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Sixty Years After Gagarin, Is Russia Lagging in Space?

April 23, 2021
ExoNews Editor

April 7, 2021 (today.rtl.lu)

• Sixty years ago on April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union made history by launching Yuri Gagarin into space on a Soyuz-made capsule. Moscow announced its intent to replace the Soyuz design in 2009, boasting that the new capsule would be “bigger, with more powerful engines and more comfortable than the Soyuz.” RKK Energia was even awarded a development contract for the project. But after a series of delays, the Soyuz-degined capsule continues to be used for trips to the International Space Station (ISS).

• The head of RKK Energia’s flight centre Alexander Kaleri, himself a veteran cosmonaut who flew several missions into space and spent months on the ISS and Mir space stations, admits the project is a long way from taking off. “The goal is to carry out a first pilot-less test flight by 2023. For now we are starting by testing models for the capsule, it’s a fairly long process.”

• The new capsule’s grand designs have fallen victim to funding problems and bureaucratic inertia. Russian space expert Vitaly Yegorov says the lengthy development is hardly surprising given “the technical difficulties, Western sanctions against the Russian space industry, and a lack of funding” for the space program. With the Soyuz still flying, there is also no “acute need” for a replacement, Yegorov says.

• Other projects have also stagnated, including the next generation Angara-A5 rockets meant to carry Russian space capsules, which have been in development since the 1990s but have launched only twice in test mode, in 2014 and 2020. The Nauka laboratory module intended for the ISS began assembly in the 1990s, but has also suffered a string of failures.

• Despite these setbacks, Dmitry Rogozin – a nationalist politician and former diplomat now in charge of Russian space agency Roscosmos – continues to make bombastic claims about future projects. He has announced ventures to bring back samples from Venus and a rocket capable of making 100 round trips to space and back.

• After Russia pulled out of the US-led Lunar Gateway project to put a new space station in lunar orbit starting in 2024, Moscow and Beijing announced plans in March for a rival space station, but without a timetable or budget. A former Roscosmos official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is clear that Rogozin’s projects are pie in the sky. “[H]is promises extend into the 2030s, when neither of them will be in power,” the official said.

• Russian space expert Vadim Lukashevich said the problem for Roscosmos is that when it comes to scientific projects, Putin’s mind is not on space exploration. Rather, the Kremlin’s attention is fixed on military ventures. “The priority for the Kremlin is military projects, especially the development of missiles,” he said. “Putin talks about new weapons and missiles,” Lukashevich says, including hypersonic weapons that can strike an enemy like a “meteorite”.

• While Russian defense spending has grown significantly in the last two decades, Roscosmos has seen its budget falling year by year. Last year, Rogozin announced that Roscosmos’ 2016-2025 total budget of $18.4 billion US was being cut by ten percent for the last five years.

• And as Russia’s space industry stalls, its competitors, including now the private sector, are moving forward. Last year, Russia lost its monopoly over ISS launches to Elon Musk’s reusable Space X rockets. But Roscosmos is wary of partnerships with private companies, fearing this could siphon away the “state space budget and contracts”.

• Meanwhile, the Russian space industry is beset with corruption, including multiple scandals over the construction of the new Vostochny launchpad in the Far East. “There is hardly any space company left whose officials have not been replaced or arrested,” laments a former Roscosmos staffer. “Today the industry is run by newcomers without training in space technologies.”

• [Editor’s Note] Don’t be so sure that Russia is languishing in advanced space technology. Some believe that Russia is the epicenter of the Alliance space program, working with benevolent Galactic Federation extraterrestrials to quietly develop modern spacefaring craft like the corvettes reported by Corey Goode to have harassed the deep state’s ‘pumpkin seed’ craft attempting to leave earth orbit over Antarctica in January 2016. Putin is a leader of the Alliance, and prefers to let the deep state think they are “lagging behind”. But since the Alliance is currently kicking the deep state’s ass in space, everyone is now aware of Russia and the Alliance’s capabilities in spite of hit pieces like this one.

Sixty years after the Soviet Union made history by launching Yuri Gagarin into space

on April 12, 1961, Russia continues to have lofty extraterrestrial ambitions, but its ability to realise them is more down to earth.

Project after project has been announced and then delayed, as grand designs fall victim to funding problems or bureaucratic inertia. The Kremlin’s attention meanwhile is fixed on military ventures rather than space exploration.

