Marshall Brain's Blog

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Back to the Moon #2

The article Bush's New Space Plan Excites Russia contains this fascinating section:

"Mikhailichenko said Russia's giant Energiya booster rocket, with a payload of about 100 metric tons (110 tons), could be useful for moon and interpleanetary missions. The Energiya program has been dormant in recent years due to the money crunch and the lack of suitable mission.

Mikhailichenko said Energiya launching facilities have been preserved at Baikonur, Russia's launching base for manned space flights.

Meanwhile, Russian space designers said they could quickly develop spacecraft for both moon and Mars missions if they have money.

Roald Kremnev, a deputy head of NPO Lavochkin company which built the Soviet Lunokhod rover that traipsed across the moon in 1970, said it could build its successor in mere two or three years for just 600 million rubles (US$21 million), ITAR-Tass reported.

Kremnev said that his company could make spacecraft capable of flying automatic missions to the moon, including robots capable of building temporary housing on the Moon.

Another space designer, Leonid Gorshkov of the RKK Energiya company that builds Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, says it has designed a spacecraft which can carry a crew to Mars as early as 2014 for US$15 billion.

Gorshkov told ITAR-Tass that the 70-metric ton (77-ton) spacecraft modelled on the Russian Zvezda module for the ISS could be assembled in orbit from components delivered by Proton booster rockets."

The Energiya has three times the lifting capacity of the space shuttle.

One thing this quote implies is that we can think of Russia as a freelance space contractor. With prices like these, there are wealthy individuals who could consider funding their own space programs. It also puts the X-Prize in a different light. If the rules allowed it, someone with a few million dollars could win the X-Prize in a cakewalk using Russian technology as the foundation.

This quote also implies that any other country that has the will and the money can use Russia's skills to get to the moon or to Mars.