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********************* Russia Aerospace Guide *********************
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No. 5, Oct. 1994
This document may be copied only in its
entirety with no changes. No fee may be charged for distribution.
No broadcast (BBS) distribution please.
***** Content *****
The Cold War Remembered
NPO Mashinostroeniya Angered Over US Aid
McDonnell Douglas Seeks Russian Suppliers
Russian Space News
SHUTTLE/MIR DOCKING HARDWARE ARRIVES FROM RUSSIA
Europe and Asia in Space 1991-1992
Cars Sale at the Kosmos Pavilion
We are all Aliens in this World
Victory
The International Missile Bazaar
Mir-1 Space Station: A Technical Overview
***** News *****
The Cold War Remembered Dennis Newkirk
A 1993 Canadian TV series has come to my attention recently.
It features several people including Sergie Khruschev, Melor
Sturua (Izvestia journalist and a speech writer for N. Khruschev),
Alexander Telukov (Ministry of Economy), Alexander Merkushev
(TASS), Nicholas Daniloff, and others in a general discussions of
points of interest in the cold war. The makeup of the panel
differs from show to show. Two shows relate to the space race,
episode 4 covers Sputnik and episode 6 the space race in general,
episode 8 covers SDI. Khruschev didn't say much unusual but Melor
Sturua did have several interesting comments about the personality
and thinking of Nikita Khruschev. Some PBS stations in the US are
airing the 13 - 30 minute programs. Its possible that another
season of shows will be produced to air this fall. Produced by
Larry Shapiro/World Affairs Television. For a program listing
contact World Affairs, Suite 3230-600 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West,
Montreal, Quebec, H3A 3J2, Ph: 514-847-2970, Fax: 514-847-8806.
NPO Mashinostroeniya Angered Over US Aid Dennis Newkirk
The Wall Street Journal (9/19/94 p. A10) ran a good story about
the odd teaming of NPO Mashinostroeniya and the Double Cola Co. to
produce cola in Russia under the Nunn-Lugar act. Mashinostroeniya
is to get $5M and employ 50 of its 6000 employees under the
agreement. Mashinostroeniya officials were not amused, but will
accept the insult in hopes that the next round of awards may
improve.
McDonnell Douglas Seeks Russian Suppliers Dennis Newkirk
A recent Associated Press story says that McDonnell Douglas
Corp. has made an agreement with the Central Specialized Design
Bureau and Progress factory in Samara and the Central Research
Institute for Special Machine Building of Khotkovo. The objective
is to qualify both organizations as suppliers of composite
material and launch vehicle components. Detailed discussions
apparently followed the initial agreement.
Russian Space News Charles Radley
Tranquest Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio, publishes an English
language edition of "Novosti Kosmonautiki" (which translates to
"Space News"). Videocosmos Company, of Moscow, Russia, publishes
the biweekly Russian language original version. It is the only
space newsletter published in Russia.
Founded by a group of space enthusiasts in September 1990,
Videocosmos aims to popularize space through television, radio and
the press. Publication of Novosti Kosmonautiki (NK) began in
August 1991. It started as a 6 sheet newsletter, and has since
evolved into an elaborate 50 page magazine. Each issue covers
Russian and Foreign developments of the 2 weeks cover date, there
is a lag of a few weeks. The English edition will be smaller
(typically 24 to 30 pages) addressing news from Russia and the ex-
USSR only, it will be entitled "Russian Space News" (RSN).
Daily reports from the Mir space station are filed by
Videocosmos' permanent correspondent at Mission Control,
Kaliningrad. The Editor in Chief, Igor Marinin, interviews the Mir
crew about twice a week. NK is the ONLY MAGAZINE ON EARTH to
continuously publish daily Mir reports. Copies of the magazine are
flown to Mir on a regular basis.
NK correspondents cover manned and unmanned launches from the
Baikonur cosmodrome, and unmanned launches from Plesetsk. NK
includes regular crew and launch manifests, crew bio's, and the
latest news from the Cosmonaut training center. Coverage of
unmanned spacecraft includes full length articles on civilian and
military Earth orbiting missions and planetary probes.NK scooped
the world with the first detailed description of the formerly top
secret Russian first and second generation early warning
satellites.
NK is connected to major international wire services, reproducing
all the ITAR-TASS space reports together with background
information.
Tranquest Corporation is investing substantially all the
start-up costs of this new venture, a personal stake by their
President Charles F. Radley. "We are very pleased to provide the
world for the first time direct access to regular first hand
information about Russian space missions," said Radley. "I found
the lack of direct information frustrating. Now at last we will
receive the inside facts on the Russian space program direct from
the source."
