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Lost dreams

A page of thoughts, ramblings and rants about the past, present and future of the Russian space program.

The vision

October 1986 National Geographic cover

A long time ago in a far-away land there was a much-feared empire called the Soviet Union. In October of 1986 the monthly National Geographic magazine came out with a cosmonaut on the cover and the leading story entitled, “Soviets in space: are they ahead?” The Soviet space program was at this time the source of much speculation and curiosity in the West (not unlike the Chinese space program today); though Americans had beaten them in the Moon race, the Russians in turn had far outpaced NASA in long-duration spaceflight.

At that time, Baikonur cosmodrome and the other launch sites (Plesetsk and Kapustin Yar) were off-limits to foreigners, and could only be viewed from satellite images. There were around a hundred rocket launches of various types every year, and around 600 000 people were employed to support the program. The total yearly budget was the equivalent of U.S. 22 billion dollars.

In 1986, the base block of the new space station Mir had been launched that February. Vladimir Solov’ev and Leonid Kizim were the first to occupy Mir.

The then-nameless Soviet shuttle was also in preparation for its first launch (there is a sketch of it on the launchpad at Baikonur, attached to the “new Soviet heavy-lift rocket”).

“Soviets in Space” was written by then-science editor Thomas Y. Canby. Some extracts…

Mr. [Deke] Slayton spoke of the cosmonauts’ lofty social status. “They’re heroes – almost revered. The Soviets have been playing at being atheists, and the cosmonauts seem to fill a vacuum.” And so it seemed to me. Exploits in space stir the Soviet soul like a religion – stirrings fanned by a government immensely proud of space successes.

At the cult’s pinnacle stands the martyred Yuri Gagarin. Only Lenin’s likenesses outnumber his among busts and paintings honoring Soviet heroes… An estimated 175 space museums attract devotees across the land. In the vast Young Pioneers program, the Young Cosmonauts attract the best and the brightest. Television, newspapers, postage stamps – all tout Soviet achievements in space.

What of the future? Where are the Soviets headed in space?

Space stations: Western observers see Salyut and Mir being replaced in a few years by a larger station. This hinges on successful launching of a heavy-lift booster comparable to that which lifted Skylab… Meanwhile the Soviets are expected to dock as many as four large modules to Mir, with continuously-operating crews.

Shuttle: […] U.S. satellites have photographed the Soviet shuttle. Defence Department spokesmen add that it will look familiar – built partly from U.S. shuttle plans obtained by means of an immense Soviet apparatus for technology acquisition.

To the Moon? A number of U.S. authorities believe the Soviets will establish an orbital Moon station and from there colonize the lunar surface. “They’ll do it partly to gain experience for going to Mars,” says analyst Marcia Smith, president of the American Astronautical Society.

To Mars? The Soviets feel a spiritual pull toward the Red Planet. “Even back in the thirties, when Tsiolkovskii was alive, that was our dream,” I heard from aged rocket designer Igor A. Merkulov.

When will a Mars mission get underway?

Academican Sagdeev stated that a Mars voyage will not take place before the year 2000. Nicholas Johnson interprets Soviet expectations to encompass lunar bases within 20 years, Mars expeditions a decade later.

Yet cosmonaut Savinykh, speaking in Yugoslavia, said he has signed up to ride a Mir to Mars before 1995. This sounds plausible to Londoner Rex Hall. “Once the Soviets accumulate five or so years of success in Mir, they’ll feel comfortable moving on to Mars. We could see three or four Mirs and modules in tandem, manned by a crew of six who work and sleep in shifts.”

Soviets at all levels speak hopefully of a joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. mission to Mars.

A similar article was published a year later in TIME magazine: “Surging Ahead: The Soviets overtake the U.S. as the No. 1 spacefaring nation”.

No one then could have foreseen the collapse of the Soviet Union only five years later, and the subsequent drastic cutbacks in funding for the Russian space program which saw those dreams put on hold, perhaps indefinitely.

Two of the achievements to come from that time were the Russian space shuttle Buran, and the Mir space station.

The fall

Some resent the way in which the rocket program’s family silver has been sold off at bargain basement prices to rivals who stand to gain huge profits from their lifetime’s investment. The joint ventures have drawn criticism that they will lead to a brain, patent and knowledge drain to the United States and that the once-great Russian rocket industry will lose its ingenuity and ability to innovate.

– Russia in Space: The Failed Frontier?, Brian Harvey.

With the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1991 came the ending of their grand vision for space exploration. Funding was drastically reduced, and those in the space program had to find extra funding by whatever means they could. Thus began the great “fire sale” of the Russian space program, where technology and knowledge were sold off to anyone who could pay, along with priceless Soviet-era space artifacts that were sent to Western auction houses and sold to private collectors.

