FRYAZINO (Moscow Region), October 28 – The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos has developed a design for a piloted spacecraft powered by a nuclear engine, the head of the agency said on Wednesday.
“The project is aimed at implementing large-scale space exploration programs,” Anatoly Perminov said at a meeting of the commission on the modernization of the Russian economy.
RD-0410 NTP Engine developed by Russia in the 1960's. Credit – Dietrich Haeseler
He added that the development of Megawatt-class nuclear space power systems (MCNSPS) for manned spacecraft was crucial for Russia if the country wanted to maintain a competitive edge in the space race, including the exploration of the Moon and Mars.
Perminov said that the draft design of the spacecraft would be finalized by 2012, and the financing for further development in the next nine years would require an investment of at least 17 billion rubles (over $580 million).
Anatoly Koroteyev, president of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics and head of the Keldysh research center, earlier said that the key scientific and technical problem in sending manned missions to the Moon and Mars was the development of new propulsion systems and energy supplies with a high degree of energy-mass efficiency.
The current capabilities of the Russian space industry are clearly insufficient either to set up a permanent base on the Moon or accomplish an independent manned mission to Mars, he said.
© RIA Novosti
04:40 pm
04:09 pm
Gabitasoft Interactive. All Rights Reserved.
Let me explain to you why we should NEVER dispose of anything to the sun.
imagine our earth is a blue ball of clay
you can take a piece off of it and form
a little man or a little car or what have you.
when you're done with that little creation
you can roll it up with the rest of the blue
clay and never loose any mass.
Now, If you take pieces off the ball and throw them
into the fire, eventually you will be left with nothing.
Disposing of anything on the sun is a horrible idea
we have to recycle everything if the human race is
to survive. eventually we will have to mine trash dumps
for resources- ipods and refrigerators have prescious metals
that can be used for other things.