russia's civil cosmonautics is more of an exaggeration than reality — space expert

How the world stops cooperating with “Roscosmos,” which in turn threatens to stop working with the world

The guest is Andriy Kolesnyk, an independent expert and analyst on space exploration.

Andriy Kolesnyk: The policy of blackmail has long been part and parcel of Roscosmos. We remember them saying that the Americans would use a trampoline to get to the International Space Station (ISS) 8 years ago. Today, they are threatening to leave the ISS after the end of their current agreement, which runs until the end of 2024, but I’m not sure that they can even leave today.

The ISS contains 15 modules, which are divided into two segments: Russian and American. There are 6 Russian modules and 9 American modules. They are all interconnected, as it was assumed that everyone could not work without one another.

If Russia decides to shut down the ISS immediately (which I doubt it will), with no alternative (although they plan to build their own orbital service station, as they say, but it will take many years), astronautics will simply blow up in Russia.

• I don’t think they’ll break the twig they’re sitting on and they will leave the astronautics because there is nothing left in them.

All international projects (even scientific ones) with Russia have been suspended. Manned spaceflight is the only thing they can still hold on to. They cannot carry out their own work on the study of space data, or to carry out any serious work in Earth’s orbit. 

Anastasiya Bagalika: Aren’t the ideas about the Russian space industry exaggerated, similarly to the world’s ideas about the Russian army?

Andriy Kolesnyk: Yes, I think this is an exaggeration. If you look at the military and peaceful segment of space activities, the military is funded quite strongly, they are quite modern, based on Western microelectronics.

As for civic space, yes, Roscosmos talks big. In reality however — and in addition to the fact that there is a great deal of corruption, due to the fact that a private space in Russia did not worked out — we can say that today it is more of an exaggeration than reality.

Listen to the entire program in an audio file

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