(EST PUB DATE) ANNOTATION

• Document Type: FOIA
• Keywords: UFO SPECIAL COLLECTION
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005517537
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 53
• Document Creation Date: June 24, 2015
• Document Release Date: January 31, 2011
• Case Number: F-2010-00651
• Publication Date: January 1, 1990

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Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Status: [STAT]
Report Type: JPRS Report Report Date:
Report Number: JPRS-USP-9I-005 UDC Number:
Headline: Annotation
Source Line: 00000000
FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE:
1. What's been done so far and what may lie ahead- something of a
summary of the development of the space program, and an attempt at
predicting how it will develop-are what is contained in this
brochure, written by one of the planet's first cosmonauts.
2. The brochure is intended for a broad circle of readers.
3. Thirty years have gone by since the first man flew into 'space,
and 33 years since the launch of the first artificial Earth
satellite. One naturally wants to ask oneself, Just what have we
succeeded in doing? What new things have we learned? What have we
gained that is of practical value?
4. What's Been Done So Far?
5. In terms of manned flight, we can liste?folloving
achievements:
6. We have found out that man can live and work in orbit for a year
(and probably longer).
7. We have performed six lunar missions.
8. Man can work in open space (in a space suit), but his mobility
and his capabilities there are extremely limited.
9. Man can do research in space, altering its programs and aims in
the course of a mission. His capabilities, however, are largely
determined by the equipment on board, and he cannot compete with
automatic devices in terms of accuracy of execution of precision
operations.
10. Manned spaceflight has not given us any fundamentally new
information (other than data on man himself in weightlessness and
data on the operation of the flight systems themselves in space), and
we are powered by the hope for now that we will be able to do
something of substance in the future.
11. We still haven't found an "ecological niche" in science,
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technology, or economics for a man working in orbit (the practical
work that has been done so far-making observations and turning
cameras, instruments for observing outer space, and experimental
equipment on and off- could have been done, theoretically, with
automatic devices that, for the moment, can compete with man in
everything but the repair and replacement of individual instruments
and pieces of equipment; but the slot of "repairman" is hardly a
secure, long-lasting niche).
12. In terms of applied, in-orbit activity that is beneficial to the
people on Earth, the use of unmanned spacecraft has produced much
better results. In that regard, we can name the following important
achievements:
13. a marked expansion of the capabilities of telephone, telex, and
computer communications through the use of communications satellites
14. intercontinental television communications
15. global weather monitoring with weather satellites, and
dramatically better accuracy in weather forecasting and in warning of
approaching natural disasters
16. improved maritime and airways navigation through the use of
satellite-based navigation systems
17. greater reliability in the receipt of distress signals and in
the identification of the area from which a signal is coming as a
result of the use of satellite systems like Cospas-Sarsat
18. the capability of global and local ecological monitoring of land
areas and sea surfaces and of the study of the Earth's natural
resources with satellites
19. observation of land areas and sea surfaces with reconnaissance
satellites not only for purposes of military reconnaissance, but also
for monitoring adherence to international arms-limitation agreements.
20. Unmanned spacecraft have been used to obtain important new
information in the field of scientific research. Such information
includes the following:
21. discovery of the Earth's radiation belts
22. research findings associated with the Earth's ionosphere and
magnetosphere
23. discovery of "solar wind"
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24. confirmation of the absence of life on the Moon and on Venus
25. data on the atmospheres and surfaces of Venus and Mars
(composition, density and pressure variation with altitude, relief)
26. large-scale maps and photographs of the surfaces of the Moon,
Mars, and distant planets of the solar system and their moons
27. detection in the celestial sphere and mapping of sources
emitting in the ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ranges of
electromagnetic radiation
28. detection in the celestial sphere of sources of X-ray and gamma
bursts
29. confirmation of the existence of neutron stars and "black
holes" in the Universe
30. discovery of heretofore unknown processes occurring in the
Universe (matter transfer between close binary star systems,
accretion of matter on the surface of neutron stars, accretion of
matter on "black holes").
31. In terms of the creation of technical systems for space
hardware, we have, of course, achieved great success. But we
shouldn't flatter ourselves too much: after all, the space hardware
has been working, so to speak, for itself.
32. Here we could note the following important efforts. First,
various systems for putting spacecraft into orbit have been created:
33. expendable rockets, among which we could name, for example, the
Soviet rockets of the R7 family (capable of putting a payload of
about 7 tons into orbit), the Proton family (approx. 20-ton payload),
Zenit (approx. 13-ton payload), and Energiya (payload on the order of
100 tons); the American rockets of the Atlas family (with Atlas-Agena
capable of putting payload of about 3.4 tons into orbit), the Titan
family (the Titan 3C can put about 12 tons into orbit), and the
Saturn 5 (capable of lifting 137 tons); and the French rockets of the
Ariane family (the payload mass of the Ariane 5 is expected to be
about 20 tons)
34. "reusable" transport systems: the American Shuttle system
(with a payload mass of about 30 tons) and the Soviet Buran system
(the payload mass is expected to be up to 30 tons).
35. Second, systems for manned flight and manned operations in space
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have been created-manned spacecraft and orbital stations: the
single-seat Vostok, capable of up to 10 days of flight; the
single-seat Mercury (up to 24 hours of flight); the three-seat Vostok
(up to three days of flight); the two-seat Gemini (up to 15 days of
flight); the three-seat Soyuz (up to 20 days of independent flight
and six months of flight as past of an orbital station); the two-seat
lunar mission craft (up to 30 days of independent flight); the
orbital Skylab stations; the Salyut-series stations; and the
multimodule Mir station.
36. Next, unmanned space vehicles have been created for scientific
research. The most outstanding results have been produced with the
Explorer 1 (discovery of the Earth's radiation belts); the Luner
Orbiter (mapping of the Moon's surface from a satellite orbit);
Luna-16 (delivery of soil from the lunar surface to Earth); Luna-17
(the self-propelled vehicle controlled by an Earth-based operator);
Venera-4 (first data on the parameters of the Venutian atmosphere);
Mariner 9 (studies and mapping of the surface of Mars from a
satellite orbit); Viking .1 (studies of the surface of Mars and a
search for signs of life in the vicinity of the landing site);
Voyager (studies of the distant planets of the solar system); Uhuru,
Ariel, SAS-3, Vela, Copernicus, ANS-1, COS-8. HEAO, and IUE (basic
astrophysical research in the X-ray and UV ranges).
37. And last of all, the unmanned space vehicles for applied
operations in Earth satellite orbit. Among them one cannot fail to
include the communications satellites (Intelsat, Comstar, Sincom,
Ekran, etc.), satellites for studying the Earth's natural resources
(Landsat, Seasat), navigation satellites (like Navsat), weather
satellites, reconnaissance satellites, and satellites for relaying
distress signals and for determining their coordinates.
38. The Experience We've Garnered
39. The experience we've garnered is quite varied. By and large, it
relates to the rather well-known tasks associated with the
development, manufacture, testing, and operation of rocket and space
hardware.
40. For example, problems related to safety surrounding the launch
of rocket systems. Those problems mainly involve the large quantities
of oxidizer and propellant that are loaded into the rocket. Toxic
components, as they are used in such a rocket, make things very
complicated at the launch site. There is always the danger of a
breach in the integrity of the fueling system or the rocket itself,
which would be fraught with catastrophic consequences. When
components such as nitric acid, nitrogen tetroxide, hydrazine, or
dimethylhydrazine are used, the danger to the personnel who are
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servicing the rocket is great, and stringent safety measures must be
observed. Even if the rocket and its launch systems are designed so
that there are no personnel present at the launch pad after fueling
operations begin and before liftoff and even if all processes that
involve mating the fueling systems, checking their seals, and the
fueling itself are automated, there is still always the danger that
something will go wrong, and specialists will have to go near the
rocket during the fueling process or after it is completed. Gas
masks, special protective clothing, and highly sensitive gear for
monitoring the gas composition of the air are necessary gear for
personnel at the launch sites for such rockets.
41. Even for today's rockets, normal flight involves certain
complexities. First stages fall back to Earth, which means that drop
regions that may be dozens of square kilometers in area must be
removed from public use. The situation with rockets that use toxic
components is made more complex by the fact that, among other things,
first stages can break up when they hit the surface, and over time
the residues of the toxic components can build up in the drop regions
and make their way into the ground water.
42. In a word, rocket systems in the future should be based on the
use of ecologically clean components such as kerosene/oxygen or
hydrogen/oxygen.
43. Moreover, we need to consider the interaction that takes place
between the burning of rocket fuel and the atmosphere, particularly
the ozone layer. Standard liquid-propellant rockets apparently
present no danger; but in the use of solid-propellant rockets, there
is the danger that the combustion products will interact with ozone,
since they can be very effective catalysts of itsAecomposition.
44. The entirely real danger of an accident during the powered phase
of flight-and, accordingly, the danger of the rocket fragments
falling to the Earth along the flight path-imposes strict
requirements on the choice of launch site and ascent trajectory, so
that the rocket will not pass over densely populated regions.
45. The danger of an accident with catastrophic consequences always
exists during the flight of a rocket. It stems from the very high
concentration of energy (hundreds of tons of fuel) in the rocket and
the power in the rocket engines, from the strain on the structure,
and from the small number of flights of that particular model of
rocket (by comparison with, say, automobiles or airplanes). The
danger presented by rockets is clearly illustrated by the power
inherent in the rocket engines. For example, the engines of an R7
rocket in the first stage have on the order of 10 million horsepower,
and the engines of the Shuttle rocket system, on the order of 70
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million horsepower. The danger is always clear in the mind of the
developers. Even the first American spacecraft-Mercury, Gemini, and
Apollo-had good rescue systems that effected the separation and swift
removal of the spacecraft from a launch vehicle breaking up as a
result of a failure. A fairly good emergency system for rescuing the
cosmonauts during a launch-vehicle failure was created for the Soyuz
craft. Twice it saved the lives of cosmonauts-once during a
third-stage failure, and once during an emergency at the launch pad.
46. Design difficulties do not justify the absence of a full-fledged
rescue system in the event of launch-vehicle failure. Such a system
is conspicuously absent in the Shuttle system and represents its
chief shortcoming.
47. After the separation of the spacecraft or unmanned space vehicle
from the launch vehicle, the upper stage usually remains in orbit,
gradually slowing and then entering the dense layers of the
atmosphere, where it burns up for the most part, and its fragments
fall to Earth. If the altitude of the injection orbit is low (less
than 200 km, for example), that process takes several days. But if
the altitude is high, the upper stage may remain in orbit months or
years.
48. It must be said that that eventually becomes a problem. At this
moment, the quantity of upper stages that remain in near=Urth-
orbit-along with space vehicles that are no longer in operation,
connective structural elements, and fragments produced by break-ups
or accidents involving space vehicles-is such that the danger of a
collision with them has become comparable to the danger of a
collision between meteors and long-duration space vehicles,
spacecraft, or orbital stations. That is why an urgency attaches to
the problem of using injection profiles in which the upper stage of
the rocket does not remain in orbit. Just such a profile is used in
the Shuttle system: after the second stage shuts down, the fuel tank
separates from the craft and returns to the atmosphere, and the
intact remains fall into a specific region of the ocean. That is how
launches should be done in the future. A similar requirement should
naturally be imposed on the design of space vehicles, so that just
before they shut down, they are "pushed" from orbit, and after
their stay and maneuvers, no structural parts or fragments whatsoever
remain in orbit and there is no gradual build-up of dangerous
(deadly!) garbage in near-Earth orbits.
49. Based on all the above, the following recommendations need to be
made for orbital injection systems:
50. Use of rockets that operate on toxic components is extremely
undesirable, at least for putting manned craft into orbit.
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51. Full-fledged emergency rescue systems need to be installed on
rocket systems used for putting cosmonauts into orbit.
52. After injection, the upper stage of the launch vehicle should
not be kept in orbit long.
53. We need to verify (if only with theoretical calculation) the
absence of the danger of any harmful effect produced by the rocket
fuel combustion products on the ozone layer of the atmosphere.
54. We must not forget what we learned in the lunar program.
55. On 20 July 1969, we gazed at the Moon with feelings that were
unusual, new for us all. On that day, humans- Armstrong and
Aldrin-were walking on its surface, at a fantastic distance of
400,000 km away! That event was perceived as (in the words of
Armstrong) a "giant leap for mankind." An impressive range of
operations and an impressive result. Complete success.
56. The euphoria felt at the time by the project's developers and
probably by most of the American people was understandable and quite
natural: "We're on the Moon! That's us on the Moon, and not those
Russians who are eternally behind in everything.... Our natural
position in space research has been restOred-(and-our prestige,
too).... What we had perceived at one time as a sort of abstraction,
a sort of pretty, unalterable detail of the sky, has turned out to be
a real world after all, one on which you can walk, and ride-one you
can touch. This is a historical achievement, and it's ours!"
57. Emotionally, that historical show that was put on for the whole
world meant, of course, a great deal: you could feel that you were a
participant on that unusual journey and adventure, you could feel the
Moon under your own feet.
58. We could congratulate the Americans and the all the rest of us
again on that magnificent achievement. And why not. But something
.raises some doubt, something is not quite right.