More subtly, this eagerness or desperation to make money also led to a loss of respect from others. The Soviet space program, veiled in secrecy, had for years been a source of intense curiosity and speculation. Once the program emerged into the glaring light of reality, however, it seemed that the world lost interest and the former curiosity was replaced with derision. “Show me the money!” some commentators would sneer whenever anyone in the Russian space program proposed some scheme or vision.

Proponents of capitalism and the market economy were enthusiastic about the Russian space program’s embracing of this creed, pointing to it as an example of how NASA should evolve. But this came at a cost: the loss of dignity. Commericalization has cheapened the Russian space program – it is a pact with the Devil. Short-term gain, but long-term pain.

NASA takes a tip from Russia on selling space travel

Ariana Eunjung Cha, The Age, 22 March 2003

NASA is studying the Russian commercialisation program, an effort it once ridiculed, for ideas about what it is – and is not – comfortable doing. “What Russia has done is open up the market so that now this is a real market, whereas before it was still a thing of the distant future,” said Marco Caceres, an analyst with the Teal Group, an aerospace research company. While NASA approached its relationships with industry cautiously, the cash-strapped Russian space agency embraced commercialisation with such gusto that its space program became known as “rockets for roubles”.

In 2001, the Russians ferried American tycoon Dennis Tito to the space station for $20 million. Next came South African tycoon Mark Shuttleworth. They’ve allowed Pizza Hut crispy-crust pies, RadioShack talking photo frames and Popular Mechanics magazines to be delivered to the station.

They also signed an agreement with Mark Burnett, creator of the TV show Survivor, to create a new reality show. Contestants on what was tentatively called “Destination Space” were to train at Star City, Russia’s equivalent of the Houston training centre. Former astronauts and military and space officials would vote off one person each week. The winner was to get a trip to the space station.

[…]

And that last proposal is just one step short of turning Star City into some Disneyland theme park.

When not chauffeuring wealthy space tourists on Soyuz flights, cosmonauts have also been required to film advertisements as part of their contracts…

Among the food items [Jerry] Linenger has requested from the ground are pretzels, and to his delight, he spies a bag of Rold Gold pretzels nestled in the Progress as the crew continues unpacking that weekend. Linenger grabs the bag and is just about to open it when Tsibliyev stops him.

“Hey, don’t eat those!” the commander says. “Those are for the commercial.”

In the midst of one of the more difficult periods Mir has endured in its eleven-year history, the TsUP has scheduled Tsibliyev to perform not one but two television commercials, one for Rold Gold, the other for an Israeli milk company. Linenger can tell Tsibliyev is embarrassed to be filming the commercials, which is one reason, he suspects, the commander insists on doing them late at night. The first to be filmed is the milk commercial, which requires Tsibliyev to gobble globs of milk floating in the air; there is no speaking part.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Linenger remembers. “In the middle of all this, they want him to do a milk commercial. All of a sudden, at 11:30 at night, we need to do this milk commercial. ‘Stop working on the oxygen generator, we have to do a milk commercial!’ I could see he was sort of ashamed that the Russian space program had degenerated into doing milk commercials, so I said ‘Good night’ so he could do it. Then later I came back out and saw Sasha filming him. He looks at me and turns beet-red. It was embarrassing for both of us.”

Tsibliyev’s embarrassment turns to irritation the next morning when the TsUP, acting on directions from the commercial’s director, asks him to reshoot one scene. The commander, it turns out, hadn’t been smiling.

– Bryan Burrough, Dragonfly

On the ISS, these advertisements have included filming an ad for noodles (featuring my favorite cosmonaut, much to my dismay) and hitting a golf ball into orbit.

The Russian space program has become so obsessed with commercialization that they have forgotten their original vision – lost their focus. It is a betrayal of the visionaries such as Konstantin Tsiolkovskii and Sergei Korolyov.

However, this focus on tourism and making a profit has distracted the Russians from their original goal of building interplanetary space vessels. Rather, they are focusing on turning their portion of the ISS into a tourist and entertainment center in order to generate the funds to keep their operation aloft.

– Leaving Earth, Robert Zimmerman

NASA, in the meantime, announced its Vision for Space Exploration in 2004, and, in September 2005, plans to return to the Moon by 2018. But where was Russia in this? It seems they have faded from public consciousness when it comes to such grand visions. They have been replaced by China (one country whom they, incidentally, sold technology and knowledge to). The burgeoning Chinese space program seems almost a nostalgic re-enactment of the Soviet one. They are proceeding slowly but surely, and are mostly secretive about their own plans for space exploration. But there is a clear element of nationalistic pride about their program that has been lost in Russia.

