Federal Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov told the meeting that the preliminary design could be ready by 2012. He said it would then take nine years and 17 billion rubles ($600 million) to build the ship.
$600 million? Lets see, the Aries I-X cost about $440 million, and that's with used parts and a dummy load. Maybe we really should outsource our rocket development. Or maybe the Russian Federal Space Agency has taken a page from NASA's proposal guide. "Bid the amount that can be approved then let cost overruns take care of themselves."
thats great, but I wonder if they plan to have a nuclear reactor to provide electric energy to some propulsion system (like ions) or if they plan to build some kind of 21th century Orion spacecraft (nuclear pulse propulsion)
The Russians have great scientists, very good engineers, lousy quality control.
Let them take the lead. If they don't screw up too badly we can match or surpass them in ten years. Maybe just dust off some of Doc Bussards old designs.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Stanley Borowski, a senior engineer at NASA specializing in nuclear rocket engines, said that in deep space they are twice as fuel-efficient as conventional rocket fuel and would have many advantages on such missions as taking astronauts and gear to Mars.
But launched from Earth, they could expose crew and people near the blastoff site to potential radiation that would escape the confines of the rocket, he said.
"We never talk about using them for Earth-to-orbit launch," Borowski told The Associated Press. "The way they have always talked about it in NASA missions is for use in deep space."
Which is why NASA has GNDN for nearly 40 years.
AcesHigh wrote:thats great, but I wonder if they plan to have a nuclear reactor to provide electric energy to some propulsion system (like ions) or if they plan to build some kind of 21th century Orion spacecraft (nuclear pulse propulsion)
Some Solid Core Nuclear Thermal Rocket Designs have sufficiently high thrust to weight ratios to take off from the Earth's surface.
according to this article, the russian proposal is for a nuclear electric rocket... that is, the nuclear reactor only serves to create electricity that runs some other propulsion system (VASIMR, IONS, etc)