That's a rumour, but the source is not from coffee-shop. Put it this way, I tend to believe what he told me, if not about the details.

If it is a joint US/Russian operation, we need to bail out now. They've done nothing but screw us on the Joint Space Station by underfunding their side of it, and shooting the production schedules all to hell.

And I wish we would stop wetting our pants over Mars. We should forget about sending people ther until we have set up a base on the moon. If there IS ice at the poles, THAT is the key to reaching the rest of the solar system. Water for fuel, water to sustain life, and we don't have to boost it up out of Earth's gravity well. The cost to reach the raw materials in the asteroid belt just plummeted.

As far as the Russian firsts, so what? Who care who wins the first lap of the Indy 500?

My point is that they DO NOT have the technical skill.

Longest duration in space is not relevent when they have'nt even mastered EXCERCISE in space. It was not even mandatory for their Mir Spam in a Can cosmonauts to excersize, they learned that from us after their people were helpless for a long time after returning to Earth.

Their EVA skills are pathetic, they even have a hard time getting their crews to go outside.

They don't have the technology because they have relied on automated systems, and automated systems will not keep astronauts alive a billion miles from Earth.

They nearly killed everyone onboard Mir, including an American, when they were testing human controlled docking of an unmanned supply ship. This was less than 5 years ago,
40 years into space flight, and they still haven't mastered how to independently control their spacecraft in orbit.

As for them sending a manned mission to the moon, I don't believe they had even launch tested the Energia, let alone flight tested the lander, let alone tested their navigation and lunar orbit insertion systems, there was no way they were going to stage a successful landing, even within the next two years, and they knew it.

Skylab was a tremendous success in scientific experimentation. We may still be analyzing the enormous amount of data the crews collected.

We shouldn't have let it fall to Earth. We should have copied that design concept of simple, easy to produce modules, and we would have a permanent space station right now.

> As far as the Russian firsts, so what? Who
> care who wins the first lap of the Indy 500?

Who cares who wins the second? Or the whole race for the sake of argument? Space exploration is not a race - it's something much deeper.

> My point is that they DO NOT have the technical skill.

??? No comment here.

> Longest duration in space is not relevent
> when they have'nt even mastered EXCERCISE
> in space. It was not even mandatory for
> their Mir Spam in a Can cosmonauts to
> excersize, they learned that from us after
> their people were helpless for a long time
> after returning to Earth.

Well, people are helpless after returning to Earth after half a year in orbit. When last time a shuttle was in orbit for more than a couple of days? It is this experience that gives Russia a big lead in the manned mission to Mars. As for the exercise your information is simply incorrect - they are part of a daily routine for cosmonauts both on the ground and up there.

> Their EVA skills are pathetic, they even
> have a hard time getting their crews to go
> outside.

As far as I hear, they are getting them to go outside every time they need to. A first guy outside was Russian, too.

> They don't have the technology because
> they have relied on automated systems, and
> automated systems will not keep astronauts
> alive a billion miles from Earth.

They will, they will - there is actually no need to rely of intuition or reflexes of a human pilot in navigating a spacecraft - it's just vacuum out there. Accuracy of an automated navigation system works very well in such a simple environment.

> They nearly killed everyone onboard Mir,
> including an American, when they were
> testing human controlled docking of an
> unmanned supply ship. This was less than 5
> years ago,
> 40 years into space flight, and they still
> haven't mastered how to independently
> control their spacecraft in orbit.

Different R&D priorities. Why are you so sure they are wrong? And then, that was a test 7 years into Russian time of chaos. Financed accordingly.

> As for them sending a manned mission to
> the moon, I don't believe they had even
> launch tested the Energia, let alone
> flight tested the lander, let alone tested
> their navigation and lunar orbit insertion
> systems, there was no way they were going
> to stage a successful landing, even within
> the next two years, and they knew it.

NASA astronaut's account of his stay on MIR, says at least one, might have been the Commander, ignored the exercizes while he was there.

"As far as I hear, they are getting them to go outside every time they need to. A first guy outside was Russian, too."

Same account describes them feigning sickness to delay or avoid EVA's.

Yes it IS a race, and the winner of the race to the critical resources keeps the critical resources.

Winner of lap one is still irrelevant.

"They will, they will - there is actually no need to rely of intuition or reflexes of a human pilot in navigating a spacecraft - it's just vacuum out there. Accuracy of an automated navigation system works very well in such a simple environment."

