The Russian space agency stated that it intends to develop a
space platform from which missions to the moon and to Mars could be launched.
According to agency director Anatoly Perminov, the space platform project
should be up and working after 2020. Russia plans its first moon mission for
2025.
The International Space Station will be decommissioned
sometime between 2015 and 2025; by that time, the new space platform should be
available.
As far as I know, the phrase "space platform" was
first used in a scary short story by E. B. White. His short story,"The
Morning of the Day They Did It," was published in The New Yorker
magazine in 1950.
"We had arranged a radio hookup with the space
platform, a gadget the Army had succeeded in establishing six hundred miles up,
in the regions of the sky beyond the pull of gravity. The army, after many
years of experimenting with rockets, had not only got the platform established
but had sent two fellows there in a Spaceship, and also a liberal supply of the
New Weapon."
(Read more about the space platform)
The concept of a space platform is at least several years
older. In an annual report delivered by Secretary of Defense James Forrestal in
1948, an "earth satellite vehicle program" was mentioned. Forrestal
remarked, "The earth-satellite vehicle program, which is being carried out
independently by each military service, was assigned to the committee on guided
missiles for coordination." It was specifically described as a platform
from which missiles could be launched; it could function as an unmanned
station.
The "earth satellite" was presented to the public
in a great retro
painting done by Frank Tinsely. Note the thoughtful details, including an
astronomical observatory, cosmic ray traps, a sun power plant, rocket air lock,
search radar and television sender. (See this more detailed
drawing of the satellite base.)
Several years earlier, in 1946, General Curtis E. LeMay mentioned
something similar in a research program announcement. He called for
"flight and survival equipment for use above the atmosphere, including
space vehicles, space bases and devices for use therein."
Via Russia
planning new space platform. See also Fortress on a Skyhook.
advertisement