59. The landing of N. Armstrong and E. Aldrin on the Moon was the
beginning of the lunar project. Between 1969 and 1972, the Americans
delivered six missions to the Moon. What can be considered a plus
about the lunar program?
60. Twelve people spent time on the surface of our satellite. In
all, they covered nearly 100 km of it on foot or by vehicle, and they
brought back nearly 400 kg of lunar rock. But in and of themselves
(apart from the advertizing/souvenir aspect of the matter), those
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rocks provided no fundamentally new or valuable information to anyone
(except, perhaps, geologists and geochemists).
61. Maybe some other kind of information of substance was produced?
It would seem not.
62. Positive emotions and prestige for the United States- yes, of
course. But "$25 billion for prestige" (that's how much those shows
cost) sounds a little absurd. And sad. After all, all the space
programs that could have been performed for that immense amount of
money must be written off as lost.
63. An endeavor to restore the prestige of the United States as the
leader in technical progress was the main reason for undertaking the
lunar program. The fact is that our country was, for a time, ahead in
the matter of penetrating the depths of space: in 1957, we launched
the first satellite; in 1961, we sent the first man into space.
64. How did such a thing come about? How did we get ahead, despite
the immense technical potential of the United States? The fact is
that launch vehicles, space vehicles, and spacecraft are manufactured
in small numbers (especially back then-when space operations were
beginning). It was virtually individual production, i.e., it was, in
a sense, homemade. Under those conditions, leadership was determined
by "brainpower" and efficiency. It would-be-absurd to say that-our
brains were better than theirs; but we can, in fact, say that ours
were no worse than theirs. And space bureaucrats and careerists had
not yet managed to firmly attach themselves. So the initial
conditions were roughly the same. And of course, we didn't
underestimate the American engineers (although they underestimated
our engineers, and, in my opinion, many Americans still do);
underestimating a rival is a serious mistake. And to get some
recognition in something like making it into space was something we
wanted. Not expecting any directive orders from the leadership, we
set our own goals. We worked diligently, without any fascile
optimism. After our first successes, many Americans probably felt
some discomfort, and their pride may have even been wounded. It's
hard to say right now who it was that proposed landing on the Moon as
a way of restoring prestige. In the final analysis, it doesn't
matter. But all the same, the goal clearly wasn't worth the money
spent. That's not to belittle the magnificently executed engineering
work of the Americans. The point is how little the experience gained
as a result of tackling and performing the lunar project was used.
Over the course of the project, as a result of an immense amount of
well-coordinated work, the Americans created not only the Apollo
spacecraft and the Saturn 5 rocket, but also a gigantic production
and experimental base: hold-down stands for testing rocket engines,
equipment for preparing rockets and spacecraft for launch, etc. And
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after 1972, almost none of it was used. It was abandoned,
discontinued: there was nowhere to continue to-the lunar program had
turned out to be a deadend. It was an example of a clumsily
chosen-more precisely, an incorrectly chosen- goal.
65. A goal involving the spending of $25 billion or even $100
billion on a grandiose space undertaking (if the country is rich and
the taxpayers agree to it) is not absurd in and of itself. But one
must think clearly when making the decisions and choosing the goals.
66. Roughly the same must be said about the American Shuttle program
and especially about the imitative Soviet Buran program. The idea of
the Shuttles consisted in lowering transportation expenditures
between Earth and orbit. The goal was a correct one. But the profile
and design solutions that were adopted were clearly awkward, and the
plan was not fulfilled: the delivery of cargoes to orbit with the
Shuttle (never mind our own natural disaster, Buran) turned out to
be, to put it lightly, considerably more expensive than delivery on
the expendable launch vehicles that had been used earlier.
67. Forthcoming Tasks in Space
68. At present, there is still no one common opinion on the most
important directions to be taken in the development of human activity
in space. Slogans like "The Mars Mission-An ThsOlfing-Goal,"
"Let's Make an Impressive Leap Forward in the Exploration of
Space," "Let's Open the Future...," and "Let's Explore the Solar
System" often replace well-thought-out, logical proposals in the
selection of paths to be taken in moving farther forward. The most
varied of programs are being proposed.
69. For example, a program linked with the American astronaut Sally
Ride proposes as the principal goals for the next 50 years the
creation of bases on the Moon, asteroids, and planets; systems for
traveling about the solar system; and space settlements.
70. Soviet scientists working in basic sciences feel that in the
next decade we should concentrate our efforts on a study of
near-Earth space; research on the Earth's magnetosphere; research on
solar-terrestrial relationships, the Sun, the solar corona, and Mars;
and astrophysical studies with unmanned space vehicles.
71. There are proposals that are more pragmatic. They involve a
program for exploring near-Earth space and are aimed at developing
satellite systems of communications and television, creating
satellite systems for environmental monitoring and the study of the
Earth's natural resources, developing systems of weather satellites,
and creating in-orbit production that is economical and efficient.
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72. So opinions are quite diverse.
73. It's probably wrong to pit pragmatic endeavors against people's
natural wish to expand the sphere of their activity and to learn more
about the Universe and our place in it.
74. In choosing the path we will take from here, it would be more
sensible to strive both to satisfy mankind's most intrinsic needs and
to study the world around us.
75. Among the most urgent problems facing mankind today are the
ecology and the depletion of natural resources, political instability
in the world, the separation of nations and the lack of trust between
them, and the growing overpopulation of the Earth.
76. In terms of studying the Universe, the following tasks, in my
opinion, could be considered the most interesting: solar system
studies; studies of stars, galaxies, and celestial objects at the
edge of the Universe with astrophysical instruments; and studies of
the possibilities of flights to the stars.
77. In the context of such an approach, the following basic
directions for space operations could be proposed:
78. 1. Activity that satisfies the intrinsic needs of mankind. Such
activity would involve work of an applied nature that could provide
specific benefits to people and would be, if possible, economically
profitable.
79. Such activity can be divided into three groups of operations.
80. Group A consists of already established, almost traditional
operations such as environmental monitoring of land, sea, and ocean
surfaces; studies of natural resources with space vehicles; and
satellite services involving weather forecasting, navigation,
detection of distress signals, and communications and television.
81. Group B consists of operations that set up economically
beneficial in-orbit production and that put into orbit production
that is necessary, but dangerous when performed on the ground.
Setting up such operations will require the expansion of ground-based
and, primarily, space-based experiments that seek reliable, efficient
in-orbit technologies and that conduct research that seeks a niche in
ground-based economics that could naturally use orbital production.
82. This group could include operations involving research on the
feasibility and advisability of the creation of orbiting solar
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electric power plants that supply Earth with cheap, ecologically
clean electrical energy.
83. It could also include operations on orbital stations involving
research on the most effective activity of people working in orbit.
84. Group C consists of operations that maintain peace on Earth,
that maintain stability and reinforce trust between states, and that
prevent aggression.
85. That involves the creation of an international satellite system,
open for everyone, for observing and monitoring land and ocean
surfaces and monitoring air space and underwater activity.
86. Right now, it's almost just the Soviet Union and the United
States who have satellite reconnaissance systems, which, by the way,
still do not have all-weather capabilities and do not provide
pictures of high enough quality at twilight or at night. Thus, it is
being proposed that systems of satellites be created that would make
it possible for everyone to see what is happening on Earth during
both the day and the night, to monitor movements of troops and
equipment and the construction of suspicious (possibly military)
facilities, and to monitor the observance of international
agreements.
87. Today's space hardware, in theory, can handle that task, and
what's important is that the expense of creating and operating such a
system could be borne by the world community.
88. There is, of course, something dishonorable about spying on each
other. But what can we do in these times? The twentieth century has
shown us more than once how criminals and maniacs have sometimes
seized power. And that after strengthening their positions within a
state by terrorizing and roughing up their own countrymen, they have
made brazen attempts to seize neighboring states.
89. An international monitoring system would make it possible for
all interested parties to monitor suspicious movements, construction,
and preparations (after all, no enterprise begins operation
spontaneously-it undergoes preparations, which can be noted) and to
cool the ardor of gangsters who have elbowed their way to power. It
would also enable the world community to take timely measures for
repelling aggression or even halting preparations for it.
90. 2. Study and exploration of the solar system. Although such
studies would hardly provide us with any fundamentally new
information, it would simply be unintelligent not to study what is
right under our nose. The scale of such operations is another matter.
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This area includes studies of, for example, the Sun, asteroids, the
Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and their satellites
and studies of the feasibility and advisability of space settlements.
Such operations can hardly be considered to be of prime importance,
but they shouldn't be neglected. The studies can be done with
unmanned space vehicles. And only if the delivery of soil and air
samples from Mars were completely unsuccessful or if we got
information indicating that living organisms could be found on Mars
would it be worth it to seriously consider organizing a manned
mission to that planet.
91. It is implicit here that soil and air samples would be brought
back to Earth for studies that would determine whether they contain
living organisms, and if so, the studies would identify their genetic
code or their mechanism of reproduction and thereby obtain
information that would support a given hypothesis about the origins
of life on Earth-whether it was "self-generated," or "seeded."
92. 3. Studies of the Universe. These studies represent extremely
interesting areas of study, areas that, one could say, stir the
imagination. They are capable of providing us with very valuable,
unusual information.
93. Such operations include studies performed with space telescopes
placed in circumsolar and near-Earth orbits and-working in
conjunction with interferometry; studies of the world around us, done
with state-of-the-art orbital astrophysical instruments (on the scale
of the Hubble space telescope) in various spectral ranges; very long
baseline studies with optical telescopes that could be placed on the
Moon, for example; and studies of flight to the stars.
94. The Space Hardware of the Near Future
95. Effecting such a program of operations will require that
existing space hardware be improved, that completely new hardware be
created, and that theoretical and experimental research be done.
96. One would imagine that the following hardware will be required.
97. 1. Low-orbit systems of standardized satellites for
environmental monitoring, natural resource studies, and weather
observations, with ground-based computer centers for processing
information and a computerized system for delivering the results to
subscribers.
98. There is a great deal of completed research in this area already
on hand, especially in the United States. Those operations should be
extended to a commercial basis. Our country could also take an
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active part in the creation of such systems.
99. 2. A system of platforms in geostationary orbit for global
communications, television, environmental monitoring, natural
resources studies, and weather observations.
100. A geostationary orbit is an orbit lying in the equatorial plane
at a height of about 36,000 km above the surface of the Earth.
Satellites in geostationary orbit do not move in relation to the
Earth's surface. We shouldn't place too many communications
satellites in that orbit, because they would begin to interfere with
each other's work. That is why, in the future, we will probably have
to create multifunctional platforms that expand their capabilities.
101. 3. Orbital stations, which should probably be created in
various versions:
102. station/laboratories like Salyut and Mir
103. stations like the American space station Freedom, which is
currently under development
104. orbital "cloud-stations".
105. I think the last type of station i-s-mostpromis ng. The-concept
of a cloud-station consists in the individual parts of the
station-its modules-not being connected to one another in a rigid
fashion, but "floating" near one another.
106. 4. Orbiting factories for the production of ultrapure materials
and biological preparations and for other production processes that
will be profitable or better done in orbit.
107. 5. Unmanned space vehicles that are part of an international
satellite system for observing and monitoring land, sea, and ocean
surfaces and air space and underwater activity, with a system for
sending the information to subscribers.
108. The international monitoring system could have three
subsystems: 12-16 satellites with optical/television gear for daytime
observations; 12-16 satellites with radars for all-weather and
round-the-clock observation of land and ocean surfaces, air space,
and underwater activity (monitoring of submarine movements);
three-six satellites with gear for monitoring in the infrared range.
109. Today's optical/television space systems are already making it
possible to look at objects from orbit that are on the order of a
meter across and to transmit the images of those objects to
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subscribers via relay satellites.
110. If power is high enough, so-called side-looking radars that are
satellite-borne make it possible to perform round-the-clock,
all-weather observation of the surface of the Earth and the air and
even to monitor the movements of submarines. In theory, orbital
radars could be use to differentiate between objects that are just a
few meters long.
111. Such a system of satellites could be used to update information
on what is happening at the Earth's surface every 30-60 minutes.
112. 6. Systems of radio telescopes placed in near-Earth and
circumsolar orbits and operating as part of a single interferometry
network. Radio telescopes taken to circumsolar orbit could be used to
obtain a resolution in the ten-millionths of a second of arc and to
peer to the very edge of our Universe.
113. Moreover, large radio telescopes on the order of a kilometer in
size would enable man to begin a regular search for signals from
extraterrestrial civilizations.
114. 7. Orbital astrophysical observatories working in various
spectral ranges.
115. 8. If theoretical research confirms the wisdom of creating
optical telescopes with mirrors spaced considerable distances apart,
then it may turn out that they would best be placed on the Moon. The
idea behind such telescopes is the same idea used in
radiointerferometry-increasing the baseline of observation. But that
baseline must be maintained and must be known with an accuracy down
to tiny fractions of the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation at
which the observation is being made, i.e., in this case, with an
accuracy to fractions of a micron. That is where the idea came from
to place them on the Moon.