Later, the Tranquest / Videocosmos team will offer the
diaries of General Kamanin, videos, photographs, and consulting
services. We hope eventually to reduce our subscription rates, we
need about 200 subscribers to break even. Until we reach this
level, however, the rates below are the minimum we can charge.
Free sample copies of Russian Space News are available from
Tranquest Corporation. Regular publishing service is to begin 1
October 1994. Charter subscriptions are at the following rates:
In USA:
One Issue 3 months 1 year
Individual $ 7 $ 35 $ 75
Institutional $ 15 $ 75 $ 175
Outside USA
Air Mail add: $ 1 $ 5 $ 15
Please begin your subscription by providing the following
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receive one free quarter page ad, about 1,000 promotional copies
of the first 2 or 3 issues will be mailed to selected addressees.
Address: P. O. Box 30208, Cleveland, OH 44130, U.S.A.
Telephone: USA: 1-800-929-8953, (216)-962-3400
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Internet: http://rogue.northwest.com/~charles
SHUTTLE/MIR DOCKING HARDWARE ARRIVES FROM RUSSIA
NASA HQ RELEASE: 94-151
NASA's prime contractor for Space Shuttle orbiters, Rockwell
Aerospace, took delivery Sunday of the Russian built spacecraft
docking mechanism that will enable Space Shuttle Atlantis to join
up with the orbiting Russian Mir Space Station next June.
Rockwell procured the docking hardware a year ago from NPO
Energia for approximately $18 million, along with spare parts and
technical services to support NASA's first Shuttle mission to Mir.
The docking mechanism, called the Androgynous Peripheral Docking
Assembly (APDA) was shipped September 8 from the Energia
Production Facility in Kaliningrad, near Moscow.
Work will begin immediately at Rockwell's Space Systems
Division (SSD) to assemble the APDA with the Rockwell-built
docking system hardware. The APDA will be mated onto a docking
base that attaches to a new external airlock designed to fit in
the front of the orbiter payload bay supported by a truss
structure. The external airlock connects with the existing airlock
inside the crew cabin and with a Spacelab module.
In December, following integrated checkout at Rockwell, the
Shuttle/Mir docking system will be delivered to Kennedy Space
Center, Fla. There it will be installed aboard the Atlantis, which
earlier this year completed a series of modifications that will
allow it to accommodate the new docking system.
For the STS-71 mission to the Russian Space Station, scheduled
for May 1995, Atlantis will carry a crew of five American
astronauts and two Russian cosmonauts, along with approximately
1,100 pounds of equipment for use on Mir.
Two days into its flight, Atlantis will dock with Mir, whose
crew of two cosmonauts and NASA astronaut Norm Thagard will have
been aboard for 90 days following an earlier launch in a Russian
Soyuz-TM capsule. The Atlantis and Mir crews will conduct five
days of joint medical research on the physiological effects of
extended space flight. The original Mir crew, including Thagard,
will then join the Atlantis' astronauts for the trip back to
Earth, while the two new cosmonauts will remain aboard for a long
duration stay.
The STS-71 mission is the first of seven to ten Space Shuttle
missions to Mir that are planned under a cooperative agreement
between NASA and the Russian Space Agency (RSA). A $400 million
contract recently signed by the agencies provides funding to
Russia for activities under the protocol to the Human Space Flight
Agreement which was signed in December 1993. The contract
provides for Russian hardware, services and data in support of a
joint program involving the U.S. Space Shuttle and the Russia's
Mir Space Station and selected requirements for the International
Space Station.
Rockwell SSD is prime contractor to NASA for Space Shuttle
orbiters. The company also is under contract to NASA for support
to the Shuttle/Mir missions. NPO Energia is an advanced technology
organization responsible for the design and manufacture of the
Energia launch vehicle and manned systems including the Soyuz-TM
and Progress-M spacecraft, the Mir Space Station and the Buran
Space Shuttle. Energia originally developed the APDA for Buran/Mir
missions. Rockwell and Energia provided docking hardware for the
Apollo/Soyuz Test Project in July 1975.
Europe and Asia in Space 1991-1992 Nicholas Johnson
Europe and Asia in Space is the successor to the Soviet Year in
Space and can be ordered at no charge from the AF Phillips Lab by
calling 505-846-1865.
Cars Sale at the Kosmos Pavilion Dennis Newkirk
Thanks to Gary Townsend and Bill Barry for confirming the AP
report the week of Aug. 1 stating that the space pavilion had been
filled with used western luxury cars. Glen Swanson will be
running a story with photos about it in an upcoming issue of Quest
magazine.
******* Reviews ********
We are all Aliens in this World Jurgen Peter ESDERS
"We All Are Aliens in This World", Documentary Story by Pavel
Mukhortov, translated by Larisa Gromova, Balotekss Inc., Riga
1992, 207 p., soft cover. ISBN 5-85820-066-4.
