MOSCOW -- Russia's Federal Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov said Friday that a prominent Russian businessman-turned-politician is training to fly to space as a tourist in 2009 and underscored the need to cut his country's dependency on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for manned space exploration.
"If we create a new manned spaceship,
which our program until the year 2015 provides for, then we will need a new rocket
and that rocket will require a new launch pad," Perminov told reporters in a press
conference here. We have not decided whether to build that pad at Baikonur or in Russia."
While Perminov didn't name the new spaceship, the Russian space agency has envisioned the Rocket Space Corporation Energia's Klipper
spacecraft for use as a replacement for the Soyuz-TMA capsules and interplanetary voyages.
Should Russia decide to launch the new ship
from its territory, it would have to build an entire new cosmodrome -- or spaceport -- from scratch, Perminov said. None of Russia's own cosmodromes, including Plesetsk in northern
Russia, or the little-used Svobodny and Kapustin Yar pads located in the far
east and south respectively, meet requirements for the new ship, he added.
Perminov didn't elaborate on what these
requirements are, but it is known that all of Russia's existing launch pad are
inferior to Baikonur when it comes to minimizing amount of fuel needed to
launch ships to orbits where space stations operate. Perminov vowed that Russia
will continue to lease Baikonur, from which it carries out the bulk of its
launches, regardless of whether it builds a new cosmodrome or not.
Kazakhstan agreed in 2004 to extend Russia's
lease on the Baikonur
Cosmodrome until 2050. Then Russian president Boris Yeltsin and his Kazakh counterpart
Nursultan Nazarbayev signed an agreement in 1994, in accordance to which,
Russia was to pay the annual sum of $115 million for renting Baikonur for 20
years. "These are delirious ideas," Perminov said when asked if
Russia could leave Baikonur.
Space tourist in 2009
Perminov also said his agency may launch to
space the first ever Russian space tourist
even before the new manned spaceship becomes operational. The official said one
"serious" candidate is already undergoing medical tests to determine
whether he is fit to fly in 2009, but declined to name him.
"He has personally asked me not to name him. All I can
say so far is that he is a serious, respect person who is a businessman and
politician," Perminov said.
He would only add that the candidate is a young man. A
former Federal Space Agency official familiar with the issue said the candidate
is "most probably" a member of State Duma, lower chamber of the
federal parliament.
The former official - who was involved in negotiations with
previous space tourists, said in an Aug. 31 interview that the candidate has
neither paid any down payment nor completed medical tests. "Therefore, he
cannot be for now considered to be a serious candidate," said the former
official, who asked not to be named.
Only two Russians have in the past offered to pay money to
fly to space as tourists -- head of the construction company Mirax Group Sergei
Polonsky and then-mayor of Volgograd Yevgeny Ishchenko -- but neither agreed to
pay the full price of $20 million or more, the official said. Ishchenko was
forced to step down from his post amid accusations of corruption and he was subsequently
convicted of "illegal entrepreneurship" earlier this year.
To date, Russia's Federal Space Agency has launched five
space tourists to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Soyuz rockets
and spacecraft under agreements brokered by the U.S. space
tourism firm Space Adventures. Four were U.S. citizens and one was from
South Africa.
Prices for the orbital trips increased from $20 million-to-$25
million to no
less than $30 million earlier this year.
Perminov also said he has not had discussions with president
Vladimir Putin, whose term expires next year, on whether he may want to fly to
space. "I think the president has places to fly to and things to do,"
Perminov said when commenting on wishes to see Putin aboard the ISS recently
expressed by commander of this station's current crew Fyodor Yurchikhin.
Deputy head of the Federal Space Agency Aleksei Krasnov told
reporters earlier that a number of rich Russians have inquired about
possibility of flying to space as tourists, but he also did not name those
interested.
Calls to Sergei Kostenko, head of Space Adventures' Moscow
office, were not returned Friday.
Future exploration
Perminov said Russia is considering whether to propose to
its ISS partners to extend the lifespan of the international scientific outpost
from its 2015 designed end date to 2020. By then, he said, Russia should be
able to launch a next-generation space station while also preparing for
inter-planetary manned missions.
When discussing longer-term manned space exploration,
Perminov said his agency plans to send cosmonauts to the moon by 2025, and then
set up a manned outpost there in 2028-2032.
Interestingly, one of the reasons that Perminov sought the
removal of Energia's previous chief Nikolai Sevastyanov in July outlandish vows
to carry out interplanetary manned missions, such as flights to Mars, and other
unrealistic projects, according to some Federal Space Agency and Energia
officials. During Friday's press conference, Perminov attacked one of
Sevastyanov's ideas - the proposal to mine helium isotopes on the Moon, saying
it is "misleading" and cannot be implemented in the next 30 years.
He also said Russia will not try to launch men to Mars at
least until 2035.
In his comments on unmanned space exploration, Perminov said
he expects the number of Russian operational satellites to total 102 or 103 by
the end of this year. He also said Russia is considering whether to cooperate
with Indonesia for launches of small satellites by rockets to be fired from
An-124 planes rather than from ground.
He also said Russia is touting the idea of developing Earth
observation and telecommunications satellites jointly with a number of Arab
countries, noting that Russian rockets have already launched six Saudi Arabian
satellites.
Launches of foreign satellites and other commercial services
are expected to generate $800 million in sales for the national space and
rocket industry in 2008, Perminov said.
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