116. 9. The need could arise to create a lunar base that could be
used as astrophysical observatories on the surface of the Moon and as
a base for studying the possibility of using lunar minerals in man's
space-based activities. But the wisdom of opening operations in that
area will, in my opinion, require additional consideration in the
coming decades.
117. 10. Unmanned vehicles for bringing Martian soil and air samples
back to Earth.
118. 11. If, as a result of those operations, it becomes necessary
to perform a mission to Mars, then we will have to develop and build
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the appropriate systems for a manned mission: Mars orbiter and Mars
mission module, a Mars "automobile," and the appropriate gear for
living on Mars and doing research there.
119. 12. Unmanned systems for studying Venus, an orbital base near
Venus, atmospheric balloon-probes, systems for performing radar
mapping of the surface, and lendable laboratories.
120. 13. Solar observatories with the perihelion inside the orbit of
Mercury; they would be intended for studies performed on a regular
basis of the star closest to us-our Sun.
121. 14. Unmanned vehicles for studies of the asteroids.
122. 15. Unmanned space vehicles for studies of the distant planets.
123. 16. Truly inexpensive, reusable transport craft for transport
operations between Earth and orbit.
124. Neither the American Shuttle nor the Soviet Buran is capable of
solving the problem of lowering the transportation costs in space.
Right now, the cost of putting payloads into orbit with the Shuttle
system is about $10,000 per kilogram payload-that is much more
expensive than even with the old, expendable launch vehicles. Which
means that the problem of creating truly-inexpensive systems for
puttingspace vehicles into orbit is still with us. In my opinion,
such new systems should be able to lift space vehicles into orbit at
a cost of somewhere in the hundreds of dollars per kilogram. That
will be a difficult problem, but we can solve it with today's
technology.
125. 17. Inexpensive reusable transport systems for transport
operations between low orbit and geostationary orbit.
126. 18. Space robots. We should expect an expansion of operations
in open space in Earth-satellite orbits. Such operations will involve
the creation of orbiting factories and large radio telescopes, the
maintenance of orbital vehicles, and possibly the construction of
orbiting electric power plants. The difficulty of movement
experienced by individuals clothed in the armor of a space suit and
the dangers of working in open space will compel us to develop space
robots.
127. Below, individual areas of operations are examined.
128. Orbital Injection Systems
129. The main thing we have to do is create truly inexpensive
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reusable systems for placing space vehicles into orbit.
130. At the moment, the cost of putting space vehicles into orbit is
extremely high. That stems from the high cost of rocket engines, the
complex control system, the expensive materials used in rocket and
engine structures, and, primarily, their one-time use. It was natural
that as early as in the 1970s, someone got the idea to create a
reusable injection system.
131. The first bit of experience that was acquired in implementing
that idea was the creation of the Shuttle system. In spite of the
marvelous work that was done, that experience can hardly be called
successful. In the original project, the cost of a launch of the
system was not to exceed a sum on the order of $10 million. But that
was too optimistic an estimate, and in years past the cost of
launching the system has fluctuated between $150 million and $350
million. The main reasons for that are these: the use of a
considerable number of expendable elements in the structure; a very
complex design and, accordingly, complex preparations for launch in
which a great many specialists must take part. It must be said, of
course, that the analogous Soviet Buran system is no better than the
Shuttle system in that regard.
132. That is why the creation of a truly reusable, truly inexpensive
system for placing space vehicles into orbit-remains-an-urgent. task.
In that connection, a solution to the problem may be sought in two
directions.
133. The first is rather trivial: create a reusable, single-stage,
oxygen/hydrogen rocket with a highly advanced design. That rocket
would go into orbit, deposit the space vehicle there, and then
descend from orbit, decelerate in the dense layers of the atmosphere,
and make a landing in the vicinity of the launch. That would be
possible if we managed to develop a design in which the mass of the
tanks, the engines, the heat shield, the return rocket's landing
system, the control system, and the space vehicle itself that is
being placed into orbit did not exceed 10-11 percent of the launch
mass. That would require ultrastrong, ultralight materials, plus very
light engines, heat shield, and landing system. The task is a very
difficult one, and there are a number of design ideas for resolving
it, but they require additional research and analysis.
134. The other means of solving the problem is revolutionary. It is
based on the principal shortcoming of today's rockets: their tanks
contain not only propellant, but also oxidizer (which must also be
lifted), even though a segment of the flight is through the dense
layers of the atmosphere, where oxygen is quite abundant and would
seem quite logical to use. But that's not incidental-use of
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atmospheric oxygen on the rocket would require air-breathing jet
engines, in addition to liquid-propellant engines (a large segment of
the flight still proceeds outside the dense layers). And they're much
heavier than liquid-propellant engines. But new possibilities are now
appearing in that connection. Today, the creation of combined engines
that operate in air-breathing jet mode in the initial part of the
flight, at speeds of up to 1500-1700 m/s, and then switch to
liquid-propellant mode, is becoming a reality. That could provide a
considerable advantage in launch-vehicle mass and size.
135. Those ideas apparently formed the basis of the English project
Hotol. That airplane is supposed to take off from an airport, aided
by a special launch chassis that remains on the ground. It then
accelerates to an altitude of around 25 km with an engine that takes
in oxygen from the atmosphere. At that point, it is traveling at a
speed of about 1600 m/s. After that, the flight is performed with
onboard reserves of oxygen. Liquid hydrogen is proposed as the
propellant for both segments of the flight. According to the design,
Hotol, with a launch mass of around 200 tons, is supposed to place a
payload of around 7 tons into orbit and then return to Earth.
Judging from the articles in the press, the work on the project has
been halted-there's no financing. It is difficult to judge the
feasibility of the project, because that feasibility hinges almost
entirely on the feasibility of proposals involving the creation of a
lightweight combined engine capable of opeLating-in an?air--breathing-
jet mode and a liquid-propellant mode, but almost no materials have
been published on its working principle. The engine was developed by
the well-known English firm, Rolls-Royce.
136. Work is being done in other promising directions. The German
Sanger project also calls for the creation of a completely reusable
two-stage system. The first stage is supposed to use air-breathing
jet engines, and the second stage, liquid-propellant engines. After
expending its fuel, the first stage is supposed to return to the
airport. The second stage, after placing the payload into orbit,
returns to Earth and is readied, along with the first stage, for the
next flight. But the data cited in the press on the estimates of the
mass characteristics of the components of the system have raised some
doubts as to the soundness of the characteristics.
137. An even more revolutionary direction is being pursued at
present in the United States. It is based on the idea of the creation
of a ramjet engine capable of operating at speeds of up to around 7.5
km/s, i.e., virtually the entire process of acceleration of the
rocket-airplane is done in the atmosphere, and almost no oxidizer is
carried in the rocket. The basic research, as far as one can tell, is
aimed at studying the possibility of creating such an engine.
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138. Orbiting Solar Electric Power Plants
139. One possible direction in the development of space-based
operations to meet the basic needs of mankind involves the creation
of orbiting solar electric power plants for supplying energy to
ground-based consumers. Solar energy can be converted into
electrical energy in various ways. But the simplest and most natural
for our purposes is to use semiconductor converters that transform
sunlight energy into an electrical current, i.e., solar panels. We
have already accumulated experience in their long-term operation in
space. Silicon cells are usually used as the converters-thin, small
(several centimeters square) wafers in which a potential difference
arises as a result the photoeffect that is produced when sunlight
strikes them. Only a very small amount of power is derived from one
such cell. The energy conversion efficiency in such a converter is on
the order of 10-12 percent. To make a practical power-supply source
out of those cells, they are linked in a series-parallel circuit. As
a result, from one square meter of solar panel, one can obtain a
quantity of power on the order of 140-170 W. Of course, such panels
produce a current only under solar illumination, and such a level of
power is produced only if the Sun's rays are perpendicular to the
surface of the panels. That is why on many space vehicles, special
systems orient the solar panels to increase the derived power. When
the vehicle passes in the shadow of the Earth, the instruments and
equipment get their electrical power supply-from storage-batteries-
that had been recharged by the solar panels when the vehicle was
outside the shadow.
140. Orbiting solar electric power plants would be useful for
supplying Earth with electrical energy. The electrical energy
produced by the solar panels could be transformed into radio waves
and transmitted in the form of a narrow beam to a receiving antenna
on the Earth's surface by the pencilbeam antenna of the orbiting
electric power plant. The waves received on Earth could then be
reconverted into electrical energy and sent to consumers. In order
for orbiting electric power plants to have continuous and immediate
communications with ground receiving stations, the orbiting plants
are best placed in geostationary orbit.
141. The most important thing in the creation of orbiting solar
electric power plants is to master building in space gigantic
structures that must be lightweight and steerable in orbit. We could
begin, for example, with the assembly of an openwork panel unit that
is, say, 100 x 100 x 100 m. And then, by gradually linking such units
to one another, we could increase the area of the structure to dozens
of square kilometers. A panel 100 sq in in area could derive as much
as 10 million kilowatts of power. Transmitting the energy back to
Earth from such an orbiting electric power plant would require an
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antenna nearly one square kilometer in area. The ground-based
receiving antenna would have to have a diameter on the order of
several kilometers. It would probably be best not only to assemble
the components of the panel units in orbit, but also to manufacture
them in orbit. That is, to put, say, rolls of metal ribbon into
orbit, cut it up there, and make rods from it, which would be used
then to assemble trussed panel structures. Of course, other
technologies for manufacturing and assembling the panels could also
be found.
142. Needless to say, today's solar panel sheets couldn't be
installed on those gigantic structures-they would be too heavy and
expensive, because a square meter of solar panel has a mass of
several kilograms. In recent years, however, a modicum of success has
been achieved in the creation of film-type solar panels, a square
meter of which might have a mass of only several hundred grams. In
light of the mass of the trusses and other components of the
structure, the adjusted mass of a square meter of panel on the solar
electric power plant must be roughly a kilogram per square meter of
panel and, consequently, about 10 kg per kilowatt of installed power
(the mass must be that so that the creation of the solar electric
power plant would be profitable, and that is achievable). A kilowatt
of power produced by the orbiting power plant would then cost about
2,000-3,000 rubles (assuming the transport problem is solved). That
is one and a half-to-two times cheaper than power nuclear
electric power plants, two-to-two and a half times cheaper than power
from hydroelectric power plants, and four-six times cheaper than
power from fuel-fired electric power plants. Orbital electric power
plants, however, do not use up natural resources, and after several
years of operation, they can be more economical than fuel-fired or
nuclear electric power plants. And the main thing is, such plants
would be ecologically clean.
143. The most difficult problem surrounding orbiting solar electric
power plants is the problem of putting the materials into orbit for
the construction of the plant. The mass of a 10 million kV plants
would be around 100,000 tons. Solving that problem would require the
creation of a completely new type of reusable launch vehicle. On one
hand, it would have to be a rather large vehicle capable of lifting a
payload of, say, around 500 tons, so that the construction materials
for one plant could be put into orbit within two or three years (with
70-100 launches a year) and the construction could be effected with
the same speed. On the other hand, if the undertaking is to be
economical, the cost of a launch with such a vehicle must be no more
than 50 rubles per kilogram of payload. If you compare that figure
with the figure for the cost of using the Shuttle system to put a
payload into orbit (on the order of $10,000 per kilogram), the
difficulty of the problem becomes clear. The launch cost must be
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reduced by two orders of magnitude. The task, however, is not a
hopeless one. In economic terms, the Shuttle system is an order of
magnitude more expensive than even today's expendable launch
vehicles. And reducing spending by an order of magnitude by switching
to a new type of reusable launch vehicle is not impossible. Of
course, at the same time we would have to also solve the problem of
moving materials that had been placed in a low intermediate orbit to
a geostationary orbit.
144. And on that segment of travel, the expense would have to be
about the same, i.e., for that segment we would also have to create
cheap reusable systems that would probably use solar panels and
electric engines.
145. Orienting the gigantic trusswork panels toward the Sun is a
problem that is entirely solvable. After all, in practical terms, we
would have to rotate the panel at a constant rate equal to one
revolution per year.
146. Building the power plant in orbit would require specialized
production. It would require builders. They would need
housing-orbital stations. Of course, all production would have to be
as standardized and automated as possible. The construction would
have to be done primarily by robots. Which is why there would be only
a few people there. They could work in okbit-fOt, say, no more-than-a
year per "tour," which would mean that artificial gravity would not
be needed on the builders' stations.
147. There are, of course, many other problems associated with the
creation of orbiting solar electric power stations: the conversion of
enormous outputs of electrical energy to radio waves, the onboard
directional antenna with a diameter of about a kilometer, the systems
for receiving the powerful stream of radio waves and converting them
back into electrical energy, etc. But all those problems are in the
realm of reality.
148. Space-based electric power plants are attractive because they
can make a substantial contribution to the solution of one of the
most difficult problems facing mankind today-the creation of
ecologically clean power engineering. This is not an attempt to
convince the reader that orbiting solar electric power stations
represent the only sensible means of solving that problem. It cannot
be seriously compared with any other until competitive projects as
such are developed. But it is one possible, hopeful solution.