Pavel Mukhortov, one of the six journalists of the former USSR,
has written an interesting background book about his preparation
and training for a spaceflight onboard space station MIR. The
flight eventually never took place - with the demise of the Soviet
Union, the publicity stunt of a Soviet journalist to counter the
commercial flight of Japanese TBS television reporter Toyohiro
Akiyama became obsolete. "We are all Aliens in this World" is not
a distant scientific report - the Latvian based Sovyetskaya
Molodyezh reporter wrote a personal account with some nice
background stories, some amounts of gossip and a certain level of
typical Russian story telling.
The paperback volume was translated into English by Larisa
Gromova and presents some of the typical shortcomings of a
translation of a non-mothertongue speaker (to put it mildly), but
it might be preferable to those who don't understand Russian.
I am unaware whether the book is sold anywhere in the US;
Mukhortov sent me a complimentary copy for which I returned $ 5 to
cover expenses. Mukhortov can be reached through: Ul. Waldemara,
Dom. 67, Kv. 23, G. Riga, 1001, Latvia.
Victory Dennis Newkirk
"Victory", by Peter Schweizer, Atlantic Monthly Press, NY, NY.
ISBN 0-87113-567-1, 284 pp.
Victory is a very interesting book and very entertaining. It
has little directly to do with aerospace but its frankness about
Reagan era policies and efforts to destroy the Soviet political
system make it necessary reading for anyone writing about the
final years of the cold war.
The book focuses on US national security directives designed to
cripple the Soviet economy by limiting the flow of western hard
currency, and efforts to support the Soviet opposition in
Afghanistan and Eastern Europe. Much of these policies were
enacted by the efforts of CIA Director William Casey, and most of
the book chronicals Casey's many trips overseas to negotiate with
US allies, often trading satellite intelligence for support of US
polices. Casey's contacts in the US business community also aided
the battle by giving him the opportunity to convince businessmen
not to invest in the USSR.
The first half of the book is mostly dedicated to the economic
battle against Moscow focusing on delaying and stopping the the
construction of natural gas pipelines to supply western Europe and
negotiation with Saudi Arabia to lower oil prices making Soviet
oil less economically attractive.
The about the second half focuses more on supplying Afghanistan
and Polish groups to cause political instabilities in the USSR and
Warsaw Pact nations. The first meetings of Reagan and Gorbachov
are also described and SDI is often mentioned as a tool used to
threaten the USSR's economy. While space matters are not mentioned
directly, one can read into Gorbachev's pleas to stop SDI the
grave concern he had about the great pressures of systems like
Energia/Buran were going to put on the USSR economy. The book
makes it clear in real numbers how cash starved the USSR was
becoming at the time. The book ends its story in 1986 but not
before making its point that the USSR was then destined to fail
economically.
The International Missile Bazaar Dennis Newkirk
Subtitled: The New Suppliers Network, Edited by William Potter and
Harlan Jencks, Westview Press, 1994, 340 pp.
"The International Missile Bazaar" is an excellent reference
work consisting of a number of papers written by different authors
about missile proliferation in 11 third world nations. The books
only flaw is that there is no attempt to tie together any of the
the stories.
The stories are presented in chronological order with sections
dealing with the major weapons systems being developed. The book
examines missile systems which are believed to be capable of
surface to surface use of the range near that defined in the
Missile Technology Control Regime even if they were only suspected
of having the capability.
Three of the major stories presented are that of Egypt's
program to use German engineers to develope a missile based on
modernized V-2 technology, North Korea and its development of
missile based on the Soviet Scud and its export of technology to
Iraq, and the Egypt-Argentina-South Africa effort. Other countries
efforts are also well documented including Israel, Brazil,
Pakistan, India, Iran, etc.
The book is very well referenced and each of the chapters delves
a little into the subject of how MTCR adversely effects space
development and the US governments attitudes to enforcing MTCR.
This book is must to anyone interested in MTRC's negative effect
on space development or the proliferation of ballistic missiles.
Mir-1 Space Station: A Technical Overview Dennis Newkirk
"Mir-1 Space Station: A Technical Overview" is a 12 Chapter
guide to the basics of Mir operations and systems. All the
chapters are comprised of a narrative text (most obviously
translated to English) and view graphs, (some in Russian and most
translated). There are several lapses in the translation of the
text, but nothing unreasonable for this type of book. The book was
apparently the basis for the NPO Energia seminar held in the
Washington D.C. area in 1993, thus the book assumes the then
planned development of Mir-2.
Chapter 1 - Introduction to NPO Energia
Chapter 2 - Concept of Orbital Station Construction
Chapter 3 - Orbital Stations Mission Control
Chapter 4 - Experience from the Mir Space Station Development
and Operations: Systems for Propulsion and Control...
