Russians certify Dragon for flying its astronauts
Capitalism in space: The head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, said yesterday that they have finally approved the use of SpaceX’s Dragon capsules to launch their astronauts to ISS.
Crew Dragon spaceships of Elon Musk’s SpaceX company have gained substantial experience for Russian cosmonauts to travel aboard them as part of cross flights, Head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday. “From our viewpoint, SpaceX has gained sufficient experience for representatives of our crews to make flights aboard its spacecraft,” the Roscosmos chief told reporters at the 72nd international astronautical congress.
Russia will now begin barter negotiations for the future flights, whereby for each Russian that flies on Dragon an American will get a free flight on Soyuz.
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Capitalism in space: The head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, said yesterday that they have finally approved the use of SpaceX’s Dragon capsules to launch their astronauts to ISS.
Crew Dragon spaceships of Elon Musk’s SpaceX company have gained substantial experience for Russian cosmonauts to travel aboard them as part of cross flights, Head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday. “From our viewpoint, SpaceX has gained sufficient experience for representatives of our crews to make flights aboard its spacecraft,” the Roscosmos chief told reporters at the 72nd international astronautical congress.
Russia will now begin barter negotiations for the future flights, whereby for each Russian that flies on Dragon an American will get a free flight on Soyuz.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
With this barter deal, we see again that the U.S. and Russia are both comfortable dealing with each other as ‘Frenemies’. Once ISS goes away, and since Russia won’t join the Artemis Accords, is this the end of our positive real life interactions with Russians in the realm of Space?
That would be a shame, and it makes me think of the book 2010 by Arthur C. Clarke.
In that book Americans & Russians worked together on a mission to salvage the spaceship Discovery and investigate the mysterious “monolith”.
Well, if in the near future, Space Cooperation is not meant to be, then we should at least say to our Russian Space ‘comrades’ – “So Long and thanks for 120+ RD-180 Rocket Engines.”.
Have seen plenty of grandiose plans, but little in the way of space innovation since Korolev departed from Earth. We’re starting to see small countries and private companies eclipse the Russians in space achievement.
Concerned: I agree with that.
RosCosmos is not innovative and totally Over-centralized, and Russian Space efforts will continue to fall behind.
I bet Putin everyday is briefed on the Russian Oil & Gas giant Rosneft.
In contrast, Roscosmos is most likely far down on his list of priorities, and it made sense to me that Putin recently cut 16% from the RosCosmos budget.
The US, historically, has given the Soviet Union, er I mean Russia, just about everything they ever wanted, without requiring a quid pro quo. Same thing will happen here. Russia will demand payment for astronauts flying on Soyuz. The US will oblige. The US will give Russia free flights on Dragon. Russia will accept that arrangement, while complaining that it is unfair, inadequate, or… whatever. That’s the way it’s always worked.
Book recommendation: Stalin’s War by Sean McMeekin. Sad!! :)
Concerned wrote: “Have seen plenty of grandiose plans, but little in the way of space innovation since Korolev departed from Earth. We’re starting to see small countries and private companies eclipse the Russians in space achievement.”
I agree with the second part, but I think that we had plenty of innovation until the Space Shuttle, which was the last truly innovative spacecraft system until Blue Origin and SpaceX created the tail-landing reusable booster.
I consider the geostationary satellite innovative, despite the concept being two decades old before it was first employed. Several innovations were required to put man on the Moon, such as rendezvous and docking (there is plenty of counterintuitive and non-obvious things that must be done to accomplish both of these); guidance, navigation, and control between orbits, orbital planes, and planets; multiple use engines that relight several times; and space suits that allow people to work outside the spacecraft and on the lunar surface. Space stations were innovative, even though they, too, were imagined decades earlier, but were not the rotating version that Disney and Von Braun imagined. Finally, the reusable spacecraft, the Space Shuttle, was innovative, but it was more expensive to operate, launched less often, and was only capable of shorter missions than expected. Congress and NASA should have improved upon this concept rather than regress to Apollo-Saturn style vehicles.
Making multi-module space stations did not seem as innovative.
Other modern innovations by private companies include the dramatic reduction in launch costs, especially a ten-fold reduction for small (500 Kg) satellites. Starship looks to be on track to not only beat the originally-intended launch price of the Space Shuttle, but it seems to be able to beat the launch rate, too. The intended mission time for Starship is also several times greater than the Space Shuttle’s original one-month mission time. Modern innovations are improving upon four-decade-old capabilities and technologies.
“Korolev! Korolev! And what was Korolev? A thin metallic pipe….. In it, I placed my engines-Barmin, his instruments….and it flew…”
-Valentin Petrovich Glushko