A case in point is the project to replace Russia’s ageing Soyuz capsule, a workhorse that has been ferrying astronauts into space since the 1960s and continues to be used for trips to the International Space Station.

First announced in 2009, the project to replace the Soyuz has been repeatedly pushed back. Even the name of the proposed capsule has changed multiple times, from the “Federation” to the “Oryol” (Eagle) and then a proposed smaller version called the “Orlyonok”.

RKK Energia, the firm that builds the Soyuz, was awarded a development contract for the project.

Standing in a museum at Energia’s offices celebrating Soviet space accomplishments, the head of the firm’s flight centre Alexander Kaleri boasts that the new capsule will be “bigger, with more powerful engines and more comfortable than the Soyuz.”

But Kaleri, a veteran cosmonaut who flew several missions into space and spent months on the ISS and Mir space stations, admits the project is a long way from taking off.

“The goal is to carry out a first pilot-less test flight by 2023. For now we are starting by testing models for the capsule, it’s a fairly long process.”

Stagnating projects

Russian space expert Vitaly Yegorov says the lengthy development is hardly surprising given “the technical difficulties, Western sanctions against the Russian space industry and a lack of funding” for the space programme.

With the Soyuz still flying, there is also no “acute need” for a replacement, he says.

Other projects have also stagnated, including the next generation Angara-A5 rockets meant to carry Russian space capsules, which have been in development since the 1990s but have launched only twice in test mode, in 2014 and 2020.

The Nauka laboratory module intended for the ISS, which began assembly in the 1990s, has also suffered a string of failures that have prevented it from entering orbit.

Despite these setbacks, Dmitry Rogozin — a nationalist politician and former

diplomat now in charge of Russian space agency Roscosmos — continues to make bombastic claims about future projects.

He has announced ventures to bring back samples from Venus and a rocket capable of making 100 round trips to space and back.

After Russia pulled out of the US-led international Lunar Gateway project — a space station in lunar orbit whose first modules are to be launched in 2024 — Moscow and Beijing announced

plans this March for a rival space station, but without a timetable or budget.

A former Roscosmos official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is clear that Rogozin’s projects are pie in the sky.

The Roscosmos chief promises President Vladimir Putin “that they will go to the Moon, Mars or Venus,” the official said. “But his promises extend into the 2030s, when neither of them will be in power.”

Russian space expert Vadim Lukashevich said the problem for Roscosmos is that when it comes to scientific projects, Putin’s mind is not on space exploration.

“The priority for the Kremlin is military projects, especially the development of missiles,” he said.

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Russian Cosmonauts On How to Greet Extraterrestrials

October 7, 2020
ExoNews Editor

September 24, 2020 (sputniknews.com)

• On September 24th, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Kud-Sverchkov spoke at a press conference organized by the government news agency, Rossiya Segodnya. Flight engineer Kud-Sverchkov will join mission commander Sergei Ryzhikov and NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins in the ‘Expedition 64’ (all pictured above) to the International Space Station in October. This will be Kud-Sverchkov’s first flight to space.

• Russian scientists join with those from other countries in the search for extraterrestrial life, making plans to launch multiple new scientific missions to the Moon, Mars and Venus, and, earlier this year, announcing the construction of a high-powered telescope that can be used to search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations transmitted in the optical spectrum.

• In 2012, veteran cosmonaut Gennady Padalka told Chinese media that “detailed instructions” had been created at the United Nations “in case of first contact” with extraterrestrial beings. He added at the time that “sooner or later we will meet our like-minded brothers” from another planet.

• However, Kud-Sverchkov sats that Russian cosmonauts have not been given any special instructions when it comes to greeting aliens, but would try to do so in a diplomatic matter. “I think that when meeting intelligence extraterrestrial life, we will exhibit friendliness, goodwill and consideration, just as we do when meeting intelligent and unintelligent life on Earth,” the cosmonaut said.

• The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft will blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 14th upon a Soyuz-2.1 ‘carrier rocket’. The spacecraft expected to reach the ISS in a record 3 hours, 20 minutes. The mission will last until April 2021, during which the team will activate the Bartolomeo scientific platform outside the European Space Agency’s Columbus lab module. Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins will be joined by three more NASA astronauts and a Japanese astronaut, who will make their way to the ISS in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule shortly after the Soyuz craft’s arrival.