Chapter 5 - Docking of Spacecraft and Modules in the Mir Orbital
Station Program
Chapter 6 - Heat Transfer Systems and Life Support Systems in
the Mir Orbital Station and Soyuz TM....
Chapter 7 - Orbital Station Mir Power Supply System
Chapter 8 - Remote Research Methods for the Mir Station
Chapter 9 - The Results of Biotechnological Experiments on
Orbital Station Mir...
Chapter 10 - Recoverable Capsules and Transport/Research
Space Vehicles
Chapter 11 - Economics of the Mir Program
Chapter 12 - General Technical Requirements for Experiments and
Equipment Aboard the Mir Space Station...
The book is 200 pages (in large type). The first substantial
information begins in Chapter 3 with some details of the mission
control facilities and process, especially computer systems, but
not exceptionally more detailed than has been available in western
publications. Chapter 4 also adds some information about
propulsion and control of Mir, and Chapter 5 adds little new about
docking systems (most notably omitting the ASPS-89), but it is the
following chapters which go into the most detail. Chapter 6 goes
into a fairly detailed description of thermal control systems on
Mir and Soyuz TM including suit interfaces including block
diagrams and schematics.
Chapter 7 is also a fairly detailed description of the power
systems of Mir, adding a little detail to previous western
publications.Chapter 8 follows the tread adding details on the
Priroda-5, MKF-6MA, videospectrometric complex, Lidar, Accord, and
other instruments on Mir and its modules. Chapter 9 adds general
results of biological experiments on Mir and projects future
experiments including the development of a biotechnology module
for future stations.
Chapter 10 has a short text covering the Raduga capsule used on
the Progress-M, the remainder is 25 pages of view graphs full of
diagrams and specifications for Raduga and other proposed reentry
vehicles of Energia design. Chapter 11 again has a short text and
25 pages of view graphs covering the economics of the MIr program
at a very high level including the breakdown of experiment costs
on Mir (40% technical including upgrades to station systems, 24%
remote sensing and environmental, 13% astrophysical, 15% material
and biotechnologies, 8% medical and biological).
The final chapter covers high level equipment requirements from
mechanical and environmental to electrical and marking guides
although there are several references to other sections of a
document of which this chapter was originally a part.
"Mir-1 Space Station: A Technical Overview" is published by NPO
Energia LTD (631 S Washington St., Alexandria, VA 22314) and sold
through the Space Studies Institute (PO Box 82, Princeton, NJ,
08542, Ph: 609-921-0377, FAX: 609-921-0389). Cost is $79. There is
also a companion volume "NPO Energia Guide to Products and
Services" also for $79. Both are available for $142.
******** Wanted/Questions/Corrections ********
- Anyone interested in attending an informal meeting of
Soviet/Russian space researchers at the launch of the shuttle Mir
docking mission in 1995 please contact Dennis Newkirk at the
address below. My preference is to keep this to an informal
meeting lasting the rest of the day after or before the launch at
a nearby hotel, preferably one with a good restaurant. A date will
not be set, this only applies to the actual launch day regardless
of any delays. This is only a tentative plan, other ideas welcome.
Contact the Guide (see below)
- In the mass of Apollo 11 shows on recently, Japan's NHK aired
some show called "Soviet lunar lander programme". Does anyone
know about this program and its contents?
Contact the Guide (see below)
******** Contributers ********
Nick Johnson
johnson-cos1@kaman.com
Juergen P. Esders
100265.3266@compuserve.com
Charles Radley
Tranquest Corporation Cleveland, OH.
Tel (Fax) 1-216-888-3991 (-3992)
File Server: Mail-server@tranquest.com
Anonymous FTP: ftp.wariat.org /pub/tranq
NASA
******** Contributions ********
The objective of the Guide is to put professional and amateur
Russian aerospace researchers and writers in touch with each other
and the wide array of atypical information sources available about
past and present events. As researchers uncover sources they can
make the source known to the rest of the community and are
credited with providing the info. If you find a good book, or an
article about Russian aerospace outside the main stream US space
press (Space News, Aviation Week, Final Frontier, Air & Space,
etc.) write up a brief description of the item and send it to the
Guide. If you are looking for specific information send in your
questions to be listed to other researchers. Please include
contact information, if specified the contact info will be
withheld.
Please send news releases, abstracts of articles, new or
noteworthy old book reviews, interviews, conference reports, news
and other information related to the study of USSR and Russian
aerospace and related cold war, military and political events you
wish to be listed to:
Dennis Newkirk
Internet: issguide@home.com
Submissions via e-mail encouraged. Mail submissions should be on
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