Soviet Space Battle Station Skif and its prototype Polus.

[aartamen]

Joka, there most definitely lasers that can be used as weapons. Some are entering deployment stage, some have been tested. There was a lot of talk about 20 years ago about Soviet strides to develop massive lasers. Just rumours. The Soviets were paranoidly secretive.

[DDAY]

GDS Starfury wrote:

that would depend on the technology transfers going into US companies. A good argument can be made that while the up front cost of $6 billion might seem high the backend profits would be considerably more.

Okay, if a "good argument can be made," make it. Explain also how this will get through without loud objections from US rocket makers Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. Also, explain how this will get through without loud objections from members of Congress. And for good measure, explain how this can be done without violating the provisions of the Iran Non-proliferation Act. Can you provide any previous examples of the United States spending billions of dollars to purchase a foreign rocket system?


DDAY

[Cifu]

My father was one of developers of shower and sauna for space station. Actually it was project for his graduation from institute. Leter when he came to Energia it became his job to implement both on space station. What he with developers team did for Mir space station.

So cosmonauts enjoyed not only shower but also good sauna during their missions. But one day bosses decided that sauna consumes too much energy and ordered to dismount it from station.

Cosmonauts of current mission said: no way, f***. Bosses were very angry but what can you do when thing which you want to destroy flies 300 kilometers above you. So when mission returned to earth and next team arrived to station they issued this order once again.

Next team said: umm... ok... after all experiments will be done....
Guess what happened. In result they sabotaged order too

So when third mission were about to launch military man was included who received strict orders to dissassemble sauna at any cost And he did this job.

So in turn my father was very angry and dissapointed

As i know, the exact history is a little different:

The Shower consumes not only too much energy, but too much water. In originaly, the Buran space shuttle make the transit route to MiR, but the Buran only fly once, and never fly to the MiR... So the needed resources for MiR are carried by the old way: the Progress space ships. But the Progress are far less capable, than the Buran-class shuttles, so, the resources are cutted down, wich means the water become luxury, and the crew can use the shower less and less time, and in the end, its never use any more, even, if the crew liked to use it. So the shower ended nothing more than a chest, filled with not needed stuf. The shower survived not only the third, but many more crews, then in 1995 the MiR needed new giroscopes for the MiR-STS rendezvous, and the Progress can carry only smaller size giros, can be used "indoor" the station, so must to find a place where the place it. The shower not used years ago, and wont needed, so cut in pieces, and stowaged to the Progress, which is brought the new giros...


PS: Sorry for my bad english.

[Cifu]

If you want to speak what can do the russians engineers, you might need to see the MAKS-OS (~Multipurpose Aerospace System - Orbital Spaceplane). It is a small space shuttle, developed by the NPO Molniya, wich start from the An-225 gigant cargo plane back (almost similar method that use the american Pegasus/Pegasus XL system). In generaly, the MAKS-OS are more capable, than the NASA OSP (now abadoned, and recreated in the CEV project) project, wich want to start from an expendable launch rocket top (Atlas V. or Delta IV.) . A wont hear from the MAKS-project years ago (probably financial problems)... sad, because i like it much...


Image of an An-225 maketl, carrying the MAKS-OS on her back.

MAKS @ Buran.ru - http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya6.htm

[Abbyy]

If you want to speak what can do the russians engineers, you might need to see the MAKS-OS (~Multipurpose Aerospace System - Orbital Spaceplane). It is a small space shuttle, developed by the NPO Molniya, wich start from the An-225 gigant cargo plane back (almost similar method that use the american Pegasus/Pegasus XL system). In generaly, the MAKS-OS are more capable, than the NASA OSP (now abadoned, and recreated in the CEV project) project, wich want to start from an expendable launch rocket top (Atlas V. or Delta IV.) . A wont hear from the MAKS-project years ago (probably financial problems)... sad, because i like it much...


Image of an An-225 maketl, carrying the MAKS-OS on her back.

MAKS @ Buran.ru - http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya6.htm

Never heard of it. Thanks for info

As for shower and sauna - this is long story and i heard it when i was a child. It seems you mixed up both while i didn't give exact details.

[RuSoKaR]

darm I am almost 100% sure that I saw on tv that this baby

was being experimented in a while ago... and it landed in the ocean and thatamericans were also trying to pick it up :P

[fdiddy]

Joka, there most definitely lasers that can be used as weapons. Some are entering deployment stage, some have been tested. There was a lot of talk about 20 years ago about Soviet strides to develop massive lasers. Just rumours. The Soviets were paranoidly secretive.

I didn't know there were any government military institutions that weren't paranoidly secretive?

[el_kab0ng]

BTW, this topic hit Slashdot this morning. Expect the bandwidth on militaryphotos to go through the roof for the next 24 to 48.

http://slashdot.org/

[hood]

Yeah I just noticed it a little while ago when things stopped working.

[Abolith]

F*cking slashdot ****heads.

[Alexey]

So if it would have reached operational status, the Sovjet Union would have had a laserbeam pointing at earth from space?

What kind of laserbeam are we talking about here? "Independence day City destroyer" or.. ?

I just re-read my post and noticed that I may have come across sarcastic, which wasen't my intention. Which is maybe why there has been no replies to my question.. .?

Anyway, I'm really curious about this "Laser space battle station". To my knowledge, even to this day humans have been unable to build a laserbeam powerful enough to be used as somesort of weapon ?? yes? no? And this space station was being developed in the 80's.. .

What was it's purpose cause it obviously couldn't have taken out cities like I speculated

Sorry for english .So . One of basic idea of this laser - knocking down of balloons with the espionage radio-electronic equipment which the countries of NATO did not stint during cold war. It very much irritated the Soviet management .. Has been yet reall functionable model of this laser, it was the most usual chemical laser, capacity a little bit megawatt. It has not found development as good relations with America (romantic time) at this time have been adjusted.. And we did not want problems.. Then there were other complexities..

[aartamen]

I didn't know there were any government military institutions that weren't paranoidly secretive?

Do you know that I can easily find out the phone number, name and rank of any US base or unit above batalion commander? It's open public information. How many divisions and where they are and what their order of battle is is also completely open. So are the characterstics of most of the hardware.
On the other hand the f**king bus schedule in Moscow used to be classified. There's paranoia and there's Soviet paranoia. But though they unclassified the bus schedules they still imprison people for espionage for producing reports from unclassified materials.

[thomthom]

punder wrote:

especially in the context of an international effort to explore the Moon and Mars.

There is no international effort to explore the Moon and Mars. There is an American effort to explore the Moon with robots and eventually humans, and Mars with robots. No other countries have signed on to this plan or even been formally asked to participate. The Russians are short on money and would want to be paid to build their contribution to any exploration plan.

What about the british lead Beagle project? http://www.beagle2.com/
Remember not many months back when you had the US Rover and the UK/EU Beagle landing on Mars around the same time.

[Abbyy]

BTW you can order 3CD set with huge load of info, photos and videos about Energia and Buran development.

Here->
http://www.buran.ru/htm/cd-rom.htm#volume

[Abbyy]