Conference 7.286::space

Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Kremlin reveals space budget
Date: 11 Jun 89 12:04:52 GMT
Reply-To: [email protected] (Paul Dietz)
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
 
    [email protected] (Henry Spencer) writes:
 
>... (Paul Dietz) writes:
>>If Soviet economists think the USSR is this close to the brink...
 
>Economists, plural?  The news report mentioned only one... and he got
>news coverage because (a) his opinion is unusual, and (b) it fits the
>West's preconceptions of The Desperate Plight Of The Soviet Economy.
 
>You can find economists who think the West is just as close to the brink.
 
    The article also said:
 
  Mr. Shmelyov's speech was the most dramatic of several
  in which economists have said that President Mikhail Gorbachev's
  program for rescuing the stagnant Soviet economy will fail without
  more radical departures from Communist doctrine.
 
  ...
 
  Mr. Shmelyov, an economist at the Institute of the United States and
  Canada and a deputy elected on a slate representing the Academy of
  Sciences, has written several sharp critiques of Mr. Gorbachev's
  economic program that are credited with helping nudge the Soviet
  leader toward more far-reaching meaures.
  
    So, more than one economist there does think their economy is in
trouble, and Mr. Shmelyov is not from the lunatic fringe.  Frankly,
don't you think the announcements of plans for large cuts in the
Soviet military are reactions to great economic distress? 
 
	Paul F. Dietz
	[email protected]

Not a serious reply, but:

I often wonder if it's possible for someone writing a newspaper article to use 
the term "Space Shuttle" without prefixing it with the qualifier "trouble 
plagued".

At least this time, they're not talking about the US shuttle...

Date: 9 Apr 90 22:03:44 GMT
From: [email protected]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 04/06/90 (Forwarded)
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, April 6, 1990                 Audio Service: 202/755-1788
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    This is NASA Headline News for Friday, April 6:
  
News reports from the Soviet Union indicate that all is not well with
that nation's manned space program.  A Tass News Agency dispatch
indicates a significant reduction in the Glavkosmos budget for the
next year.  A Soviet space agency official says it puts Glavkosmos in
an awkward position.  Two more manned flights to the Mir station are
scheduled for this year. 
 
Aerospace Daily reports House Budget Committee members are considering
so-called "option packages" of tax and spending proposals that include
cuts of up to $1.1 billion to NASA's $15.1 billion request.  Citing
congressional sources, the publication quoted Budget Committee
Chairman Leon Panetta, of California, as saying, "All kinds of numbers
are being batted around" (and the $1.1 billion cut) "is in the ballpark". 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA 
Select TV.  All times are EDT.
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These reports are filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12 noon, 
EDT.
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A service of the Internal Communications Branch, NASA HQ.
 

Article         1239
From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: clari.tw.space,clari.news.aviation,clari.news.military
Subject: Soviet space spending increasing
Date: 3 May 91 16:31:20 GMT
  
