Make space great again

Let us not retreat from the Russian cosmic tradition. Our astronauts were never angry at other people's successes and did not wish failure to their American colleagues. They always empathized with their rivals - because space is dangerous, and a person strives for stars no matter in what country he was born. And therefore, all space explorers have always wished good luck.

Now, let’s wish good luck to Ilon Mask, his SpaceX company and two brave guys aboard Crew Dragon. Let them safely return home after completing the entire flight program. Americans have something to congratulate - they have achieved what they were striving for. They regained the status of the country - the operator of the manned space program. This took many years. But they did it. Although you remember how no one believed in the Mask?

And let's be honest. This is a great achievement. “Dragon” is a completely new spacecraft, impudent in its concept and execution. The entire Falcon-Dragon program is undoubtedly a new word in the development of near-Earth space. And Musk, of course, is a great fellow.

What is most fascinating about him and his space project is not the futuristic appearance of the “Dragons” and the flight suits of the astronauts. Not a completely new ship control system and a modern pilot interface. Reusability - yes, this is an achievement, but it is only part of the whole. Elon Musk in the 21st century makes rockets and spaceships the way it should be done in the 21st century. From the very beginning, the project was comprehensive. Including reusability, launch cost, PR events, business work scheme, reliance on computer systems. And an innovative (let this word be somewhat depreciated today) scheme for preparing launch vehicle and spacecraft systems for launch - from design to launch.

It was amazing to see how Musk gradually caved in to the corporate culture of NASA, this bureaucratic remnant of the 20th century. Five to seven years ago, the bison of the industry hated the Mask (this is mainly in America) and laughed at it (this is more often with us). Now he is the legislator of the industry, although so far not all of what is done by ours and the Chinese can. He sets the standards, because his standards solved a problem that many considered unsolvable. And now many tasks will be solved exactly in a masked way.

This is a very American story. A rebel man, a dreamer, a little dude and despot, comes and says: no, now everything will be different. Experienced professionals at first laugh, then resist, then bend, and then adore. Musk restarted the very idea of ​​American astronautics. The monstrous Saturns and Space Shuttles were left behind. These were glorious milestones, but they are in the past. Now the Dragons fly to the ISS. And it may well be that Starship will fly to Mars.

The Chinese solve their space problems in Chinese. They have the whole program - such stages of a long journey, pre-planned and thought out, original ...

And asks for the language - "for Feng Shui." It’s even hard to imagine what would happen if the Chinese from the very beginning were allowed to the ISS, what intricate path the space program of China would take. And so they do what they are accustomed to - gradually, not particularly advertising their plans, they develop and with quiet glanders take as much space for themselves as they can.

This is a fundamentally parallel space project. How “Belt and Way” exists in parallel with American global trade and logistics projects (now mostly dead). And the ratio of others copied and personally developed by them in space is about the same as in the Chinese car industry and in the smartphone industry. You can make fun of it as much as you like over Mask, but is it worth it? Success is evident.

Now Russia. That's all - a reminder of the difficult path of Soviet cosmonautics. The fact that the Soyuz spacecraft was once conceived as a lunar spacecraft no longer causes a discord. I'm used to it. And eclecticism, if you look closely, is in everything. Because a non-Soviet country launches Soviet spacecraft (albeit modernized). And so the whole system of management, design, preparation of control and so on cannot but be eclectic. It is very scary to touch everything Soviet in it. But it is impossible to develop the Soviet, because the Country of Soviets is no more.

In order to realize your own space breakthrough, you need to rediscover, restart the domestic space program. A new idea, a new strategy, a new vision of space exploration should appear. As we recently got a new concept of the armed forces. But how generals and theorists of military construction were indignant! Like, they kill the Soviet army! Well, of course, it was eliminated. Because it was impossible to make a new edition of the Soviet army in a non-Soviet country. Nowadays, few people recall what was said about the draft period of one year, the emphasis on contract service and high mobility. But with the army it turned out precisely because they understood - it is necessary differently. And the Americans in the mid-2000s realized that with space it was necessary somehow not at all as it is. And they were also dissatisfied. But neither the political leadership, nor the "business people" were afraid. And it turned out.

Foreign paths - American, Chinese and whatever - copy is useless. And the Soviet program cannot be continued indefinitely. This does not mean that you need to take everything and throw it away. American Deltas fly safely now. And they will fly for some more time.

But the future lies with the new. And not just for new materials, ships and missiles. We need a big idea of ​​space expansion, a new interpretation of astronautics. It all starts with this.

Then several different concepts of space flight will appear. Low-orbit flights to the ISS and other stations.

To the moon and the nearest asteroids - manned and automatic. To Mars and beyond. But flights cannot be made for flights. A space exploration strategy is needed - scientific, economic, military, finally. How civil aviation is intercontinental, medium-haul, regional and small. And you can use turbojet and propeller aircraft, helicopters and tiltrotoplanes, and even paragliders and gliders, if this is adequate to economic tasks. Only when these economic tasks are set (and they follow from the country's development strategy), can the hardware be designed.

The second space race will be very tough. Its main feature is that the latest materials and technologies have made the space program feasible by the forces of even one large corporation (as Elon Musk proved), not to mention the power that has plans for the 21st century. So neither India, nor the most prosperous fragments of the European Union (primarily France in alliance with Germany), nor Japan can be discounted. Moreover, since humanity is returning to space with specific commercial and military tasks, the competition will be very serious. It will use a variety of techniques, including those that previously would have been considered unacceptable. Therefore, you must be prepared for everything. And this is only possible with new sovereign technologies.

You can often hear that the space program, especially the manned space program, has given practically nothing to humanity on Earth. Only meteorology, satellite navigation and communications turned out to be useful, the rest remained beyond the limits of the earth's atmosphere. He who says this thinks too narrowly. Because our entire current information age was generated by the primitive computer of the Orel landing module of the Apollo 11 mission, which depended on overload, when Neil Armstrong had to switch to manual control ahead of time.

Thinking narrowly today is unacceptable. Commercial launches, maintaining the GLONASS system in working condition, international cooperation, talking about plans for 2030 - all this, of course, is good. But it’s good for the times when we considered Ilon Mask a rogue PR man, and the Chinese comrades - eternal catch-ups and copyists of old Soviet systems. Now everything is different.

Our designers and engineers, I am sure, will say their word. But not before the most ambitious tasks are set before them, which many of them will consider fantastic and unrealizable. For them to take on them, a strategy is needed, as I said above. No flights and launches. And space exploration. Big challenge. Great goal. Make Russian space great again.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.