You may not know of the number of times US astronauts saved their skins by falling back to manual control of their crafts, even during absolutely critical re-entry phases.
Neil Armstrong saved his butt and his Gemini crewmate when a thruster went berserk. And he saved his and Buzz Aldrin's butts when he took over manual control of Eagle when the automatic system was putting them down in a boulder field.

There is nothing simple about navigating, maneuvering, and surviving in a vacuum.

"Different R&D priorities. Why are you so sure they are wrong? And then, that was a test 7 years into Russian time of chaos. Financed accordingly."

Would you bet YOUR life on budget Russian technology? Ever study how their SST was built? You know, the one the pilot tore the wings off of just before hitting a French village? Or the Energia that blew up and wiped out most of their launch team? Or the test of the manual docking on MIR? Where the ranging radar knocked out the remote pilot's single video camera of the approaching supply shuttle, so they told him to try it next time without closure data? You want to put your life in the hands of these kinds of decision makers?

"Have you ever heard of Lunohod moon tractors? If that was not a launch test, well..."

Did they use Energia? Don't you think the requirements are far more stringent for manned missions? You know, the idea is to bring a ship back with living cargo, not just land it somewhere 250,000 miles away.

They have proved they can keep Spam in a Can for extended periods, they have shown nothing of the ability to land on other worlds and return safely.

------------------
Take it vertical.. dive.. ram your talons deep.

[This message has been edited by Swervin Irvin (edited 02-15-2000).]

I'm out of date now. Last Nova show I saw was probably at least 6 months ago. I believe they are still trying to get the US to give them cash to get them back on schedule.

The few pieces they have delivered have shown high quality and elegant design when tested here on Earth.

I think it would bode well for the human race if the major powers can co-operate in space exploration, but it's off to a very shaky start.

They do have extensive experience with orbital stations, it's a pity we are trying to build a co-op gold plated Cadillac of a station when we could do the same or better job with a simpler, cheaper, easier to produce system. Like Skylab.

Skylab was brilliant engineering. After Richard Nixon and a spineless Congress gutted the NASA budget, they had surplus Saturn V heavy lifters. They took two upper stages and built two Skylabs out of them. The backup is at the Air and Space Museum in DC.
You can get up close to it, the quality of workmanship is something to behold. That museum is a shrine to me.

Anyway, in a short period of time, NASA built a simple, extremely effective research platform, repaired critical damage sustained during launch, and crewed the large station for months. Nodes could have allowed expansion from this core module, piece at a time, just like the current plan, but there was no money.

Frankly, I do not know which missile was used to get Lunohods to the moon, it was not Energia because Energia did not exist at the time yet (it's early 80-s design). What I can tell you for sure - missile that could get a lunohod down there would get a man without any need for redesign. Those things were pretty heavy.

Soviets scrapped manned mission to moon plans when they realized that USA are going to beat them. Other than ideology there was no practical purpose for that mission.

Manned control of space craft - at the more or less same time there was one incident involving Soviet VOSTOK, where Leonov again had to enter atmosphere under manual control. What does it prove?

Bottom line: in 80-s Soviet space technology was at least on par with American (IMHO, it was somewhat more advanced in virtually any field except electronics, but that's just my humble opinion).

Thanks for jumping in. Very interesting info about the TU-144. Accounts from the period in Aviation Week and Space Technology depicted the pilot doing radical maneuvers that had observers doubting his judgement. There was some speculation he was trying to steal the Paris Air Show back from General Dynamics after an astounding demonstration by the new F-16. In hindsight, that may all have been propaganda.

However, they had also published a photo of the belly of the TU-144 that showed a large plate, perhaps one to two inches thick, that was bolted on the fuselage wing box area, to control some developing stress cracks. It looked like bloody steam locomotive technology.

Your point is well taken, however, that they have mastered many forms of technology. I still have doubts that they have learned what it takes to reach Mars, and return.

Alex, my point about focusing on mastering human control of deep space exploration craft is that over the course of a two year plus mission, flexibility and redundancy will be paramount in dealing with the unforseen difficulties that WILL arise. NASA has proven the robustness of their human pilot philosophy, in my opinion.

To all who have read or responded, thanks for helping me wallow like a pig in the mud of one of my favorite subjects!

So, we go to Mars, nobody dies, big success, and we have a dead end program just like Apollo. There will be no significant follow up because it will still be vastly too expensive to put a long term base there, and that should be the primary reason to go.

