The Little Soyuz that Could

Another chapter closed on human spaceflight and the Russian-American space race this summer when the U.S. retired its Project Constellation in July, ending the era of the Space Shuttle and handing Russia a de facto monopoly on carrying humans to the International Space Station.

Going forward, NASA will have to pay about $50 million to propel each astronaut to the Space Station, in launches conducted from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome. Instead of the reusable space shuttle, American astronauts will board Russia’s Soyuz rockets, which disintegrate in flight, leaving a tiny three-person capsule spacecraft that docks with the station. Although Russia’s space agency Roskosmos stresses that the system is constantly modified and improved, it is largely the same as the Vostok rocket that carried Yury Gagarin into orbit in April 1961.

NASA has already reserved some 50 seats for astronaut launches through 2016, by which time it hopes that the private sector will have developed a replacement for the Shuttle. But some observers have already expressed worry about Russia’s monopoly control over access to the ISS. European Space Agency head Jean-Jacques Dordain called the situation a “collective mistake,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, the increased responsibilities and high costs of human space flight could stretch Russia’s resources at a time when it is trying to enter more lucrative space sectors like telecom and satellites. Russia’s budget in Roskosmos is just $3 billion, compared to $18.5 billion for NASA.

Decades ago, Russia developed a shuttle knock-off, the Buran. But the prototype that successfully orbited the Earth was destroyed by debris when its Baikonur hangar collapsed. A second Buran was stored for years at Moscow’s Tushino before bewildered locals watched it float down the Moscow river this summer on a barge, to Zhukovsky in the Moscow region.

Roskosmos’ new chief, Vladimir Popovkin, said he wants Russia’s share in the space market to grow from three to 12 percent in the near future, and that the country should do more satellite launches.

Meanwhile, space veterans like decorated cosmonaut Georgy Grechko complained at a recent conference that, now that the space race is ended, humankind has stopped innovating, and is not spending any money to invent new ways to launch people into space. The Shuttle was too expensive, but a new type of reusable spacecraft is needed to make launches and landings cheaper.

“Instead of having rescuers, helicopters, and planes pick up the landed capsule, it would be enough for your wife to come to the landing strip with a bouquet of flowers, which would be much cheaper,” the 80-year-old Grechko said.

“It’s strange that during the Cold War,” he continued, “when we cosmonauts and constructors dreamed of cooperation, there were a lot of new launches. But then cooperation came and now we are mostly repeating ourselves. If Korolyov were alive,1 man would already be on Mars.”