Dangerous decay?

During the glory years of the Soviet Union’s space program in the 1960s, Soviet citizens had above them a highly visible source of national pride. Magnificent machines were launched from Russian soil and traveled round and round the whole planet, through the blackness of space to land again on other Russian soil. As the Americans tried and failed over and over to achieve what the Soviets had accomplished first (the first orbit of a satellite, the first orbit of a man, the first woman in space), the Russian citizen could not but believe that they could not fail. These weren’t just simple orbits, but also dance moves across an international stage where they showed the whole world how Communism was the superior form of government.

An abandoned Buran wind tunnel model
rots quietly in a field

And then came Gemini and Apollo and an American flag planted on the surface of the Moon. Before the Soviets could finish licking their wounds, on the 12th of April, 1981, Americans flew a space shuttle that could launch, deliver a payload, land, and launch again. The Russians had tried to build a copy of it, the Buran, but it never succeeded and all of them were allowed to rot in old warehouses or even in fields of grass. When the International Space Station was conceived, it had two primary missions that went unappreciated by most of the public: first, to give the new Space Shuttle something to do, justifying the huge amount of government funds expended to develop it, and secondly to give the Russians a major space project to which they could contribute, helping them heal the pain of being in second place.

Then in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed into ruins and the Russian Republic was left to pick up the pieces of the old Soviet space program. They held onto their strong position in the global satellite launch industry, and held up their part of the ISS maintenance. When we finally retired the space shuttle fleet in 2011, they started selling seats on their Soyuz capsules so that Americans still had access at least to the space station. They did not offer to take our astronauts to the Moon, of course, since they couldn’t reach the Moon with humans anyway. That was a dream that was never achieved.

Now, after 21 years of near dominance in space, the Russians are faced with competition from American private industry, competition that is on the verge of sending manned capsules to orbit, and soon, perhaps, manned spaceships that can land on the Moon and take off to come home again. And do all of this for less money than they were charging us to catch a ride with them. How are they taking this?

Vadim Lukashevich, a space expert residing in Russia, recently posted a YouTube wherein he, in part, had this to say about the recent docking demonstration of the SpaceX Dragon 2 human-rated bright and shiny self-driving automatic capsule (translation thanks to Ars Technica):

With this launch, even if it was ordered by NASA, this private company SpaceX has made Roscosmos null and void. They have shown Roscosmos who’s who. Everyone remembers Rogozin’s remarks about trampolines and such, so in fact this isn’t just resentment, it is a constant major headache for Roscosmos. In the first place, the congratulations message was late. Second, Roscosmos sent out two congratulation tweets, one in English, and another completely different text in Russian. So of course, this is a sign of resentment, it is the reaction of an unreliable leader who is lagging behind, so really it was strange they (Roscosmos) reacted at all. Bear in mind Roscosmos in fact never gave their approval for the docking. They voiced a number of technical concerns, perhaps even with some basis, but we saw that the docking was simply brilliant as it took place. So, yes, this was a reaction of someone left behind.

Another article in Ars Technica, posted in February of 2015 and found here, relates their reaction to the increasing capability of the West even before this latest blow which is poised to eliminate their revenue as an Uber to the ISS — they are going to take their blocks and go home:

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, on Feb. 24 [2015] announced that it will remain a part of the international space station until 2024 before detaching the Russian modules and forming its own outpost in low Earth orbit.

Unless the Russians find something useful they can do in space, and reverse the bad management of their space agency Roscosmos, I predict an increasing resentment will surface towards the rest of the world, including China, which is another country nipping at the heels of their declining ability. The Soviet bear has become the Russian bear, and that bear doesn’t suffer hibernation lightly.