149. Orbiting Factories
150. Automated factories in orbit are promising and feasible.
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Weightlessness and the vacuum can be used to advantage in the
production of the ultrapure preparations and materials that are
needed in today's medicine and in industry. Of course, there cannot
be absolute weightlessness on orbital vehicles-it exists only in the
center of mass of the vehicle. But at points meters away from the
center of mass, the accelerations are only a millionth of the
acceleration due to gravity on Earth. And the vacuum is not at all
absolute in orbits with an altitude of around 500 km. Nevertheless,
both the accelerations due to microgravity and the pressure of the
ambient atmosphere at such altitudes are rather low, which creates
good conditions for certain types of production. The low
accelerations due to microgravity make it possible to virtually
eliminate from separation and crystallization the influence of the
convection associated with the splitting of components in a mixture
by the force of gravity and to dramatically reduce the number of
defects formed in crystallization. Experimental operations that have
been performed on orbital stations, manned spacecraft, and unmanned
space vehicles in the context of research on the efficiency of
various production processes in orbit show that the quality of the
processes is improved in weightlessness. But we have yet to achieve a
level that enables us to draw definite conclusions and begin
designing orbiting factories.
151. Areas that hold promise today are those that involve production
processes associated with the purification of biological preparations
on electrophoresis units of any kind for the pharmaceutical industry,
processes associated with the growth of crystals of materials used in
the electronics industry, processes associated with raising the
purity and relative mass of output of a product, and processes
associated with the production of optical glass fiber for fiber
optics, which in orbit can yield better products and can be more
economical than can ground-based production.
152. Radio Telescopes
153. Radio telescopes in near-Earth orbits or, what is more
effective, in Sun-satellite orbits may be one of the most effective
means of studying the Universe. With receiving antennas that are
hundreds of meters in diameter, radio telescopes can detect signals
from objects that are at the edge of our Universe. If observations
are made with several radio telescopes spaced across a distance on
the order of the diameter of a solar orbit, the principles of
interferometry can be used to produce, as mentioned earlier, an
absolutely fantastic resolution in the ten-millionths of a second of
arc. The size itself of receiving antennas that are hundreds of
meters across need not be disturbing-the erection of structures of
such dimensions in weightlessness is entirely feasible with today's
technology. The main problem would be ensuring precision of surface
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of the antenna. After all, the precision must be to a fraction of the
wavelength at which the measurements will be made. For example, for
observations made at 20 cm, the precision of the surface would have
to be such that it is measured in centimeters for a structure a
kilometer across! And the thermal deformations of the structure would
also have to be in the centimeters. The problem, it seems, would have
to be solved by using adjusting elements and a laser measuring
system.
154. The Cloud-Station
155. The idea of a cloud-station owes its existence to the
difficulties associated with the creation and functioning of large
structures such as the American orbital station Freedom, which is
under development at this time. Such difficulties include the
following:
156. the enormous size of the trusswork structures that hold the
living quarters, fueling stations, production facilities, telescopes,
solar panels, and transport craft, which results in enormous moments
of inertia and in difficulties in orienting such structures
157. excessive programming of such stations, which limits the
possibilities for developing and improving production and research
programs
158. the inclusion of production facilities in the same structure as
the other facilities leads to an increase in the levels of
microgravity in the production facilities, which in all likelihood
would have an effect on the quality of the product being made and
would require restrictions on orientation and control of motion and
on crew activity
159. the operation of first-class telescopes requires attitude
control with an accuracy to within hundredths of a second of arc,
which would probably be impossible for the entire structure, even if
freedom of angular movement relative to the station structure were
provided for the telescopes
260. the inclusion in the station structure of fuel containers that
generally hold hypergolic components and a complex pneumohydraulic
system for taking on fuel from refueling craft and for distributing
it to the users in the station is not without danger and is to be
considered undesirable.
161. On the other hand, it is natural to locate all those facilities
near one another, in order to be able to adjust, repair, test, and
maintain all the telescopes, production laboratories, plants, and
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fueling stations.
162. Those difficulties and contradictions can be eliminated by
using a cloud-station system. Imagine a station consisting of several
autonomous units-for example, the living quarters base unit, an
astrophysical observatory, a production/laboratory module, and a
fueling module. All the units are flying in the same orbit, not too
far from one another, such that the distance from the base unit to
any of the other units is always within a certain range (say, 10-100
km). To accomplish that, each unit needs to have a system for
measuring distance and radial velocity relative to the base unit and
a propulsion system with motors for making coordinate shifts.
163. The pattern of action is rather simple here. The rate at which
a unit moves away or approaches is reduced to a minimum that is
determined by the sensitivity of relative velocity meters. Assume
that it is 1.5 cm/s. Then the distance increases to 50 km from 10
(depending on the features of the motion of the satellite in orbit)
over a period of roughly nine-10 days. When the distance nears 50 km,
the outer unit fires an impulse that changes the sign of the relative
velocity, and the unit begins to approach the station and pulls up to
within that original 10 km within another nine days, etc. If the
relative velocity is measured with an accuracy on the order of a
centimeter per second (which is quite realistic for today's radars),
then the amount of fuel required for keeping-the units-of the-station
in a given relative position is considerably less than the amount we
must use in any case to compensate for the atmospheric drag on the
station. Thus, the telescope, for example, can be kept 10-50 km
behind the base unit, with the production module 10-50 km ahead and
the fueling module still farther ahead, say, 60-100 km from the base
unit.
164. The makeup of such a cloud-station could expand and change. It
would be natural to use the base unit of the station, where the duty
shift of cosmonauts are located, also as a geophysical module, with
gear for environmental monitoring, for studying natural resources,
etc. Hardware for medical and biological research could also be
located there.
165. The base unit would also have several docking positions for
manned spacecraft and cargo resupply craft and for orbital
"cars"-vehicles designed to fly the cosmonauts between station
units for maintenance purposes.
166. The Lunar Base
167. Without concerning ourselves with the question of the
timeliness or level of priority associated with the creation of a
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lunar base in the coming decades, let's try to imagine what it would
look like and how much work would be done there. (We intend to
publish a brochure on lunar base projects in the near future.-Ed.)
168. The tasks performed by the lunar base could include regular
studies of the Hoon (seismicity, meteoritic conditions, structure,
geology, exploration for lunar minerals useful to man), empirical
verification of the possibility and advisability of mining minerals,
and construction of an astrophysical observatory if further studies
demonstrated the advisability of creating one on the Moon, where the
absence of an atmosphere, the low gravity factor, and the possibility
of installing telescopes on immobile foundations would seem, at first
glance, to offer important advantages over Earth-based and orbital
telescopes.
169. The last task could turn out to be a rather important one,
especially if we manage to demonstrate the possibility of building
synthetic-aperture telescopes with reflectors spaced as far apart as
possible.
170. The base would naturally have an information-and-control
center, laboratories, separate cabin-apartments for the base workers,
areas for physical exercise, a messroom, a wardroom, and a kitchen;
an airlock/hangar for servicing and repairing lunar rovers;
production facilities; a power plant; systems tor-rife support and
temperature maintenance; a greenhouse; warehouses for things like
spare parts, fuel, and collected samples; lunar rovers for research
expeditions, transport vehicles, and hangars for them; and
hangar/shelters for on-duty emergency evacuation craft.
171. Since the flight of a transport craft and crew to the Moon
could cost around $1 billion, such a mission would naturally be
geared to a lengthy stay by the specialists at the base. In addition,
we would need to take into consideration the isolation and the
psychological stress associated with working at the base. For that
reason, we will need to provide rather comfortable living and working
conditions for the lunar base crew. The crew would best consist of
five or six individuals, each with two or three specialties.
172. Each crew member would need to have a separate cabin, 50-100 cu
meters, with all the conveniences. In addition, there would have to
be backup living quarters for overtime work and for emergency
situations. Roughly the same amount of space would have to be
earmarked for the main and backup information-and-control centers,
laboratories, gyms, messroom, wardroom, kitchen, and production
facilities. The total amount of space for the pressurized areas,
including living quarters, could be around 2,000 cu meters. In light
of the the theoretically ever-present danger of depressurization,
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fire, or contamination of the atmosphere with harmful gases, the
pressurized spaces would have to be sectioned off and each section
would have to have emergency entrances and exits. Pressurized spaces
would best be shaped in the form of a cylinder 3-4 in in diameter.
173. Then there is the question of protecting pressurized spaces
from meteors and from the large temperature differential on the lunar
surface as day turns to night. We could, of course, use measures that
are typically used for orbital space vehicles-screens and
screen-and-vacuum insulation. But on the Moon, it would probably be
more natural and more effective to bury the station structures in the
ground and cover the top of the station with the excavated soil.
Before the top of the station is covered, naturally, everything would
have to be finished-e.g., all the structural assemblies, all the
mainlines, all the plumbing, all the cable systems. The giant
structures-that make up the stations quarters cannot be transported
from Earth in finished form. It would make sense to take up pre-cut
sheets for enclosures-plus "semifinished products,' in the form of
frame parts, hatches, and, among other things, "pipe-jacket"
reducers-and then to use, mostly, robots for doing the welding right
at the prepared construction site for the base.
174. It is clear that construction of the base would have to be
preceded by a lunar reconnaissance mission that surveys the area
chosen for the construction of the baseand brings -construction
equipment (scrapers, crane excavators) and construction materials
from Earth. There would have to be, obviously, a landing of several
construction missions to prepare the construction site (ground work),
roads, and landing areas for cargo resupply vessels and manned
spacecraft and, finally, to do the construction itself. And that, in
turn, means that a temporary station would have to be brought up for
those who are building the base.
175. The information-and-control center must be the conduit for
information from Earth, from lunar rovers with researchers aboard
(who may be hundreds of kilometers from the base, i.e., far beyond
its visible horizon), and from workers who may be outside pressurized
compartments at any given time, plus telemetry from onboard base
systems. All that means that in order for the on-duty operator to be
able to identify the current situation, there must be completely
automated, computer processing of all incoming information, with
output of correlated evaluations of the situation as a whole and of
the situation for each distinct system and for each individual
outside the base. The results of the analysis must presented clearly
on electronic boards and displays, and recommendations must be given
to the operator. Thus, powerful software must be created to replace
the hundreds of specialists who work in flight control centers,
analyzing already processed information and preparing recommendations
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for flight directors and cosmonauts. Of course, in theory, we could
preserve the system that has come about for analyzing situations that
come up on manned spacecraft missions and the system for arriving at
a decision in the ground-based flight control center. But in a
decade or two, such systems will probably be declared to be not
reliable enough and too expensive.
176. For telephone and television communications with lunar rovers
that are beyond the base's radio horizon, we could use lunar relay
satellites or base/Earth-relay/lunar-rover and
lunar-rover/Earth-relay/base links. Communicating through an
Earth-based relay would be awkward, because there would be a time lag
of about five seconds. We will apparently have to use both versions,
because a lunar relay satellite won't always be in the radio horizon
of the base and the lunar rover. Naturally, the
information-and-control center must have telephone and
video-communications systems, with all the necessary working space
and living space, as well as outside areas (fueling station, power
plant, landing areas, etc.). In addition, provisions must be made to
ensure that the space outside and the surrounding area can be
surveyed with television cameras.
177. The problem of power supply to the base is complicated by the
fact that the two-week day will be followed by the two-week night.
Therefore, if the power-supply system is based on solar panel, then
the problem of where to get energy at night must be solved right
away. Even if a "hibernation" mode is used by the station, that
will require storage batteries weighing many tons. Besides, going
into hibernation for two weeks out of every four would be
inefficient.
178. To be able to use as storage devices water-electrolyzer systems
that work during the day to store electrical energy and
electrochemical generators that work at night to output the energy
would require the creation of giant installations with enormous gas
tanks for hydrogen and oxygen.
179. A suitable solution would probably be to use a small nuclear
electric power plant (more precisely, two or three power-generating
units set apart from one another). The generating units would have to
be brought to the Moon in finished form (but not switched on) as
priority cargo for the construction of the base and would have to be
one of the first things to be installed.
180. The temperature-regulation system will have to ensure
acceptable conditions that are fairly comfortable for the base's crew
in terms of the inside temperature and conditions that are acceptable
for gear and equipment in pressurized and nonpressurized station
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facilities during the day and the night. Thermal insulation and the
radiator removal of excessive heat solve that problem during the day.
But night will require heating. The heat source will probably have to
be the heat given off by the nuclear power-generating units or the
heat from isotope heaters. In addition, the system will have to
collect moisture from the air of the inside spaces of the base.
181. The high cost of delivering supplies to the Moon is the reason
that closed-loop life-support systems will be used as much as
possible. It would be difficult for everything to be in a closed-loop
system, but water and oxygen could certainly be in a completely
closed-loop system if electrolysis of water collected from the air,
urine, and carbon dioxide were used. Nearly 300 kg of dehydrated food
and about 100 kg of expendable materials would have to be taken for
each individual per year. Such a system would have to be included in
the base's equipment. But, of course, we need to try to solve the
closed-loop problem for food, too. That would take complex equipment,
higher levels of energy use, and more space. The task of creating a
closed-loop system for oxygen, water, and food must be included in
the programs of operation of space hardware for the coming decades. A
closed-loop system for oxygen and water only would require about
300-400 W of electrical energy per person (i.e., about 2.5 kW for
that one system alone). Of course, there must also be emergency
reserves of oxygen, water, and food.