• A cosmonaut doll knitted by Kud-Sverchkov’s wife will become the expedition’s mascot, named Yuri after Yuri Gagarin, the first human being in space. Mission commander Ryzhikov told reporters that he would take with him a miniaturized set of Gospels, as well as a handful of Russian soil and stones from Mount Tabor, which Christians believe was the site of the transfiguration of Jesus following his resurrection.

• NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins said she plans to collect thousands of microbial samples inside the space station, and revealed that she plans to vote in the US presidential election from aboard the ISS.

As one of the world’s major space powers, Russia has done its part helping humanity search for extraterrestrial life,

recently beginning the construction of a powerful telescope capable of searching for signals coming from distant alien civilisations.

Russian cosmonauts have not been given any special instructions when it comes to greeting aliens, but would try to do so in a diplomatic matter, cosmonaut Sergei Kud-Sverchkov has said.

“I think that when meeting intelligence extraterrestrial life, we will exhibit friendliness, goodwill and consideration, just as we do when meeting intelligent and unintelligent life on Earth,” the cosmonaut said, speaking at a press conference organized by Rossiya Segodnya, on Thursday.

Kud-Sverchkov will join mission commander Sergei Ryzhikov in Expedition 64 to the International Space Station in

October as a flight engineer. This will be his first flight to space.
The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft will carry the two Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins to the ISS aboard a Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 14,

with the spacecraft expected to reach its destination in a record 3 hours, 20 minutes.

Kud-Sverchkov says a knitted cosmonaut doll named Yuri will become the mascot for Expedition 64, with the doll knitted by his wife, and named after Yuri Gagarin, the first human being in space.

Mission commander Ryzhikov told reporters that he would take with him a miniaturized Gospels, as well as a handful of Russian soil and stones from Mount Tabor, which Christians believe was the site of the transfiguration of Jesus following his resurrection.

For her part, NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins said her plans include work collecting thousands of microbial samples inside the space station, and revealed that she plans to vote in the US presidential election from aboard the ISS.

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A Strange Encounter with Angels In Space

December 25, 2017
ExoNews Editor

by Brent Swancer December 13, 2017 (mysteriousuniverse.org)

• In April 1982, the Soviets launched its Salyut 7 space station as a test program for modular design space stations and a precursor to the Mir space station. The Salyut 7 stayed in orbit for 8 years and 10 months.

• In June 1984, on its 155th day in orbit, the three crew members of the Salyut 7 suddenly reported a bright orange light around the space station. When they looked out of the porthole they saw seven enormous, winged humanoid angelic figures about 90 feet tall with calm, smiling faces hovering beside the space station. The crew said that they did not feel alarm but wonderment, and a feeling of calm and peace exuding from these beings. The beings stayed with the space station for about 10 minutes before fading away. Afterward, the three cosmonauts discussed it, determined that they had all seen the same thing but agreed that it must have been a trick of the mind.

• On day 167 of the mission, three more cosmonauts joined the space station. Not long after, the space station was again bathed in this orange light. This time all six of the crew looked out of the portholes to see several of the massive angelic beings with smiling faces floating just outside of their station.

• The crew were instructed to never to discuss what they had seen and the Soviet government covered it all up. Intensive physical and psychological tests showed that the crew were of perfectly sound body and mind. Still, they all gave the exact same description of winged, angelic entities with smiling faces.

• An interesting note, the first human to go into space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, had his own encounter twenty years earlier in April of 1961. At two points during his spaceflight aboard the Vostok-1, Gagarin inexplicably went silent. He couldn’t recall what had happened. During hypnotic regression, Gagarin claimed that he could remember seeing an enormous figure floating in space in front of him, and that he had heard a voice in his head saying, “Do not worry, everything will be fine. You’ll come back to Earth,” before the apparition vanished into thin air right before his eyes.

Space is often touted as the last frontier, the final wilderness that we have yet to tame or understand, and in many ways this is very true. We have only within the last century really begun to comprehend some of its secrets to any appreciable degree, and there are certainly wonders beyond our imagination for us yet to behold. Yet some mysteries that have been encountered out there in the cold dark of space go well beyond conventional understanding, to propel out into the world of the paranormal and the universe of the truly bizarre. Certainly ranking among these mysteries is a curious close encounter between some of the first people in space and, well, something else.

