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Russian space program is in a pretty low state these days. It will take significant changes in Russia to come back to space exploration comparable to peers.


>It will take significant changes in Russia to come back

As Russian joke about road building and everything else that requires any concerted effort goes - "There are 2 possible alternatives, a realistic one and a fantasy one. The realistic one is when aliens come to Earth and accomplish it for us. The fantasy one is when we accomplish it ourselves."

For example Russia has been for several years trying to build a new spaceport in the Far East. After the first years of tremendous corruption discovered and prosecuted, the total control, audit and surveillance there have been unparalleled, yet despite it there have already changed several waves of the top/mid management - they get assigned there, steal a lot, get arrested, and new people get assigned, ...


> they get assigned there, steal a lot, get arrested, and new people get assigned, ...

This is just an illustration of what the state of things currently is around Russian space efforts. To change that requires changes above that in government operations.

There are still a lot of capable engineers and even managers in space industry. But being capital and material heavy, space industry can't hide from corruption, which isn't going anywhere while Kremlin is as it is today.

Soyuz spacecraft is a wonderful machine, but lately it more and more served as largely a cash cow and political facade. With Crew Dragon flying, that role diminishes. Given that Proton doesn't provide either, Russian space is left with just a few venues for development. It's hard to see bright sides there until incentives would change.


Also, the only road to the new launch facility goes through an extremely narrow Tsarist-era tunnel that severely limits rocket size.




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