182. Life-support gear would include gear that would be brought up
to the Moon, namely the following: clothing, underwear, and footwear;
replacement parts for things like autonomous life-support systems,
EVA suits, lunar rovers, tractors, and crane hoists; medical
diagnostic and treatment gear; and exercise machines.
183. The base, naturally, would have to have advanced transport
vehicles: lunar rovers for research expeditions, trucks, scrapers,
portable drilling installations, excavators, etc.
184. At this point, it seems that it would be wise for the base to
also have an on-duty evacuation craft to be used in the event of an
emergency at the station.
185. And finally, the main thing is that equipment for scientific
research and exploration must be developed.
186. A serious estimate of the mass of the base structures that will
have to be delivered from Earth and an estimate of the costs will be
possible only after formulation of the project gets under way.
Preliminary estimates put the figures at about 100 tons for the mass
and around $100 billion (or 100 billion rubles) for the cost of the
operations to create the station.
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187. The Mars Mission
188. The very first question that comes up is, Why? Exactly why do
we need to be undertaking such a grandiose enterprise right now?
There are no convincing arguments for it. Just the opposite-one can
easily see an element of children's logic: "It's a place we can
reach and visit-so we need to go there!"
189. Here are the facts:
190. Mercury would be harder to reach (the trip would take a great
deal of energy), and it's too hot there, and there's no atmosphere,
and there's nothing to do there, as it were-it's the same rocky
desert as on the Moon.
191. Venus, to put it mildly, is too hot at the surface (450-500?C),
and the pressure would be absolutely unbearable (100 atm), so we
couldn't land there.
192. Jupiter, Saturn, and the planets beyond are even worse and more
complex-it would take much more energy to get that far, and the force
of gravity is greater, and the atmosphere-don't even mention it.
193. But Mars-that's another matter. The gravity-at the-surface-is
0.4 Earth gravity. The atmosphere, although quite rarefied, still
exists. And the temperatures are not as severe as on the Moon.
194. In a word, Mars is more natural and more accessible.
195. But what is still not understood is this: Why do we need to
send a mission there? "How can you ask that?" answer the
proponents. "We're going to have to colonize Mars sooner or later."
But why do we need to colonize Mars? It's clearly not suitable for
human life. We could see setting up a base on Mars (if and when we
see that it's needed), but it's hard to imagine a need to colonize
it.
196. And yet, there is one problem whose solution could justify
sending a mission to Mars-the search for life on that planet. There
is some basis for hope (however slight it may be) that life exists:
there are the remnants of an atmosphere, and photos of the surface of
Mars show traces of water erosion. Might there not be simple
organisms there, life on the level of, say, bacteria or fungi? Those
living organisms themselves would not, in fact, be of as much
interest as would the mechanism of their reproduction. What kind of
mechanism would that be? The same as on Earth (and on Earth, from the
standpoint of the organization of that mechanism, we are all-plants
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and animals-relatives)? If the mechanism were identical, the
hypothesis of the "seeding" of life throughout the Universe would
be probable (it wouldn't be absolute proof-it would be one
experimental point). If the mechanisms turned out to be completely
different, the theory of the self-generation of life would be
essentially confirmed.
197. Of course, it would be natural to try to "catch" living
organisms with unmanned vehicles that landed on Mars. Such vehicles
have been landed, but nothing has come of it. And there have been too
few points of collection of samples, and the procedures themselves of
analysis of samples for "life" are not very conclusive.
198. The Mars mission could be a continuation of the work done with
unmanned vehicles. Possible tasks for the mission could be the
exploration and study of areas of the Martian surface where there is
some sort of chance of finding signs of life, a search for living
organisms or plants, the collection of soil samples (at various
points on the surface and at various depths) and air samples, an
initial, on-site study of such samples (so that the research program
could be adjusted in the event of positive findings), the delivery of
the soil and air samples to Earth, and the study of the surface of
Mars, the planet's structure, and the planet's natural history.
199. The equipment for a Mars mission would-be detertined-largely by
the primary operations performed during the mission and by the
mission profile itself. For a Mars mission, it would be natural to
adopt the basic profile used for the American lunar mission:
trans-Mars injection from Earth satellite orbit, flight to Mars, Mars
orbit insertion, descent to the surface of Mars of the mission module
with some crew members (the others in the crew would remain in the
orbiter in a Mars satellite orbit), research on the planet surface,
collection of soil and air samples, return of the mission module to
satellite orbit, rendezvous and docking with the orbiter, transfer of
the landing party to the orbiter, trans-Earth injection from Mars
satellite orbit, return of the mission to Earth.
200. Two components immediately become distinct: the orbiter and the
mission module. Their appearance depends substantially on the amount
of fuel needed for performing the dynamic operations associated with
changes in the velocity of motion of the two craft. The amount of
fuel spent in a given dynamic operation is determined by the
magnitude of the required increase in velocity, by engine quality,
and by vehicle mass. That is why in the process of analysis, before
the choice of design profile or type of engine, the energy
expenditures are usually characterized in terms of the increase in
velocity of a vehicle (with the integrator) for the various stages of
the flight.
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201. Those expenditures tentatively appear to be the following for a
Mars mission spacecraft:
202. 1. Injection of the complex from an Earth satellite orbit to a
trans-Mars trajectory: 3.6-4 km/s (depending on how close it is to
the optimal date for injection).
203. 2. Expenditures for the orbiter:
204. insertion into Mars satellite orbit: 0.1-1.5 km/s (depending on
the method of orbital insertion and the orbital parameters chosen)
205. injection of orbiter from Mars satellite orbit to trans-Earth
trajectory: 0.5-1.5 km/s (depending on Mars satellite orbit
parameters)
206. insertion into Earth satellite orbit: 0-3.2 km/s (depending on
return profile chosen-either with immediate reentry, or with a
preliminary "stop" in Earth satellite orbit).
207. 3. Expenditures for the mission module:
208. descent from orbit into a descent trajectory, plus landing:
0.2-/3 km/s
209. insertion from Martian surface into Mars satellite orbit:
5.3-4.2 km/s (depending on parameters of orbit in which orbiter is
waiting)
210. rendezvous and docking with orbiter: 0.1-0.2 km/s.
211. Those data show that a great deal is considerably more
accessible and determinable for a Mars mission spacecraft. The power
needs and the appearance of the craft can be described here and now.
212. The Mars mission module will have two propulsion systems: one
on the lander (for the descent and landing), the other on the ascent
stage (for orbital insertion and rendezvous and docking with the
orbiter).
213. The operating conditions and the large number of cut-ins (the
steering engines will have thousands) determine the fuel components:
high-boiling-point, hypergolic-and, thus, toxic-components such as
nitrogen tetroxide gas and nonsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine. The
toxicity of the components represents a substantial drawback,
especially since the cosmonauts will have to go out onto the planet's
surface, which is "flooded" with the components. And besides,
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something is wrong with things when people show up on planet where
they're searching for life, and they begin by poisoning the landing
site and the living organisms they're looking for in that area.
Pragmatic considerations urge the use of reliable, convenient
components that are toxic, and the reputations of the people
associated with Mars missions have long been ruined: after all, just
such components have been used in all the unmanned vehicles that have
landed on the Martian surface. But it wouldn't be a bad idea to look
for a nontoxic gas consisting of components that have a high boiling
point (i.e., that are in liquid form at normal temperatures), are
hypergolic (for purposes of reliability of operation of engines that
cut-in tens, hundreds, or even thousands of times), and are
sufficiently stable and shock-resistant. In theory, there is such a
gas that comes close in terms of its characteristics to meeting those
contradictory requirements: concentrated hydrogen peroxide and some
kind of nontoxic hydrocarbon propellant with additives that ensure
self-ignition with hydrogen peroxide. Additives to hydrogen peroxide
(stabilizers) that will raise its stability still need to be found.
214. The lender must have equipment that is needed during the
descent and during the mission's stay on the surface, but is not
needed in the return from the surface to the orbiter: a forward heat
shield used during the main deboost phase in the Martian atmosphere
and jettisoned after the parachute system is triggered; the parachute
system itself; a laboratory section for operation-Inside the craft
on the Martian surface; electric-power generators (probably isotope
generators); equipment for controlling the landing; a
temperature-regulation system for the lender and the craft as a
whole, which operates on the surface and includes heaters (probably
isotope heaters) for the Martian night (as well as the Martian day);
life-support system equipment and stocks (oxygen and water); an
airlock and space suits for exiting the craft, with the necessary
onboard equipment; systems for communications and television
observation of the space outside; consoles and systems for displaying
incoming information; a Mars rover that will enable rather extensive,
long expeditions, with its own systems for things like electric power
supply, life support, communications, and control and a system for
temperature regulation; and research equipment (atmospheric probes,
drilling units, analyzers, tthermostats, etc.).
215. Here the problem of the size of the laboratory section stands
out-after all, the mission will have to work on the Martian surface
for, maybe, several months. That means that dozens of cubic meters
will be needed, plus individual cabins.
216. How many individuals will land on the surface of Mars? It
would be expected that work will be done at the landing site at the
same time that work is being done on the Mars rover. So the mission
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module crew will have to consist of four people (two per team, so
they can back each other up). If we must keep things to a minimum,
then we can restrict the crew to two people, who both work at the
landing site and then both make trips on the Mars rover. But that
doesn't seem very intelligent: to fly somewhere that's worlds away
and then restrict ourselves to some minimum amount of activity.
Besides, the danger inherent in such a scheme of things raises some
doubts about it. Now a compromise is under study: to have not one,
but two Mars mission modules-one with a large laboratory section for
work at the landing site, the other with the Mars rover. Their
landings would be spaced in time, which would make it possible to use
the second mission module to render assistance to the first if need
be. And the crew of each would consist of two people.
217. The mission module would leave the Martian surface without the
lander. In addition to a liftoff rocket system, the departing module
would include a flight deck; gear for control, communications,
telemetry, temperature control, and an electric power supply
(probably based on chemical current sources, since autonomous flight
without the lander won't be last long); life-support equipment for
the crew; and a docking device.
218. The problem of communications between the mission module and
the orbiter may prove to be a difficult one: only twice a day will
the communications be what can barely be called satisfactory. And
matters can be described as even more difficult when it comes to the
need for communications between the mission module and the Mars rover
when the rover is beyond the horizon. The problem can be solved by
leaving the orbiter in a Mars-stationary orbit. The orbiter would be
suspended in place over the surface of Mars, and its position could
be over the landing site. Then, of course, there would be
uninterrupted communications between the orbiter and the mission
module and between the orbiter and the Mars rover and, consequently,
between the mission module and the rover (through the orbiter). Such
a version coordinates pretty well with a profile that uses an orbiter
with electric engines.
219. The flight deck for the mission module could be rather small
for two people-3 or 4 sq meters.
220. For the orbiter and the associated problems involving injection
into a trans-Mars trajectory and injection from a Mars satellite
orbit into a trans-Earth trajectory, there is no definiteness like
that associated with the mission module. On the stages of flight
between Earth satellite orbit and insertion into a Mars satellite
orbit, the orbiter would include the mission module. The profile for
a Mars mission would then look like this:
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221. acceleration from a low, near-Earth orbit to a high, injection
orbit (beyond the Earth's radiation belts), during which the
spacecraft, without a crew, would take two or three months to move
through the radiation belts (which is due to the low thrust
capability of spacecraft with electric engines)
222. launch of the crew to the high, injection orbit by means of a
special transport vehicle, rendezvous with the Mars mission orbiter,
docking, transfer of the crew to the orbiter, separation of the
transport vehicle
223. further acceleration of the orbiter to a trans-Mars trajectory
with its electric engines
224. transfer to a Mars satellite orbit with its electric engines
225. waiting in orbit the return of the mission module
226. injection from Mars satellite orbit into a trans-Earth
trajectory
227. direct descent of the mission crew to Earth and injection of
the orbiter without the crew into a near-Earth orbit, again with the
electric engines.
228. That profile involves large expenditures of energy, since with
acceleration and braking during exit from planetary satellite orbit
or insertion into satellite orbit at low thrust, the velocity
characterizing the energy expenditure almost doubles. That is why if
the use of typical chemical-fuel rocket engines with a thrust
capability of around unity yields a total characteristic velocity of
4.5-7.3 km/s (including the energy spent for exit from Earth
satellite orbit), then the use of electric engines produces a
velocity of 9-14 km/s (depending on how good the injection dates are
and what the Mars satellite orbit parameters are). In and of itself,
that's not strange at all: the high velocity of the exhaust jet
compensates for that drawback. Electric engines can produce an
exhaust velocity of around 50,000-100,000 m/s instead of the 4600 m/s
of even liquid-fuel oxygen-hydrogen engines. That is why the fuel
needed for those operations is 9-24 percent of departure mass in
Earth satellite orbit for a spacecraft with electric engines, but
63-80 percent for a complex with liquid-fuel rocket stages. In that
context, one can see the very important advantage of electric
engines: an increase in the final mass of the spacecraft (or in the
mass of the Mars mission module) has little effect on an increase in
the departure mass or, consequently, on the overall complexity of the
undertaking in the process of its development and creation.
