Today, the Russian Federation is working on the creation of the Russian Orbital Station (ROS) — the first two stages of the deployment of a promising space laboratory are planned for 2027-2032. Evgeny Kuznetsov, CEO of the Digital Evolution Ventures venture fund (Rosatom Corporate fund), futurologist, spoke about the value of ROS as an independent project and as a step towards the development of the Solar System.
According to him, the sharp reduction in the cost of launch services in recent years has given humanity a very real opportunity to begin colonizing the sublunar space zone (near-Earth space up to and including the orbit of the Moon), after which it is possible to proceed to the development of the further Solar system. "This has ceased to be science fiction and turned out to be within reach, but in order to start exploring the Solar system, first you need to build up near—Earth space with the necessary infrastructure — an important part of this is the ROS," the expert said.
Near-Earth infrastructure
Kuznetsov outlined three main types of infrastructure that modern space powers are focusing on now and will continue to do so in the near future. "The first is multi—satellite groupings, the key infrastructure of communications, communications, sensing, positioning, and so on. The second is the orbital stations, which play an intermediate role not so much for research, as before, but for the deployment and testing of industrial systems. The third is the lunar bases, including for the extraction and processing of resources," he explained.
According to Kuznetsov, a number of concepts are currently being developed for the transition of space activities to a returnable or supported model that will allow servicing satellites in orbit. "Both in the framework of the ROS and in the projects of American and Chinese stations, it was already assumed that the station would be a kind of uterus, small devices in which would be able to service, configure and refuel satellites that fly up to it," the expert said.
A pillar for space production
He added that the stations are also of great value as test sites for space production.
Evgeny Kuznetsov
According to him, manned stations (including ROS) are a key moment for the transition to the space industry. "For semiconductor research, for platinum mining from asteroids, all these things require permanent stations where it will be tested, scaled, and then debugged for independent work. If this is done from the very beginning only with robotic platforms, then efficiency will seriously decrease. There will be more and longer trial and error, and the cost will also rise," he said.
The expert stressed that it is extremely important to test next-generation systems at ROS in order to move on from the achievements of the International Space Station (ISS). "For example, Chinese scientists are actively experimenting with a closed cycle of life activity, recently they reported about 99.9% recovery of water from urine. This is considered optional on the ISS, because water can always be brought, and for long—range and ultra-long-range missions this is absolutely crucial, so the Chinese are working on it," he said, noting that life support systems, internal control and computing systems need to be made with a reserve for the future.
Visited in polar orbit
At the moment, ROS is planned to be launched into a polar orbit, unlike the ISS, whose orbit has a deviation of 51.6 degrees from the equator. Kuznetsov believes that this approach is a good opportunity to service automatic devices. "If we want to fix it, it will be extremely expensive to change the plane of its orbit. It is better that it remains in polar orbit — this will be optimal for a whole block of satellites," he stressed. The expert noted that the station will also help to quickly monitor the regions relevant to Russia — the north of Eurasia and the Arctic, although he added that automatic devices can also cope with this. "One of the disadvantages is that the energy of the polar orbit is quite harsh, not many satellites will need it, this is a certain niche. But the niche, it seems to me, is quite justified," Kuznetsov said.
Another key difference between ROS and existing projects is its visiting mode — unlike the ISS, where people have been continuously on since November 2000, the new station will operate automatically between expeditions. According to Kuznetsov, such a decision could be caused by a shortage of scientific projects. "The American segment of the ISS is currently overloaded with scientific work, because a huge number of private companies order research from NASA, from biological to materials science. We don't have research program budgets yet to keep the Russian segment busy," the expert said, stressing that as financial and political issues are resolved, the new station can be turned "at least into a round—the-clock operation."
How much does it cost to "enter" space
Kuznetsov noted that one of the key obstacles to the development of the space economy is the financial entry threshold, which can be divided into two main components — the cost of putting an object into orbit and the cost of its operation.
Evgeny Kuznetsov
According to him, the cost of operating an object already operating in orbit is unlikely to be drastically reduced. "The main problem, I think, is not in the price, not in the level of access - it differs, but not catastrophically — but rather in the sufficiency of resources. In 2021, the budget for private investment in space in the United States for the year equaled the budget of NASA — it was more than $ 23 billion. We don't even have such figures in rubles, because no one sees the economy at the other end," Kuznetsov said.
He stressed that today Russia is trying to move away from the costly model of space exploration, similar to the one that existed in the United States before SpaceX. "How much money was knocked out of taxpayers, so much was "burned." Now the model has changed — money is no longer being "burned", but invested. They are investing in a business that will make money, or maybe it is already making money. SpaceX, for example, is already a profitable company. And such models, positive in terms of profitability for the future, we still have to learn how to build in Russia," the expert concluded.
Future prospects
Speaking about the transition to deep space exploration, Kuznetsov noted the so—called cycles of technological revolutions - the time intervals between important scientific and technical achievements. "These cycles used to be 40 years old, now they are about 30, and then, perhaps, it will be 25 years — the process is accelerating. The resources of the Earth — monetary, human — are not enough to run in all directions at the same time, they are enough for two, three, four goals. And in our current cycle, until about 2040-2045, the main focus will be the exploration of the Moon and the "sublunar economy," the futurist explained.
He noted that he was following Elon Musk's plans to colonize Mars with interest, although he was somewhat skeptical.
Evgeny Kuznetsov
According to him, man will begin to explore the frontiers of the Solar System — asteroids, moons of planets and more distant celestial bodies - in the 2050s and 2070s. "The next cycle is already a real attempt to touch the entire Solar System and explore what valuable things can be extracted from it, and prepare for the next breakthrough," the expert emphasized.
According to Kuznetsov, traveling beyond our native Solar System requires a huge breakthrough in science, because modern physics does not provide clear answers on how this can be done. "There are theoretical ideas, but they still look unattainable by the technological capabilities of our civilization. But taking into account artificial intelligence and the breakthrough in the field of cognition, I think that these trends will converge just somewhere on the horizon of 2050. That is, we don't even have anything to talk about until 2040, but sometime in the 2040s and 2050s, it may become clear how this step can be taken," he said, adding that by that time human civilization should already have the necessary and self-sufficient space infrastructure.
Humanity in the distant future
A number of thinkers, such as American Raymond Kurzweil and Russian Alexander Panov, have previously proposed the theory of technological singularity, an exponential acceleration of progress leading to humanity's escape from the control of its own civilization. Kuznetsov does not believe that humanity "will lose control of development while intelligent machines rush off to conquer space." "In my model, we will adapt to new challenges, and these challenges are a profound transformation of humans as such using artificial intelligence. This is a profound climatic transformation of the planet, accelerated space exploration, these are super—tasks that will absorb our attention and capabilities so much that we may not even notice this super-acceleration," he said.
According to Kuznetsov, for a resident of the 19th century, such an image of humanity can be unimaginable, and contemporaries will be able to understand that all of humanity solves problems on a large scale. "I don't see such an "endgame" — the end of history — in this century, because the task of exploring the Solar System alone will consume humanity for at least a century. And the transition to interstellar space is at least a thousand years," the expert explained, adding that humanity is now entering a long (approximately 250 years) period. the tact of development. "The previous cycle was the start of the industrial revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and the previous cycle was the start of the Reformation, and so on. Until we pass this next milestone, it is very difficult to think about what awaits us next," concluded the futurologist.
Ilya Vrubel
