orbits. This is a unique type of the orbit, it is shared by all operating satellites. According to the latest data, some 1,200 objects of different types are on the geosynchronous orbit, of which only a few hundred are operating satellites. If the intensity of launching satellites to the geosynchronous orbit is maintained for the next 15-20 years, this unique resource will be exhausted. There is a need for international cooperation for the needed slot on this orbit. One of the possible solutions to this problem is building heavy multi-purpose platforms which will be able to replace many tens or even hundreds of present-day satellites. They will be very profitable from the commercial point of view. And they will be good for bringing peoples closer together from the information point of view, if, that is, the powers that be, political leaders of the main powerful states which make up G-8, G-20 -- I do not know how many of them there will be in the future -- act in the interests of the mankind, not in the interests of the class of oligarchs and corrupt government officials, as is the case in present-day Russia. In the late 20th century, the USSR developed projects of these types of platforms. Later, in 2000, projects of multifunction platforms were redesigned again. They turned out to be unable to compete with the yachts of our oligarchs. Because every yacht, if you read our media, is more expensive than modern space systems. Another problem of present-day cosmonautics is the systems of Earth remote sensing (DZZ (distantsionnoye zondirovaniye Zemli)). These are the systems on which the mankind started to work because of the aggravation of the Cold War. For cosmonautics, all the national borders are open, and, if space surveillance systems are destroyed, this is not tantamount to starting combat operations, unlike all other types of surveillance systems. After the fundamentally new optoelectronic systems were developed, which do not require sending photographic film back to the Earth, a huge qualitative leap took place in employment of the DZZ systems for all types of surveillance. The modern-day radioelectronic multispectrum optics make it possible to produce images with resolutions from 0.5 to 1 meter. In the future, resolution can be improved to1 centimeter, if need be. With employment of a special system of processing and analyzing information which is received from these satellites, we will be able to predict environmental disasters, carry out monitoring of environmental situation, make weather forecasts, look for deposits of minerals, receive information on development of all types of expensive residential properties in the areas where residential development is forbidden, and many other things. The pressing issue for the DZZ today is digital mapping of Earth's surface to address navigation-related problems. It has to be said that the space DZZ systems of Russia, China, the United States and all NATO member states play an important role in international security. Next area in which our present-day cosmonautics does a lot of work -- it started doing I just recently -- is satellite navigation. In 20 years from the moment of creation of the first satellite navigation system, we have developed the capacity to provide everyone with the information on their position on our planet and vector of movement round the clock, in any weather conditions, on the land or at sea with the accuracy of 100 meters. And if we try really hard, accuracy can be better than 50 centimeters for blind landing of aircraft. The GLONASS satellite navigation system has been developed in Russia. Its potential performance characteristics are practically on par with the US GPS system. But it had a weakness -- short life span of the satellites. Now the enterprise imeni Reshetnev (Applied Mechanics Research and Production Association) is working successfully on this problem. The failure of the ground-based sector of the GLONASS is a tragic outcome of the collapse of the military-industrial complex and deterioration of our electronics industry (it does not concentrate in the rocketry and space sector -- editor's office). This strongly affects the entire cosmonautics sector. Loud rhetoric and ads of leashes for dogs are not going to help. But I will now stop casting aspersions regarding this matter because these are problems of state, of sociopolitical system, rather than failures of space technologies or mistakes of researchers or engineers. This situation cannot be corrected quickly. The space communications, DZZ and navigation systems will define to the large extent the security of every state in the 21st century. If Russian top political, economic, military and all other types of leaders will remain unable to resolve these problems within the next five to seven years, our country might be reduced to the status of raw materials supplier to the powerful states -- the United States, Europe and probably China. Now to the manned programs. On 12 April 2011, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight and the beginning of the era of manned exploration of outer space. This year, we celebrated 40th anniversary of another great event in human history, landing of two US astronauts on the moon. At present, international