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229. On the other hand, a spacecraft with electric engines has
fundamental drawbacks: little experience has been garnered in
long-duration operation of such engines, the spacecraft must have a
powerful energy-supply system on board, and the service life of an
electric engine is in the thousands of hours.
230. A departure mass of around 250-300 tons for a complex would
require that a 7-10 MW electric power plant weighing around 70-100
tons be carried aboard the spacecraft.
231. Nuclear electric power plants have usually been considered, and
added to the all the complications is the problem of providing
radiation protection for the spacecraft crew and equipment at an
acceptable mass. The problem is complicated by the fact that it must
be solved not only for the flight of the complex as a whole (when the
crew compartments and the section for the nuclear reactor do not move
in relation to each other and, consequently, protection can be
confined to the shadow shielding), but also for legs during which the
mission module is departing from the orbiter and approaching it.
232. A spacecraft with a nuclear electric power plant and electric
engines could take the form of a number of components located one
behind the other along the spacecraft's longitudinal axis: the
nuclear power plant, which includes the reactor and the shadow
shielding that screens the rest of the structure and
quarters from power plant radiation; the electric engines, with the
propellant-feed system; the propellant tank; the trusswork connecting
the nuclear power plant and the spacecraft compartments; the nuclear
power plant temperature-regulation system radiator for the removal of
heat unused in the converters that convert the heat produced by the
reactor into electrical energy (geometrically, this is the largest
part of the spacecraft); the compartments of the orbiter; the reentry
vehicle used in the return to Earth; and the mission module.
233. Such a configuration for a Mars mission offers the advantage of
the complex being extended along the longitudinal axis and the center
of mass located in the vicinity of the connecting trusswork, and it
would be relatively simple to produce artificial gravity in the crew
compartments by rotating the complex around the axis perpendicular to
the longitudinal axis (if artificial gravity were judged advisable
for the crew of the Mars mission, which could last two or three
years).
234. The problems associated with the power plant could change
substantially if solar panels were used instead of a nuclear power
plant. Solar panels with a total area of around 10,000 sq meters
would be needed for an output of 7-10 MW. Solar panels could compete
with a nuclear power plant only if the mass of the trusswork and the
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solar cells themselves did not exceed 7-10 kg per kilowatt of derived
electrical energy. That could be achieved if film-type solar panels
with a mass of 100-200 g/m2 and an efficiency of around
5-7 percent were created. Thus, film-type solar panels could become
necessary for the Mars mission, for orbiting solar electric power
plants, and for orbiting factories. Developing such panels is an
urgent task for modern technology.
235. For a Mars mission that uses chemical-propellant jet engines
only, choosing a mission profile that is optimal in terms of power
needs is essential.
236. Such a profile would consist of the following:
237. injection of mission spacecraft into a low, near-Earth,
assembly orbit, and use of transport craft to deliver the crew to the
complex of mission spacecraft
238. injection of hydrogen-oxygen booster rocket (designed for the
sole purpose of injecting the mission spacecraft into a trans-Mars
trajectory) into the assembly orbit, and docking with the mission
spacecraft
239. departure for Mars (with undocking of the booster rocket after
its work is finished) at the most optimal date such that?the escape
velocity from near-Earth orbit is 3.7-4.0 km/s
240. insertion into a severely elongated elliptical Mars satellite
orbit with virtually no fuel expense, as a result of braking of the
spacecraft in the Martian atmosphere (during the motion in the
atmosphere, the spacecraft must be protected from heat by a
heat-protection shield)
241. separation of the mission module, its descent, operations on
the surface, return of the module to orbit, rendezvous and docking
with the orbiter, transfer of the mission module crew to the orbiter,
separation of the mission module
242. injection of the orbiter from Mars satellite orbit into a
trans-Earth trajectory with the sustainer engine of the orbiter's
consolidated propulsion system
243. upon approach to Earth, transfer of crew to reentry vehicle,
reentry at escape velocity, and touchdown.
244. The following figures can give us something of an idea of the
overall size of the complex: with the total mass of the orbiter and
the mission module and their propulsion systems and fuel at around
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120 tons, the mass of the complex can be around 300 tons.
245. If the mission crew that lands on Mars consists of four
individuals, then the total number of crew members for the Mars
mission must be at least six.
246. The orbiter's onboard systems and computers must support
in-flight operations such as control and navigation and
communications with Earth, the mission module, and the Mars rover
(via the orbiter).
247. Because of the need to minimize the mass of the spacecraft and
because of the long duration of the flight, a closed-loop
oxygen-and-water system will have to be used for life support.
248. The long flight of the mission far from Earth, with no
possibility of giving any direct assistance to the cosmonauts, raises
the question of whether the mission should consist of several
spacecraft, who could provide such assistance to one another and, at
the same time, avoid duplicating programs of operations.
249. A Base in Geostationary Orbit
250. A base in geostationary orbit could be used for servicing
unmanned geostationary platforms, communications and television-relay-
satellites, and weather satellites that are in geostationary orbit;
for observing the Earth's surface in the interests of the
environmental monitoring and natural resources studies; for weather
observations and astrophysical research; and for the construction of
solar electric power plants.
251. The creation of a base in geostationary orbit does not appear
today to be an essential task, but the development of communications
and television-relay systems and the appearance of multipurpose
platforms in geostationary orbit could lead to the conclusion in the
future that a base in geostationary orbit is needed. The rest
(communications, television, radio telescopes, etc.) represents
incidental goals: if a base were to be created, then it would be
logical to use it for other purposes, too.
252. The base could include an orbital unit; an external platform; a
fueling station; and an orbital transport vehicle for carrying
cosmonauts and cargo to vehicles and platforms being serviced.
253. In addition, the base could also include a manned transport
spacecraft (for bringing crews to and from the base) and multipurpose
cargo transport spacecraft (for delivering cargoes from low orbit to
the base).
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254. Based on a cost of $5,000/kg to put a payload into low orbit,
using today's expendable orbital-injection systems would put the cost
of sending a spacecraft weighing approximately seven tons (which
includes the mass of the propulsion system and fuel needed for a
return to Earth) to the base at around $250-350 million, depending on
the launch vehicle used, the orbital plane of injection to the
intermediate orbit, and the components used in the rocket stage for
transferring the spacecraft from intermediate orbit to geostationary
orbit. That's a lot. So we need to aim for as small a crew as
possible on the station and for a rather long tour of duty. We can
tentatively expect a base crew of three cosmonauts who serve a tour
of duty of one year.
255. A base in geostationary orbit could be configured as a unitized
structure, like the Mir station and the Freedom station project, or
as a cloud-station, and it would consist of individual modules: an
orbital unit with a platform (making up the main module) and a
fueling station. In a cloud-station version, the fueling station
would drift at a distance of 10-50 km away from the main module.
256. The orbital unit would have to have at least three docking
ports-one for a manned spacecraft, a second for a cargo spacecraft,
and the third for a backup spacecraft. All the inside facilities
could easily be fitted in a space of 150-200-cu meters (it cylinder
about 4 m across and 12-15 m long).
257. The inside gear for control and communications would include
onboard computers; gyroscopic sensors and accelerometers; the radar
receivers and responders used when spacecraft rendezvous with the
orbital unit; gear for communications with Earth (direct and through
relay satellites), with the transport vehicle, with cosmonauts doing
EVAs, with the radio telescope, and with the fueling station; gear
for processing telemetry; consoles; manual controls; instrument
panels; displays; screens for displaying incoming information; and
television gear.
258. In light of the cost of cargo deliveries, we would rely on a
system that is completely closed-loop for water and oxygen and that
uses for its functioning expendable materials in the form of
equipment components that are replaceable in the process of
operation. Dehydrated food, plus underwear and clothing, would be
delivered by cargo spacecraft. The mass of those materials would be
on the order of two-three tons a year in the context of an expected
total freight traffic volume to the base of about 15-20 tons a year
(remember that the freight traffic volume to the Mir station is 10-15
tons a year). Most of the cargo would consist of things like
equipment for regular operations, instruments and assemblies needing
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replacement, new scientific gear, and fuel.
259. On the outside of the orbital unit would be the platform, the
propulsion system, the solar panels, the temperature-regulation
system radiator, the optical sensors for the attitude control system
of the orbital unit and the solar panels, antennas, and the powered
gyroscopes of the attitude control system. Powered gyroscopes are
used because, on the one hand, the orbital unit's communication
antennas are always pointed toward Earth (i.e., in practical terms,
attitude needs to be merely maintained) and because, on the other, an
attitude control system that uses no fuel is needed (for the same
efficiency considerations associated with expendable materials
delivered from Earth). The location of the powered gyroscopes outside
the pressurized spaces stems not only from the fact that the
flywheels must rotate in a vacuum (in order to avoid windage losses),
but also-and this is the main reason-from the consideration that a
noise source be removed from the pressurized spaces.
260. The platform is a trusswork structure that supports the
directional communication and relay antennas and the optical
instruments that are operating in different spectral ranges and are
used for observing the Earth's surface and the atmosphere.
261. The propulsion system is needed for placing the based in the
desired region in geostationary orbit and for moving-it-to another -
region if the need arises. In addition, it can be used for keeping a
cloud-base from "racing apart" in the event that the system for
maintaining a given position relative to the main module goes out of
order. Accordingly, the propulsion system includes a vernier engine,
thrusters for control and coordinate shifts of the base with fuel,
fuel-tank pressurization tanks, and pneumohydraulic valves. As fuel
components, a gas such as dimethylhydrazine-nitrogen tetroxide would,
of course, be used.
262. In a cloud-base, the fueling station would be an independent,
unmanned space vehicle. For that reason, it would have to have a
complete set of servo systems to support its existence: attitude
control and stabilization systems (including a radar for rangefinding
and measuring the radial velocity relative to the main module of the
base, plus powered gyroscopes as controlling organs); a
communications system; a temperature-regulation system; a
power-supply system; life-support systems that are switched on when
cosmonauts visit the fueling station; and a propulsion system.
263. The vehicle for making trips between the service facilities of
the base would be an orbital craft capable of both manned and
unmanned operation. In the unmanned mode, the craft could be used for
simple service operations-such as fueling operations. For operations
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of greater complexity that are associated with the replacement or
repair of instruments and equipment, a crew would be sent on the
craft. Since the service craft has no reentry capsule, it would
consist of gear for control and communications, a power-supply unit
based on solar panels, temperature-regulation and life-support
systems, a propulsion system with a sustainer engine and steering
engines, and a docking assembly. In addition, it must have systems
for fueling the vehicle it is servicing: fuel-component tanks,
pressurization tanks, a compressor (for pumping the pressurization
gas out of the tanks of the propulsion system being fueled into its
pressurization tanks), and automatic pneumohydraulic equipment.
Naturally, the vehicles that are "clients" of the base in
geostationary orbit will have to have standardized fuel components
and pneumohydraulic systems for their propulsion systems (if only for
fueling and safety), as well as docking assemblies.
264. The manned transport spacecraft can consist of three
components: the reentry vehicle, the equipment section with a
retropropulsion system, and a booster-rocket stage.
265. The reentry vehicle would hold the crew, equipment needed for
the return leg to Earth, and the control gear and organs needed by
the crew during the flight. The reentry vehicle has a heat shield.
266. The equipment section hold the following: control and
communications gear; electric power-supply and temperature-regulation
systems; life-support system backups; and the retropropulsion system.
The retropropulsion system is designed to issue a braking impulse
that ensures transfer from geostationary orbit to an elliptial orbit
for return to Earth (during reentry in the equatorial plane, the
required change in velocity is about 1.5 km/s); to adjust the
trajectory of motion; and to effect control of attitude and
coordinate shifts during rendezvous and docking. Since the propulsion
system must remain ready for operation a long time (the manned
spacecraft is expected to remain "on duty" as part of the base for
the entire time that the crew it delivered remains on the base), it
quite naturally uses high-boiling-point, hypergolic components.
267. The booster-rocket stage must lift the spacecraft from a low,
near-Earth orbit to an elliptical transfer orbit (when operating in
the equatorial plane, the required increase in velocity is about 2.5
km/s), and then, at its apogee, it must insert the spacecraft into a
geostationary orbit (in the equatorial plane, the required increase
in velocity this time is about 1.5 km/s). Four kilometers a second
represents immense power needs. For that reason, it seems sensible to
use oxygen and hydrogen as components in the booster-rocket stage.
For a version so efficient, in terms of power, we can estimate the
departure mass of that craft in low, near-Earth orbit to be on the
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order of 50 tons. If we assume the cost of manufacturing the craft to
be around $50 million and the cost of placing a payload into orbit to
be $5,000/kg (half as expensive as putting a payload in orbit from
the Shuttle), then for an expendable spacecraft we get a figure of
around $300 million in expense for each crew change on a base in
geostationary orbit.
268. Could we cut the costs of a crew change by developing and using
a reusable manned transport spacecraft for the flights from the low
intermediate orbit to the geostationary orbit and back?
