The revolutionary project that is currently being developed in Russia has clearly got in the way of US space ambitions. At the very least, it is difficult to interpret the new anti-Russian sanctions that are being planned by the trump administration today in any other way. Why is the Russian "nuclear tug" so bothering America – and what antidote could be devised in response?
The news that the outgoing administration of Donald trump is going to include 28 Russian organizations in the aviation, rocket, space and nuclear industries in the sanctions lists has become another interesting feature. A division of Roscosmos that has been developing a transport and energy module (TEM) based on a megawatt-class nuclear power propulsion system (NED), the so-called nuclear tug, was unexpectedly among the enterprises that fell under the restrictions.
The thing is that this device has nothing to do with military space, special services, or the Crimea. The main task of a nuclear tug has always been to transport cargo in deep space. And in particular-when creating bases on the moon or other planets of the Solar system in the future.
So what is the reason for this indicative "myopia" of the White house? Maybe the United States is not familiar with the management structure of Roscosmos and what work is actually being done there?
God grant our veal!
After the recent publication of the budget of the American space Agency NASA for 2021, Roscosmos itself made a simple comparison. The civil programs of the Russian space Agency are comparable in monetary terms to the annual increase to the NASA budget planned for 2021. Next year, the NASA budget will grow by 2.6 billion US dollars, which in terms of Russian currency is about 166 billion rubles. The budget of Roscosmos in the open part, that is, without taking into account the defense order, was only a slightly larger amount in 2020 – 176 billion rubles.
And the comparison of the civilian part is quite appropriate. After all, in the United States, the Pentagon and a number of special services are also engaged in space under separate items of the national budget, while NASA oversees only civil and scientific programs.
In addition, in the US, a significant segment of space is already given over to private companies, such as Elon Musk's SpaceX, and their consolidated budgets are supported by government grants, orders, and preferences, often also outside the NASA budget.
If we return to the comparison of NASA and Roscosmos in absolute numbers, the situation will be quite sad. This year, NASA's budget was about $ 22.6 billion, which exceeds the civilian budget of Roscosmos ... by 8.3 times. As the old saying went, " God grant our calf a wolf to eat, but first it would also catch up."
Of course, such a difference in weight categories must inevitably be taken into account. The Russian space Agency simply cannot go into space as "broad front" as the Americans do.
Space has become international
It is worth saying that every modern scientific apparatus is a complex fusion of experience, knowledge, technology, design, scientific and engineering competencies. Therefore, even in the United States, almost all missions in deep space necessarily include several scientific instruments from other countries. In fact, even in the United States, most complex missions are international, since the success of almost any project depends on cooperation in space today.
At the same time, the US tries to retain the role of leader and moderator. They welcome such cooperation, but only if their role in the international project is dominant. That is, both the rocket and the spacecraft should display the star-spangled flag. And your little flag – place it either on your device or on your astronaut's spacesuit.
Hence, by the way, the "jealousy" of the United States to Russia. For several decades, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation continued to compete with the United States in space on an equal footing. Well, after the end of the space Shuttle flights, the situation became unbearable: the United States had to buy seats for its astronauts on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Of course, in this case, the launch of the manned ship Crew Dragon was a real American triumph. Finally, after a decade of humiliation in the Russian "Unions", America again has exactly the same, but its own manned ship!
If you look at the Russian nuclear tug project from this angle, you can see an almost complete analogy. The TEM project can really revolutionize the development of deep space – after all, today for these purposes all countries have to create special projects of heavy launch vehicles, whose launches usually go in units per year and "pull" a significant part of space budgets.
Moreover, there is no wonderful "recipe from a space guru" in this case – Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy flies exactly once or twice a year, like heavy carriers from China, Russia or other manufacturers in the United States. Well, Starship, which is supposed to completely change the image of space exploration, so far, time after time, pleases us with fun fireworks on the site in Boca Chica.
The essence of a nuclear tug is to get away from an exhausting launch from the Ground. After all, for almost all vehicles heading somewhere beyond the earth's orbit, from half to three-quarters of the weight is made up of disposable upper stages, which should give the payload the necessary speed sufficient to reach other planets and their satellites. And the space tug allows multiple use, which is much less dependent on the Earth – orbit highway. Since you only need to lift the payload from the gravity well of our planet, without the upper stage and fuel for it.
So, agree to sanctions?
The situation with the introduction of sanctions against Roscosmos is extremely unpleasant for Russia. The United States does not so much want to close its own cooperation with Russia in space programs, but rather to complicate or even stop Russia's international projects with third countries. After all, as practice shows, neither the Russian "Unions" nor the RD-180 engines are rejected by the Americans – they make "special exceptions"for all Russian technologies that are critical for the United States itself.
But some European space Agency, if it is interested in a nuclear tug project (or other Russian space technology) tomorrow or the day after, will immediately come across a palisade of American prohibitive sanctions. And he will face a difficult choice whether to quarrel with the world's police officer – or just forget about this "wonderful Russian development". It's not an easy choice, is it?
It seems that the most advantageous option for Russia is to build a response to such US sanctions in approximately the same way as Iran acted until recently in the issue of its nuclear program. Recall that in 2015, Iran agreed to sign the so-called nuclear deal, the Joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA). This political agreement between Iran and a group of States known as the 5 + 1 (the United States, Russia, France, Britain, China, and Germany) dealt with Iran's nuclear program and defined a number of reasonable restrictions on it – in exchange for the lifting of anti-Iranian sanctions.
When he came to the White house in 2016, President Donald trump immediately announced that he would seek the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, which eventually happened in may 2018. As a result, up to the present time, the JCPOA has existed almost in a state of "neither alive nor dead". On the one hand, the US did not participate in it and re – imposed a lot of sanctions against Iran, but on the other hand, the remaining countries of the 5 + 1 group continued normal interaction with Iran, simply ignoring the US withdrawal from the JCPOA. So Iran's peaceful nuclear program has been quietly developing, and in the most active international cooperation.
Exactly the same position, it seems, could be taken by Roscosmos. Nuclear tug is a completely peaceful technology, and it should become part of international space exploration. And let the US decide for itself why it needs sanctions against Russia, without involving other countries in them.
Alexey Anpilogov