In April of 1982, the Soviet Union launched its ambitious Salyut 7 space station as part of the Soviet Salyut Programme, which started in 1971 and had the aim of eventually sending up a total of four crewed scientific research space stations and two crewed military reconnaissance space stations. The last to be launched in the program and a precursor to the Mir space station, the Salyut 7 was the 10th space station ever put into orbit by mankind, and was designed to serve as a sort of test of a new system of modular space stations, which entailed the ability to attach new modules to expand the station or adapt it to whatever functions were required, as well as an outpost for various off-planet experiments. The Salyut 7 would end up staying in orbit for a total of 8 years and 10 months, which up until that time was the longest such a station had ever remained in continuous orbit. It is also known for a very bizarre series of bizarre, unexplained events witnessed by the crew.

In July of 1984, the Salyut 7 was on the 155th day of its mission and things were going in a routine fashion until there was a sudden transmission from cosmonauts Commander Oleg Atkov, Vladmir Solovyov, and Leonid Kizim in which they claimed that the space station had suddenly been surrounded by an oppressive, blinding orange light. The crew of three aboard the Salyut 7 all then allegedly looked out of the portals to try and see what was causing this inexplicable brilliant glow. At this point they would witness probably the last thing they had expected to see out there.

There hovering in space in front of the space station were what the crew would describe as seven enormous winged humanoid beings estimated as being around 90 feet in height and with calm, smiling faces, and it was from these bizarre entities that the ethereal light was apparently emanating. They were also claimed to exude a feeling of calm and peacefulness, and oddly the cosmonauts felt no fear during the encounter, merely wonderment. According to the witnesses, the colossal apparitions, which they described as “angels,” matched the speed of the space station, remaining in the same position for around 10 minutes before fading away. Baffled by what they had all just seen, the three cosmonauts had a heated discussion on what the beings were and what rational explanation could account for it, but they could come up with nothing. In the end, although they had all seen exactly the same thing, they chalked it up to the stresses and rigors of being in space for so long, resigning themselves to the explanation that their minds had simply been playing tricks on them.

They may have gone on forever convinced that this was some sort of mass hallucination and a bout of temporary insanity, but it would not be their last encounter with these otherworldly beings. On Day 167 of the mission, the Salyut gained an additional three cosmonauts in the form of Svetlana Savitskaya, Igor Volk and Vladimir Dzhanibekov. Not long after these new crew members boarded, the station was once again bathed in that potent, bedazzling light, and this time all six of the crew looked out of the portholes to see several of the massive angelic beings swimming through the blackness of space outside, again with their benevolent smiling faces. Considering that this time they had again all seen the same thing, it appeared that there was perhaps something more going on beyond simple hallucinations.

When the Salyut mission was concluded and the cosmonauts returned to Earth, their strange experiences were allegedly covered up and swept under the carpet by the Soviet government, and the witnesses told in no uncertain terms that they were never to discuss what they had seen up there. Interestingly, intensive rounds of physical and psychological tests performed on the space station crew supposedly showed nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever. They were perfectly sound of body and mind.

Considering the thick secrecy surrounding the odd events, the story did not really get any wider coverage until after the Cold War, but when it did get out it immediately ignited a firestorm of debate and speculation as to what the cosmonauts had really seen. The most rational and scientific answer is that these cosmonauts experienced what they had suspected in the beginning, which is some sort of mass hallucination or madness brought on by the demanding stresses, fatigue, and the harsh conditions of space. After all, no one had ever really spent this much time continuously in space before, and so it should be only natural that they should have such visions.

Indeed, such surreal visual phenomena have been reported by other astronauts and cosmonauts who have been in space for long periods of time, and even earthbound pilots on long, demanding flights. The problem with this explanation is that six seasoned, experienced cosmonauts all saw the same thing at the same time, and all of them were given clean bills of mental and physical health afterward, making it seem rather unlikely that this could all be in their heads. It also seems rather implausible that a group of six highly trained, well-respected cosmonauts would get together and make up such a story as a hoax.

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Tag: Yuri Gagarin

Sixty Years After Gagarin, Is Russia Lagging in Space?

Russian Cosmonauts On How to Greet Extraterrestrials

A Strange Encounter with Angels In Space