269. Such a spacecraft could be seen as consisting of the crew
flight deck, the equipment section with the retropropulsion system
(which operates on high-boiling-point components), a booster-rocket
stage that burns oxygen and hydrogen, and an aerodynamic shield that
plays the simultaneous role of speed brake and heat shield.
270. Such a reusable spacecraft, without any recovery capsule, could
operate in the following profile:
271. the retropropulsion system of a reusable spacecraft that is
docked with a low-orbit servicing station is fueled with
high-boiling-point propellant components
272. the next shift of cosmonauts liftsoff from-Earth in a
transport spacecraft that travels between Earth and the low-orbit
servicing station and that performs a rendezvous and docking with the
station
273. the reusable spacecraft is fueled with liquid oxygen and liquid
hydrogen, and the cosmonauts transfer to the reusable spacecraft
274. the reusable spacecraft separates from the servicing station,
the engine of its booster stage is switched on, and it transfers to
an elliptical orbit of flight for the geostationary orbit
275. at the apogee of the elliptical orbit, the engine of the
booster stage cuts-in again, and the spacecraft transfers to
geostationary orbit near the base
276. the spacecraft performs a rendezvous and docking with the
orbital unit of the base by using its retropropulsion system
277. the crew transfers to the orbital unit of the base and begins
its work.
278. When the crew finishes its tour of duty six months or a year
later, it transfers to the reusable spacecraft, which separates from
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the orbital unit of the base. The retrorocket is switched on, and the
spacecraft is inserted into an elliptical orbit of descent.
279. Then the following happens:
280. the elliptical orbit is corrected so that the reusable
spacecraft enters the necessary altitude corridor for atmospheric
braking
281. the spacecraft makes reentry, and its control system controls
its motion in the atmosphere via the aerodynamic lift of the speed
brake in such a way that after braking and reentry, the apogee of the
result orbit is roughly equal to the altitude of the orbit of the
servicing station
282. when the spacecraft approaches the apogee of the resultant
orbit, the propulsion system is switched on, and the perigee of the
orbit of the spacecraft is raised to the altitude of the orbit of the
servicing station
283. the spacecraft makes a rendezvous and docking with the
servicing station
284. the crew transfers to the transport spacecraft that travels
between Earth and that orbit, and the reusable spacecraft Isreadied
at the servicing station for the next trip.
285. If we assume that same cost of delivering fuel to the orbital
station ($5,000/kg), then the transfer to the reusable spacecraft
could cut the costs for a crew change on the geostationary base by
roughly half. But we must still consider the expenses incurred by the
flight of the manned transport craft that travels between Earth and
orbit and the costs of operating the low-orbit servicing station,
which will be placed among the costs of operating the reusable
spacecraft. So the gain may turn out to be not so substantial.
286. Nevertheless, the future is probably still with reusable
systems. We need to go with them. A substantial cut in transportation
costs, however, can be achieved only through consistent use of the
principle of reusability and only through the creation of a truly
efficient reusable transport system that can deliver cargoes to low,
near-Earth orbit at a cost of around $100/kg.
287. As already mentioned, around 20 tons of freight will have to be
delivered to a base in geostationary orbit every year. Hauling up
that much with expendable cargo craft would cost roughly $500 million
(assuming operations are in the plane of the equator). For that
reason, we need to analyze the advisability of developing a reusable
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cargo spacecraft.
288. Such a craft would take the form of a reusable tow craft with
electric engines that receive the electrical energy for their
operation from solar panels. With a tow craft mass of about 30 tons,
and about 10-12 tons of that being fuel, the tow craft could deliver
10 tons of cargo to a base in geostationary orbit, i.e., it would use
about a kilogram of its fuel for each kilogram of payload. Thus, the
delivery of 20 tons of cargo to a base in geostationary orbit would
cost $200-250 million (even if the cost of putting the cargo into
low, near-Earth orbit were assumed to be $5,000/kg). Such a tow
craft, of course, would have a big drawback: the slowness of the
delivery of cargo, since its flight from low orbit to geostationary
orbit would take several months.
289. For that very reason, and because the craft would be long in
the radiation belts, spacecraft with electric engines will hardly be
used to delivery crews to bases in geostationary orbit (a crew would
have to sit in the small space of a radiation shelter for two months
during the flight).
290. Space Settlements
291. The Earth is overpopulated. The ecological problems that have
risen up before mankind at the end ofour century are the result of
not only the irresponsible waste of natural resources and imprudent
industrial and agricultural practices, but also the fact that there
are already too many people on Earth. Maybe that's why the old idea
of resettling people in space is again beginning to attract
attention. Since the 1970s, suggestions have been appearing on the
creation of space settlements.
292. One of the most brilliant projects belongs to J. O'Haley. He
and a group of enthusiasts have developed and proposed several types
of space settlements that differ in size and whose populations range
from 10,000 to 20 million. In the latter case, the settlement
consists of two parallel cylinders joined by a frame; each cylinder
is 6.4 km across and 12 km long. The cylinders are rotated about
their axes at a rate of 0.53 rpm, which produces a centrifugal
acceleration on the inner surface, which is inhabited by the people
of the settlement, and that acceleration is equal to the normal
acceleration of the force of gravity on the Earth's surface.
293. The cylinders rotate in opposite directions to compensate for
their angular momentum, so it won't interfere with the orientation of
the settlement. The axes of the cylinders point to the Sun. Part of
the wall (roughly half) is transparent, and offset, cylindrical
mirrors direct the light from the Sun into the cylinders. The length
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of the mirrors is equal to the length of the cylinder, and the width
corresponds to the width of "windows." Energy is supplied to the
population from thermoelectric power plants that get their energy
from the Sun via two parabolic mirrors on the ends of the cylinders
opposite the Sun. The ends of the cylinders on the Sun side have
docking positions for spacecraft.
294. Inside the cylinders is a normal terrestrial atmosphere. Main
transportation arteries are laid out on the inner surface of the
cylinders, and on that surface is also housing, factories, public
buildings, stores, etc. All that is, as it were, beneath one hilly
roof (the roof is toward the axis of the cylinder-"up" for the
inhabitants is toward the axis of the cylinder). The roof is covered
with soil, and growing on it are trees and grass, on which
agricultural operations are performed; strolling lanes have also been
laid out, and there are ponds and lakes. In a word, a terrestrial
landscape is reproduced above the living and industrial facilities.
The settlement has a closed-loop life cycle that uses biological as
well as chemical-mechanical methods. Construction materials, raw
materials, nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen are brought in from Earth,
the Moon, the asteroids, etc. The population density is on the order
of 30,000 people per square kilometer, which is roughly three times
higher than the population density in Moscow. Thus, each cylinder is
a city like New York or Moscow, with a population of 10 million, but
where virtually all the housing and all the?itid-ustfial?buildings have
been moved so they are under the ground.
295. The mass of a settlement is around 10-15 billion tons, which
immediately brings up the question, Where do you get such a huge
amount of construction materials? Those to whom the idea belongs
suggest getting the materials from the Moon. That suggestion is tied
to some extent to the location of the settlement. They suggest that
it be located at the fourth or fifth Lagrangian point in the
Earth-Moon system, each of which is located on the Moon's orbit
equidistant from the Earth and the Moon. Lagrange showed that a body
located at one of those points will maintain a stable position in the
Earth-Moon system. That feature of the Lagrangian points could,
according to the thinking of O'Haley and his group, make delivery of
materials from the Moon to the construction site somewhat easier.
296. Extraction, delivery, and processing of the materials is
described by the group in the following manner. A highly automated
mining and ore-dressing industry is set up on the Moon. Ore-bearing
rock is processed to the needed condition and then poured into
standard "buckets," which go to an electromagnetic catapult. Since
there is no atmosphere on the Moon, all the acceleration takes place
at the Moon's surface. A linear synchronous electric motor (which is
the catapult) accelerates the buckets containing the rock to the
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proper velocity, and then the deceleration mode is switched on. The
buckets are open in the direction of motion, and for that reason,
when the motor is switched to a deceleration mode, the prepared rock
flies out in the direction of the acceleration. The direction and
speed are chosen such that the rock "flies" to the second
Lagrangian point (which is located on a line between the Earth and
the Moon, opposite the Earth). There the rock is collected by
"interceptors," and on freighter spacecraft that are powered by
electric engines it is taken to the construction site. Back on the
Moon, the motor slows the buckets to virtually zero velocity, and
they are dispatched for the next load, and the next cycle of
acceleration begins.
297. Based on a 15-year construction period, nearly 1 billion tons
of processed rock a year (30 tons a second in continuous "tossing")
must be sent from the Moon. And if we want to stabilize the Earth's
population with a continuous emigration of the excess population to
space, then an excess of 50 million people a year would require that
nearly 40 billion tons of rock a year (that's 1,300 tons a second!)
be dispatched from the Moon. But that is considerably more than
everything that is being mined right now on Earth.
298. Warehouses for raw materials, semifinished products, and
finished products would have to be built at the construction site, in
the vacuum, as would plants for things like ore dressing and
metallurgy. The productivity of that industrial country in space (the
whole operation is get "housing" up in time for the growing
humanity) would have to be on the order of 30-40 billion tons of
product a year: that is roughly equivalent to what the industry of
the entire Earth is capable of processing and producing.
299. Another project under the name of the "Stanford Torus" (it
was developed at Stanford University, in the United States) proposes
building space settlements in the shape of tori 1.6 km across, with a
cross-section diameter of about 150 m. In practical terms, such a
settlement, designed for 10,000 people, is a densely developed city
in the form of one closed street with a solid wall of homes and
buildings on each side.
300. The torus rotates around its axis of symmetry to produce
gravity for its inhabitants. A mirror hovering over the torus (with a
diameter roughly equal to the diameter of the torus) reflects the
Sun's rays onto a circular mirror that is rotating along with the
torus, and that mirror directs the light through round "windows"
into the torus.
301. Along the axis of the torus are equipment, docking positions,
and industry. The air pressure in the torus is 0.5 atm, with a
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partial oxygen pressure that is normal for Earth.
302. Because of the smaller dimensions in terms of the "height"
and "width" of the habitable space, the mass of the structure of
the settlement in this project is roughly an order of magnitude
smaller, but then the amount of space per person is also an order of
magnitude smaller. But even in this version, it's easy to see that
the creation of space settlements cannot be a means of solving the
problem of the overpopulation of the Earth. In theory, one could
imagine such grandiose operations as being feasible if mankind were
to somehow acquire enough robot-entities that were specially created
for living and working in space, were absolutely efficient (and
always had a strong desire to work), could themselves design and
build whatever they wanted and wherever (like genies), and still
would take orders from poeple and would obediently carry those orders
out.
303. But even if such settlements were built, would people want to
live there? Live your whole life in a can. So what if it's a very big
can, 150 meters in diameter! That's something for the psychologists.
We might be able to think up some "tin" idea, but for Pete's sake
it sure wouldn't hold up forever.
304. Space settlements for tourists along the lines of a Las Vegas
in space-now that's something one might imagine, and suchsettlements
might just spring up.
305. So it's unlikely that space settlements would save us from
ecological disaster or overpopulation of the Earth. Mankind must
someday grow up, and stop reveling in its fertility. Not by
strong-arm methods or restrictive legislation, but by understanding
the current circumstance must mankind as a whole and each individual
separately arrive at the clear solution: we must put a stop to the
growth of the human population. A natural ethical norm must be
affirmed in people's awareness-that no woman should have more than
two children. If all people were to adhere to that norm, the
population growth would cease, and we would have a real chance of
averting ecological disaster on Earth.
306. Flight to the Stars
307. Almost since the days when space program was taking its very
first steps, it has been clear that anything within the solar system
is reachable by the space vehicles or spacecraft that could be
developed with the level of technology available and that,
consequently, even if humans couldn't land on all its planets, they
could at least make it to them. But at the same time, it has also
become clear that here at home, in the solar system, we probably
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won't find anything unusual. It's unlikely that, with the data we
produce on our trips about our solar system, we will be able to move
very far forward in our understanding of the physical picture of the
world in which we live.
308. That means we need to look to the stars, and starships. What
kinds of problems need to be solved before star missions can become a
reality?
309. The first problem is time. Even if we could build a starship
that could fly at a speed close to the speed of light (say, at a
speed on the order of 70 percent the speed of light), travel in our
galaxy would take thousands or even tens of thousands of years,
because the diameter of the galaxy is nearly 100,000 light years.
310. At the end of a journey, what would be left even of cosmonauts
who had been "frozen"? What would be left of embryos? And do we
have a right to decide the fate of people who haven't even been born
yet? And even if we could solve that problem, the travelers would
come back to a world totally foreign to them. A flight to the stars
wouldn't be merely a trip, it would be a flight to another life. For
those around you, your relatives and friends, it would be something
akin to your suicide.
311. The second problem involves dangerous streams of gas and dust.
Interstellar space is not empty. Remnants of gas and dust, streams of
particles, are everywhere. For a starship traveling at a speed close
to the speed of light, those gas and dust remnants create a
high-energy stream that would act upon the ship and against which
there would be virtually no protection.
312. That stream would result in the vaporization of any protective
shield and in unacceptably high radiation dose levels.