And if the mission failed, public support for space exploration could dry up. Humanity needs the resources from space if we are ever going to sustain high technology on this planet without poisoning ourselves and our descendants.

If we refocus on a moon base, then we can make Mars, the asteroid belt, and maybe even Jupiter reachable, on an ongoing basis, and not just be left with a tragically short sighted program like Apollo turned out to be.

Btw, Swervin,

"and maybe even Jupiter reachable"

I really don't see what we could do on Jupiter. The planet itself is unlandable (obviously), and the magnetic field generated by Jupiter is so strong that it would be close to impossible to land or build any kind of base on any of its moons.

the attraction Jupiter holds for me are the moons.

I may not be up to date on the implications of the magnetic environment, but I know Io has too severe a radiation environment for us. That is also the closest moon to Jupiter.

If the outer ones are survivable, there could be harvestable fuel (water) on some of those moons, and Jupiters enormous gravity well could make dropping stuff back towards sunwards economical. We are getting quite proficient at slinging objects through gravity wells and reaping free accelleration.

But we may not need Jupiter for Life on Earth to expand into space.

I see the primary goals as:

1. A base on the moon, to build and supply ships above Earth's gravity well. There is plenty of aluminum in the moon's soil, and if we can find water in the eternally shadowed pole region craters, then we have an enormous expansion in our capabilities.

2. Reach the asteroid belt for the enormous amount of metals out there.

3. Learn to navigate and control large asteroids and comets, because our prime purpose as humans, why we might have evolved in the direction we have, may be to act as Mother Earth's eyes out into space, to see the big rocks, and stop them from raining death down on her children, from severely damaging her skin, as has happened so many times in the past.

We need some kind of guiding intelligence to explain the evolution of life on Earth, I don't think any religions will ever convince a skeptic like me of the source of that innate wisdom carried in DNA, and random genetic variation does not even come close to explaining a spider, let alone a human baby.

Well, you are probably convinced I'm a nut case if you got this far, but if you make a simple assumption, that planets can be a living entity, then wouldn't they be motivated to avoid pain and injury, just like any living thing?

One last bit of Mother Earth Evangelism: remember, the universe is not only stranger than you think, it's stranger than you CAN think!

We also need to start looking for some alternative energy sources here on earth and aboard, the oil deposits (outside of artic) will only last another 70 years. 200 years max if we can get to the ones in the south pole.

Kind of a cold splash in the face, isn't it?

to a basically weird, antisocial SOB like me, who still can't help but like people, your kind words mean more to me than I can say. Thanks for listening.

Major Thom,

if you're not too sick of this thread, I'll gladly give you my versions of the proofs that we have ALREADY discovered life on Mars!

The 2004 Titan landing probe is more exiting to me. Even if no life is found, it will give us a great view of a completely different world.
Mars is very similar to Earth, but Titan is really a new world.
I hope they don't screw that one up like they did the two recent Mars probes...

thanks for the input, but is it really that stable? When the first Viking mission reached there in '76, there was a world wide dust storm, the poles grow and shrink with the seasons, cloud formations are seen in many areas, and we are not even considering the effect of cometary impact.

Mars may have been in this state for a very long time, but that means it must have been hit by small comets continuously. That is a significant supply of water and organics. Recent declassified data from the US shows that the satellite system we use to detect missle launches has found a continous rain of what are probably small comets hitting Earth's atmosphere. Mars must be receiving some as well. With a thinner atmosphere, the comets may be delivering much more material right to Mars' surface as well.

Everything we have learned about life on this planet this century tells us our usual assumptions are usually false! Life at the bottom of the ocean, in the dark around those hot water vents being a good example.

Alex,

I'm dying to get back up on my soapbox, but will need a little more time to get the post together. Man, this is one happy pig in the mud on this end!

I meant chemically stable...
There's no free oxygen created by "plants".
All of it has been consumed in various oxidation processes, most likely in the iron oxide (rust) that gives Mars it's distinct brown-red colour.
On Earth, the atmosphere is unstable.
The oxygen levels are maintained by the vegetation and various microbes in the ocean surfaces.
If those oxygen producers would disappear, the oxygen would quite soon oxidize metals and other materials and most of the atmosphere would, like Mars', be CO2...

(I feel really stupid right now...)

Norwegian???
I'm swedish...