Perhaps what the Russian space program is direly in need of is another Sergei Korolyov, someone with the drive and vision and strong will to get the program back on track again, towards its original goals of colonizing space. Someone who could pester the Russian government for adequate funding so people in the space program would not have to resort to such undignified means of making money. Commercialization would be best left to private companies while governments got on with the procedure of exploring and colonizing space.

Why do I care? Why does this bother me so much?

They had so much and then they threw it away. Leaders like Gorbachyov and Yeltsin betrayed the space program, and their country generally, in their botched attempt to reform the-then USSR. They destroyed so much in their quest for reform – aided and abetted by entities such as the World Bank, who “advised” Russia on economic reform in what was really an attempt to destroy the Communist Party and disempower Russia so much that it could never be a superpower again (see the “Russia vs. New World Order” article link below). This thoroughly stuffed-up process let corrupt and greedy oligarches make off with their country’s wealth. They screwed up.

This book review, “The right (and wrong) stuff”, by Norman Spinrad in Asimov’s also expresses more eloquently than I can why the Russian space program has such a curious appeal. Maybe there are people in it who still have those dreams, but they seem to be well-hidden.

Star dreams

For those who need reminding…

In 1926, the visionary dreamer Konstantin Tsiolkovskii (1857-1935) defined his “Plan of Space Exploration”, consisting of sixteen steps for human expansion into space, as listed in the table below (with comments by me). As you can see, there is a long way to go yet. In my (frequent) pessimistic moments, I feel that the future colonization of space is an impossible dream, and humanity’s only real future is extinction. Humans seem unable to evolve beyond their aggressive, destructive natures and keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again throughout history.

Plan of Space Exploration
Order Step Comments
1 Creation of rocket airplanes with wings. Done!
2 Progressively increasing the speed and altitude of these airplanes. Done!
3 Production of real rockets – without wings. Done!
4 Ability to land on the surface of the sea. Yes!
5 Reaching escape velocity (about 8 km/second), and the first flight into Earth orbit. Done!
6 Lengthening rocket flight times in space. Done!
7 Experimental use of plants to make an artificial atmosphere in spaceships. Not yet, though plants grown on Mir and the ISS (see point 9).
8 Using pressurized space suits for activity outside of spaceships. Yes!
9 Making orbiting greenhouses for plants. Small greenhouses for growing plants on Mir and the ISS.
10 Constructing large orbital habitats around the Earth. Mir and the ISS, though they could only sustain up to 3 people for long periods of time.
11 Using solar radiation to grow food, to heat space quarters, and for transport throughout the Solar System. Solar power via external solar arrays.
12 Colonization of the asteroid belt. Not yet.
13 Colonization of the entire Solar System and beyond. Nowhere near that yet (if ever).
14 Achievement of individual and social perfection. A LONG way from that. Probably only achievable through some form of genetic engineering.
15 Overcrowding of the Solar System and the colonization of the Milky Way (the Galaxy). The Earth is getting overcrowded, but humans are still far away from moving off it in great numbers.
16 The Sun begins to die and the people remaining in the Solar System’s population go to other suns. Don’t have to worry about that for sometime yet…but time passes, and it will come! (Then again, humans might be extinct in 5 billion years.)

(Source: The life of Konstantin Eduardovitch Tsiolkovsky.)

An interesting extract from a novel by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke:

As he had once tried to explain to Eugene, there had always been a deep heliophilic strand in Russian astronautics. When Orthodox Christianity had split from Rome, it had reached back to more ancient pagan elements – especially the cult of Mithras, a mystery cult exported from Persia across the Roman Empire, in which the sun had been the dominant cosmic force. Over the centuries elements of these pagan roots had been preserved, for example in the painting of sun-like haloes in Russian iconography. It had been revived more explicitly by the “neo-pagans” of the nineteenth century. These holy fools might have been forgotten – had it not been for the fact that Tsiolkovskii, father of Russian astronautics, had studied under heliophilic philosophers.

No wonder that Tsiolkovskii’s vision of humanity’s future in space had been full of sunlight; indeed, he had dreamed that ultimately humankind in space would evolve into a closed, photosynthesizing metabolic unit, needing nothing but sunlight to live. Some philosophers even regarded the whole of the Russian space program as nothing but a modern version of a solar-worshiping ritual.

Mikhail himself was no mystic, no theologian. But surely it wasn’t a coincidence that he had been so drawn to the study of the sun. How strange it was, though, that now the sun should repay such devotion with this lethal storm.

And how strange it was too, he reflected, that the name given by Bisesa Dutt’s companions to their parallel world, Mir, meant not just “peace” or “world,” but was also the root of the name Mithras, for mir meant, in ancient Persian, “sun”…

– Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter, Sunstorm

~ Page last revised: 4 August 2006

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