	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Despite severe economic woes, the Soviet Union
spent about $19 billion on its space program between 1986 and 1990 --
less than half NASA's total -- and plans to spend up to $21 billion over
the next four years, a magazine reported Friday.
	Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine reported in its May 6
edition that roughly $12.4 billion of the Soviet space budget between
1991 and 1995 will be devoted to military activity with the rest going
to civilian and scientific projects.
	In contrast, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's
budgets from 1986 through 1990 totaled about $51 billion, which does not
include the cost of military space activity.
	The Soviet figures were provided by Gregori Cherniavsky, chief of the
Soviet flight control institute, in an unusually candid talk before the
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
	While Soviet space spending is increasing slightly over the next few
years, Cherniavsky said officials are struggling to find ways to improve
efficiency and are even taking advice from a White House advisory panel
to NASA that called for tailoring programs to realistic budget
projections.
	``These recommendations refer to the Soviet space program as well,''
Cherniavsky said.
	While the Soviets believe they lead the world in rocket propulsion,
Cherniavsky said too many different types of launch vehicles are in use
and too much secrecy has stifled the space industry, which has
underestimated the value of advanced electronics and data systems.
	``The overall process of stagnation is evident in the Soviet space
industry,'' he said.
	And while Soviet spending is increasing, money for advanced
exploration projects appears to be in danger because of ``budgetary
restrictions.''
	But by the middle of the decade, the Soviets hope to have a vastly
improved satellite communications system in operation, including an
electronic mail system and a sophisticated direct broadcast satellite
television system built by Canadian and German companies.
	The current five-year spending plan has been approved by the
Interdepartmental Science and Technology Council on Space Research under
the USSR Academy of Science, but Cherniavsky said it has not yet been
formally authorized.
	Budget highlights for the five-year civil space program (based on an
exchange rate of 1.7 Soviet rubles per U.S. dollar):
	--$5.3 billion for manned space vehicles and spacecraft servicing. The
total includes $618 million to support the Mir space station; $3.7 billion 
for launch vehicles; and $412 million for research and development.
	--$1.7 billion for space science, including $265 million for a 1994
Mars mission and $118 million for a 1998 Mars soil sample return mission.
	--$1.9 billion for space applications, including $941 million for
satellite communications; $706 million for remote sensing; $206 million
for materials processing; and $59 million for space-based navigation systems.

    ABC News mentioned this morning that the many elements
    of the Soviet space program will be sold off, to
    other countries or entities. This would include
    launch services (?), launch vehicles etc., I believe.
    

    And on NPR, that MIR itself is up for sale!
    
    Tony

    
    Well, what are we waiting for? Let's (the U.S.) buy it!

Heck, the US Gov. would just screw it up.  Let's get together all of use in the
Space notes file together and buy it!  AFter all, we all have opinions about how
to run a space program!  :-)

Burns

    I wonder which Estate Agent (US = Real Estate Agent?) they will get to
    sell it.
    
    I have this picture of the thing orbiting the Earth with a "For Sale"
    board nailed to it.
    
    Perhaps the Shuttle could be used to ferry the surveyor up to see it?
    Now there's a really mundane use for manned space travel.
    
    
    Dave Hazel

    Re:.9
    
    > I wonder which [Real] Estate Agent... they will get to sell it.
    
    	Easy... Century 21!
    
    Seriously, though, I think that the US Government will NOT buy the Mir
    or any other major piece of the Soviet space program. It doesn't meet
    NASA's standards and it doesn't provide enough "pork" for the
    politicians who would have to vote for it. Besides, it wouldn't look as
    good for the American space program to go out and buy a used space
    station at the Soviet Union's going-out-of-business sale as it would if
    we built it (for $30+ billion) ourselves.
    
    				Drew
    

        Can't we just wait for them to abandon it, and then "salvage" it
        for our own use? Perhaps Andy Griffith could help :-)

re.-1 This assumes of course that the station is abandoned which assumes the
Japanese or the Europeans, (or the Chinese!) won't buy it.

Mike H

    Didn't the japanese already buy some Space station hardware? Or were
    they only talking about it?
    
    Gregg

                                                 
    You dont have to buy it you only have to rent it,
    Slavage, at first might look cheap, but where do you
    get the spare parts for simple things such as the filters
    for the life support system!  It would be to expensive to
    reverse engineer the MIR space station but renting or having
    a Astronaut on MIR could make sense. 
    
    I do think something is going on with the Soviet Space Budget.
    I have  monitored of the Soviet Space Program for many years 
    an my monitoring has hit an all time low - could it be that the
    Soviets are pulling back the Space Tracking Ships back to save money?  
    
    Only time will tell.   
    
    One problem I have in making this statement is the fact that the 
    Ship RTTY radio bands as of 1 July have been changed
    thus I am not sure if I am monitoring in all the right places.
    
    john
    

    	The Soviets sold their backup MIR station to the Japanese for
    a relatively small sum.  See SPACE Topic 586 for more details.
    
    	Larry