crews work all the time at the International Space Stations. The maximum crew number of 13 was onboard the station for only 10 days, though. Cosmonauts and astronauts from five countries worked on the stations. After six US expeditions to the moon, lengthy work of man in space on orbital stations Salyut, Mir, and now the International Space Station is the next and logical achievement of international cosmonautics. After Russia and the United States, Communist China became the third country to develop technologies of manned flights. What are the main achievements of these programs? It has to be admitted that none of them have made new fundamental discoveries which during that period were made using special unmanned research spacecraft of all types. Such spacecraft brought about greater progress in recent decades in the fields of astronomy,astrophysics, studies of our universe and all of our knowledge of who and what we are, what is the Solar System and Earth than was made in all the preceding millennia. It can be said with certainty that we have proven the feasibility and even necessity of using human abilities in space to build, repair and service large and very complex installations. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it can be said with certainty that, to study the planets of the Solar System and Universe, scientists are needed to analyze the wealth of information which comes unmanned spacecraft. Throughout the entire history of manned flights, people in the space have not made any new fundamental scientific discoveries. In space, and especially to create a lunar base, people will be needed as builders, assemblers, ironworkers, and for the commercial system -- as tourists. In 1964, Wernher von Braun has said that in 10-15 years' time, a ticket to the moon would cost $5,000. Today, the person who wants to fly onboard our Soyuz must pay on order of $33 million. As you can see, even great designers make mistakes. Talking about the plans for the next few decades, they should concentrate on extension of the service life of the International Space Station till at least 2020. I would say that in the 21st century, the words from an old song which we all know -- "We will leave our footprints on Dusty trails on distant planets" -- will probably come true only for the lunar program. Man must be present on the moon, it must go back there, but this time not for the sake of political image, as was the case 40 years ago, but for the long term -- to settle there, for practical colonization and possibly for space tourism. Whether or not Russia will take part in that promising program, which is needed for further development of the civilization, depends on those Russians who are not yet 30 years old today. As for the talk about the expedition to Mars, which presumably is imminent and might take place all but tomorrow, there is no need to hurry for the next 50 or maybe even 100 years, given the costs and huge risks. In present-day estimates, this kind of an expedition will cost $250-300 billion. If this amount of money is available, they can be spent both in outer space and on the moon to much greater use. In my view, there is no need to involve ourselves in preparation of a manned expedition to Mars. Probably, many self-propelled craft will fly there in the near future. They will explore Mars much better than people will, who would have to spend one year on the way there, land on Mars, and begin preparing for going back -- if they will ever make it back to the Earth. Sergey Pavlovich Korolev and Mikhail Klavdiyevich Tikhonravov used to say that Fridrikh Arturovich Tsander, founder of the GIRD in Moscow (Group for the Study of Rocket Propulsion (Gruppa izucheniya reaktivnogo dvizheniya)), used to begin his working day with a slogan "Forward -- to Mars!" Modern cosmonautics needs programs with the slogan "Forward -- to the moon!" And this slogan is voiced at all international forums. All that is on show at the aerospace exhibitions will be implemented in practice depending on the economic situation in the country of origin. For now, it can be safely said that despite crises, the United States is the world leader in cosmonautics and advanced and generally, in fundamental scientific studies. The attitude of the US Government toward the work and critical examination of the new space programs is worth emulating. They have created an authoritative commission by federal law. It revises NASA proposals and is open for all the media. This enables the US society to be critical, and I would say, enthusiastic, about its space programs. Unfortunately, the recent news about the state of the Russian economy give me no grounds to be overly optimistic about the Russian cosmonautics. And lastly, in the international history of cosmonautics, there is one blank spot. The mankind has made a huge scientific advancement in just 50 years. A new area of work, cosmonautics, has appeared, which will in large part determine the future of man. But none of the creators of rockets and space hardware has been awarded the Nobel Prize. And the future generation will have to address this problem too in the 21st century. Roskosmos (Federal Space Agency) Press Service
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