313. The third problem involves power needs. If a ship's rocket
engine were to use the most efficient thermonuclear reaction and the
ship were to have the ideal design, a roundtrip at a speed of near
the speed of light would require that the ratio of initial mass to
final mass be no worse than 1030, which is unrealistic.
314. And as for the creation of a photon engine for the starship,
which would be based on the use of annihiliation of matter, certain
problems are evident, but their solutions are not. Nevertheless,
let's try to imagine a galactic, photon-powered ship capable of
flying at a speed rather near the speed of light, which would remove
the problem of time. The time itself that it would take for
cosmonauts to fly roundtrip on a journey covering a distance equal to
about half the diameter of our galaxy- assuming an optimal timetable
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for the flight (continuous acceleration, and then continuous
deceleration)-would be 42 years (by the ship's clock). By the clock
on Earth, 100,000 years would pass.
315. Let's assume that we managed to produce an ideal process in a
photon engine and create an ideal design for tanks with zero mass
(that's impossible, of course, but that only means that, in fact, the
results would be considerably worse), and let's try to analyze
certain parameters of such an ideal craft.
316. The initial-to-final-mass ratio would be 7 x 1018.
That means that if the mass for the living quarters and the working
areas and equipment (i.e., everything that the spacecraft carries)
were a total of 100 tons, then the departure mass would be
1021 tons. That's more than the mass of the Moon. Half of
that mass would be antimatter.
317. In order to ensure acceleration equal to g, the engine would
have to develop a thrust equal to 1024 kgf. To produce
that kind of thrust in the focus of the mirror of a photon engine,
there would have to be an emission source (whose operation is based
on the annihilation reaction) of around 1040 erg/s.
Remember that the emissive power of our Sun is on the order of 4 x
1033 erg/s. Thus, in the focus of the mirror of the
photon engine, we would need to ignite millions Of-Suner
318. The parameters of a photon-powered ship would be considerably
better is it were possible to build a hypothetical ship with a ramjet
photon engine that carried only antimatter. But the analysis would
show there, too, the need to achieve impossible results-in the focus
of the mirror of even that engine, we would need to ignite hundreds
of Suns. And with all that, there still remain the problems of time
and protection from streams of gas and dust.
319. Based on today's notions of the world, we are left with the
impression that we cannot solve the problem of transporting material
bodies galactic distances at speeds close to the speed of light.
Apparently, there's no point in charging through space and time in a
mechanical structure.
320. We need to find a means of interstellar travel that does not
involve the need to transport a material body. In doing so, we
approach an idea long used in science fiction (which need not be
embarrassing, because profound ideas have more than once been
expressed in science fiction literature) about the travel of
intelligent beings in the form of information packages.
321. Electromagnetic waves propagate throughout the entire
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observable Universe with virtually no loss. And that may be the key
to interstellar flights. If we want to stay away from mysticism, we
must acknowledge that the person of today's "organic" man cannot be
separated from his body. But we could imagine a specially engineered
individual whose person could be separated from the body in a manner
somewhat similar the software that can be removed from the structure
of today's computers.
322. If an information package that is a complete description of his
person, his individuality, could be copied from his fields of
foreground operations and memories, then that package could also be
sent by radiolink to a receiving station and copied into a standard
material carrier (or a carrier chosen by price, or...) in which the
traveler could live, act, and satisfy his own curiosity.
323. During the transmission of that package of information, the
individual would not be alive. In order for him to be alive, his
person-his package of information-would have to be in a material
carrier. His person, or, if you will, his spirit, could exist only on
material fields of operation and memory.
324. Such a means of handling the problem of flying to the stars
could be behind the plots not only of modern science fiction, but
also of ancient worlds, fairy tales, and legends about ascensions
into the heavens and condemnations to hell-,--Abeiut-flying-saucers an
worlds where people appear and then disappear, about transmigration
of the soul. It could be the resolution of philosophical arguments
and discussions about the essence of man, the frailty of this
corporeal shell, and the essence of being. What is man? What is
truth?
325. It is interesting what outstanding philosophers from different
times have, through logical analysis (not based on knowledge), come
to the thoroughly modern notion of the relationship between essence
and the human body. The life of man is the life of his soul; it is
the thought that beats in feebleness about oneself ("Who am I?")
and about the world outside oneself and inside; it is the esthetic
enjoyment of beauty and the rejection of the primitive and the
untruth; it is the freedom of thought and analysis. We are here, we
are living, and we are capable of reflecting on, evaluating, and
reprocessing information and generating it. The rest of me, my body,
is for service.
326. The brain is a field of mathematical operations on symbols,
numbers, concepts, laws, and algorithms. Those operations ensure the
integration of incoming information and its analysis. The algorithms
that have come about in man for processing, analyzing, and evaluating
information determine his esthetics and self-image, and they
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determined his sense of his own existence. Of course, those
operations are performed according to laws that are specific to a
given individual. Those laws form in the brain of an individual
gradually (as a result of his experience in gaining and reprocessing
information and his experience in his own activity and the evaluation
of it), and they are recorded on the fields of mathematical
operations and the memory units of his brain. Over the course of his
life, those laws may be improved, they may be changed (just as man
changes over the course of his life), and they may deteriorate.
Recorded on a material carrier, they become, as it were, material.
But the operations themselves, our thoughts, our experiences-they're
not something that is tangible. Throughout all time, man has tried
to materialize those "intangibles" in the form of sounds, words,
stories, manuscripts, and books. But they have always been only
shadows, weak reflections of those "intangibles."
327. The overwhelming majority of people-almost all and almost
always-have not made the distinction between their "I" and their
"body." And it is the body that they have always tried to make
things a little better for. And in general, that's necessary: without
nutrition, the brain dies, the field of operations decomposes, the
person disappears. At the same time, in a healthy body, the
"computer" works with fewer breakdowns and with greater speed
(because of simultaneous operations and because of better algorithms
in general), and the interior is greatly resistant to external
threats and complications. And the most important thing is that a
healthy body means clear thinking.
328. Maybe that's why the striving to makes things a little better
for the body from generation to generation has remained the main
driving force of the human race. It has also resulted in predatory
campaigns, the creation of new technologies, and the striving for a
better organized life for society (including by means of "Let's rob
from the rich," which is camouflaged by "Down with exploitation").
Homes, cars, airplanes, gas and electricity, and computers were all
born out of that striving. A striving to make things a little better
for the body has been and remains the prime mover in people's lives.
329. But in fact, all that is secondary. Our "I," our
individuality, our essence, our being-that's not our material shell.
There's nothing that contradicts our perception of the world in the
thought that it is fundamentally possible to separate individuality
and its material carrier.
330. For that reason, from an engineering standpoint, it is possible
to engineer an individual whose spirit could be "separated" from
his body, and a world could be engineered in which the individual
could move almost instantaneously (in the the solar system, for
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example) from one planet to another.
331. Would it be okay to create such a being? Do we have the right
to do that? What incentives could we inculcate in him? It is those
very questions that describe the main problem. Things are different
with us, probably the product of organic evolution. The instinct for
survical, for continuing the species, is deeply seated in us. A
species that doesn't have that instinct or in whom it's not well
developed does not survive in natural selection. But never mind
natural selection! When because of age, health, or living conditions
that instinct dies, the individual loses the will to live. But what
kind of incentive to live could we give to our creation? Curiosity?
The desire to be useful to those who created his body (which is
perishable and replaceable) and who raised his person and his soul?
The desire to be involved in studies of the world, in ultradistant
travels, in the creation of transceiver stations for travels, in the
construction of space bases near stars?
332. Are those incentives persuasive? Where
get fondness and love for those around him?
so that he wouldn't turn out to be a monster
aspirations for power or for the opportunity
would we raise him to learn from and be like
the opposite. How would we raise him so that
be an infantile, passive being who is apz-thet
about those around him, and about himself?
would such an individual
How would we raise him
with absurd, senseless
to give orders? How
his benefactor? Or just
he wouldn't turn out to
it about the world,
333. And finally, there would be enormous technical problems. How do
we think? How are the stereotypes of our responses, our behavior, our
evaluations created? How does our individuality come about? The
algorithms of our perception of the world around us, of our analysis,
and of our thinking are probably created anew in every human and, to
a certain extent, differently. Their nature is determined by family,
friends, and enemies; by school and the structure of society; by the
joys and pains and successes of childhood. A society of slaves raises
slaves, a society of freemen, freemen. From that standpoint, it's
very dangerous to standardize methods of education. That's the most
terrible thing we can do for our future. Mankind can be strong only
when there are differences, diversity, and individuality. Of course,
there must be certain common bases: love those around you, don't
steal, don't kill, don't covet. But to prepare man fit a mold is to
prepare our own demise.
334. Without having sorted all those things out, how can we set
about creating artificial intelligence?
335. But the notion of it has already entered our consciousness.
Perhaps the most popular problem among the most curious and
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enterprising among us is to create artificial intelligence. We have
to think about it, because it's going to happen.
336: And difficulties that are more comprehensible would come up. If
we were to transmit an individual over galactic distances, we would
have to create antennas whose dimensions measured in kilometers, plus
transmitters with powers on the order of a 100 million kV. At the
same time, if we were to effect such galactic transfers, we would
have to create receiving and transmitting stations (in the radio
range, for example), use unmanned space vehicles, for example, to put
them at possible destination points (as a rule, not far from some
star, so as to ensure that the transceiving stations would have a
supply of energy). We could transport the transceiving stations, but
we could only take the technology and a minimum set of instruments
and robots for the manufacture of those stations at the destination.
337. The speeds of space vehicles that are noi flying in the solar
system are in the tens of kilometers a second. It's possible for us
to achieve speeds in the hundreds or even thousands of kilometers per
second. But that means that it would take millions or even hundreds
of millions of years to "transport" the stations about the galaxy.
Transporting stations at such speeds even to the closest stars, which
are tens of light years away from us, would take thousands or tens of
thousands of years. In that length of time, the interest in the
project itself might be lost.
338. One could imagine another means of star traveling: establish
communications with other civilizations; transmit to them the
information on the construction of transceiving stations suitable for
receiving "our" people; transmit the information needed for
manufacturing a material carrier of "our" individual; transmit the
information package with "our" traveler; and set up an exchange of
information with them.
339. Reflecting on stellar flights enables us to single out several
promising areas of work that we would be wise to pursue in the coming
decades. They include the following: create ever larger radio
telescopes with outputs measuring in the kilometers; develop space
robots and designs and ideologies for space "beacons's; study the
possibility of creating artificial intelligence; and search for
channels of communications to other civilizations in the solar
system.
340. Those areas are well in keeping with the modern needs of man.
Work on artificial intelligence is associated with solving the
problem of creating sufficiently efficient robots to replace people
in dangerous production work and help us in our exploration of water
areas and the underwater world and in construction. The creation of
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space robots is a an idea whose time has come. Robots would be more
effective in working in open space than is men in space suits. And
operations in open space will probably expand in the coming decades.
341. The construction of large radio telescopes will enable us to
make more efficient studies of the Universe.
342. What Needs to Be Done?
343. Without any pretense to making an exhaustive list of the tasks
facing space operations in the coming decades, I will attempt to
describe the goals on which, in my opinion, it makes sense to focus
our efforts:
344. 1. Low-orbit systems of standardized satellites for
environmental monitoring, studies of natural resources, and weather
observations, with computerized ground centers for processing the
information and a computerized system for delivering the results to
subscribers.
345. 2. Orbital cloud-stations as bases for experimental and
construction work.
346. 3. Orbiting factories for the production of ultrapure materials
and biological preparations and for perforMing other praUction
processes that would be profitably or advisedly done in orbit.
347. 4. Unmanned space vehicles in an international satellite system
for observing and monitoring land, sea, and ocean surfaces, air
transport, and underwater activity, with a system for distribution
the information to subscribers.
348. 5. Systems of radio telescopes placed in near-Earth and
circumsolar orbits and operating in a single radio interferometry
configuration.
349. 6. Orbital astrophysical observatories working in various
spectral ranges.
350. 7. Unmanned vehicles for bringing back Martian soil and air
samples (if, as a result of those operations, it turns out to be
necessary to perform a manned mission to Mars, then the appropriate
manned mission systems will have to be developed and built).
351. 8. Reusable transport spacecraft that are cheap (cost of
delivering payload to orbit in the hundreds of dollars per kilogram)
for transport operations between Earth and orbit.
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352. 9. Cheap, reusable transport spacecraft for transport
operations between low orbit and geostationary orbit.
353. 10. Space robots for operations in open space in Earth
satellite orbits.
354. Table of Contents
355. What's Been Done So Far?..3
356. The Experience We've Garnered..6
357. Forthcoming Tasks in Space. .12
358. The Space Hardware of the Near Future..16
359. Orbital Injection Systems. .19
360. Orbiting Solar Electric Power Plants..22
361. Orbiting Factories..26
362. Radio telescopes. .27
363. The Cloud-Station. .27
364. The Lunar Base..29
365. The Mars Mission..34
366. A Base in Geostationary Orbit. .44
? ,
367. Space Settlements. .51
368. Flight to the Stars..55
369. What Needs to Be Done?..62
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