Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Apr 11, 2005 1:21:03 GMT -6
NEW RUSSIAN SHUTTLE TO BE DISPLAYED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN JAPAN
From Moscow:
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov.)
EXPO-2005, the world's largest exhibition of scientific and technological achievements, will open on March 25 in Nagoya, Japan.
The Russian exhibits - 17 tons delivered in 13 containers - obviously show that high-tech output ultimately determines a country's economic might. And the main Russian exhibit in Japan - a life-size model of the Kliper transport shuttle - is a significant event in world space exploration.
"The initial plans were to display the Kliper at the Le Bourget aerospace show [in June]," said Vladimir Strashko, the commissioner general of the Russian exposition at EXPO, "but we decided to unveil a full-size model of the spaceship at EXPO-2005 first."
Moscow is eager to show its new achievement as soon as possible, because it means that Russia will soon become the second country with a space shuttle, which will be a new-generation one at that.
Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos), says, "In principle the fate of Kliper, which can be used not only for flights to the International Space Station but also to the Moon, has already been determined. The new spaceship, developed by the Energiya Rocket & Space Corporation, will be fairly comfortable. We have always been worried by the cramped living space in modern spaceships. When I got into a spaceship at the Cosmonauts Training Center, I realized how little room for three crewmen was there." He said the Kliper would have a new capsule with comfortable chairs for six crewmembers, just like in a passenger liner. The new spaceship can land on an airfield with a first-class runway like an ordinary aircraft, which sets it apart from the U.S. space shuttle. And the Russian version is going to be a great deal cheaper
Lot more here: en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=5470149&startrow=21&date=2005-03-21&do_alert=0
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As NASA presently starts the de-commission procedures of our Shuttle fleet, Russia will now be the Leader of the Pack. These will indeed be known as the Dark days of the American manned space program...
