MOSCOW, July 20 - RIA Novosti. A team of two Fedor robots is proposed to be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in an unmanned Soyuz spacecraft in August 2019, a source in the rocket and space industry told RIA Novosti.
Earlier it was reported that Fedor will be the first to fly on the new Federation spacecraft being developed in Russia. Moreover, it is expected that the robot will take part in all three test flights of the new ship - a test in 2022, with an automatic docking to the ISS in 2023, and with astronauts on board in 2024. "Fedor" was developed by the Foundation for Advanced Study together with the NPO "Android Technology" by order of the Ministry of Emergency Situations as a rescue robot. However, in the future, Roskosmos and Rosatom became interested in him.
“The idea is being considered to use the launch of the Soyuz unmanned spacecraft next year for a test flight of the Fedora robot into space. Moreover, it is proposed to fly one or two robots at once,” the agency’s interlocutor said.
Earlier, the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation announced that in August 2019 it would launch an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft into orbit, which would test new systems and deliver cargo to the International Space Station. The launch will be carried out on a Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle. Now the ship is at the stage of assembling compartments. The results of its flight can be used in the production of a new Soyuz GVK space transport cargo vehicle, which should be ready by 2022. At the moment, only American Dragon transport ships are able to return cargo from orbit. Russian supply ships of the Progress series are sunk in the ocean after being deorbited.
According to the interlocutor, the flight of one or two Fedorovs at once on an unmanned Soyuz is considered as an opportunity to test the robot before it is sent into space on the Federation ship. In this case, the androids will not take part in the management of the ship, but will become passengers. It is proposed that they will be able, as announcers, to comment on what is happening in flight according to pre-set algorithms, for example, the magnitude of overloads, the temperature regime inside the ship.
According to the interlocutor, the idea found preliminary approval in the leadership of Roskosmos and received the unofficial name "cyber crew". It was named so because robots will fly to the ISS for the first time as crew members, and not as cargo in the transport compartment. So, for example, it was with American, Japanese and European robots. According to the interlocutor of the agency, the industry leadership considers this idea a good PR move, which should show the ability of Roskosmos to quickly achieve breakthroughs in astronautics.
NPO Androidnaya Tekhnika has not yet commented on this information. The Energia Rocket and Space Corporation (the developer of the Federation ship and the Soyuz manufacturer) declined to comment. The Foundation for Advanced Study was unable to provide a prompt comment. Roskosmos also failed to get an explanation.
robot astronaut
The creation of Fedor began in 2014 as part of the Spasatel Foundation's project. Then the android was called "Avatar". The basis for its creation were taken robots produced by NPO Androidnaya Tekhnika SAR-400 and SAR-401, offered by the enterprise, including Roscosmos and the Cosmonaut Training Center.
Android received its new name in 2015 from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. Later, a decoding of the name was also invented, turning it into an abbreviation - Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research - The final experimental demonstration object of research. The robot is designed to replace a person in places of increased risk - for example, in rescue operations, in space. At the moment, he can autonomously shoot with two hands, drive a car, sit on the splits, work with a drill, move up the stairs and overcome obstacles. In addition, the robot can be controlled remotely using a special suit worn by the operator. In this mode, Fedor, like an avatar, repeats the actions of a person.
In 2016, it became known that Fedor would fly into space on the Federation ship. He will sit in the co-pilot's seat, but will not steer the ship. In the future, it is proposed to use it to assist astronauts during work in outer space. To do this, it is planned to install special batteries on the outer surface of the station, with the help of which it will be recharged. In the long term, the android should participate in the flyby of the moon on the Federation ship. After it circles the Moon and returns to Earth, Fedor will unfasten its belts on its own, open the exit hatch and leave the descent vehicle.
The Dragon transport vehicle, an unmanned spacecraft from SpaceX, arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) last week with 5,000 pounds of fresh cargo. This mission is an example of the beginning of a new era for NASA - since 2011, the function of transporting provisions and cargo to the ISS, as well as from it to Earth, has been carried out by the private sector. This decision was made primarily because of the high cost of sending NASA shuttles to the ISS, which have now been replaced by cheaper launch vehicles from private companies.
Whether transportation has actually become cheaper with the switch to private company launchers, however, remains in question. To find out, Tech Insider spoke to payload specialist and space station engineer Ravi Margasahayam.
In 2008, NASA signed contracts with SpaceX and its competitor, aerocomic company Orbital Sciences, for $1.6 billion for 12 launches and $1.9 billion for 8 rocket launches, respectively. And while new missions are hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper than launching a space shuttle, the cost of getting into space hasn't come down.
"My price per pound went up with these rockets," Margasahayam told Tech Insider. "It would have been much lower on the shuttle."
He points out that although the space shuttles were more expensive, at about $500 million per launch (and according to some sources, even more), each mission carried about 50,000 pounds (about 22,600 kg) and seven astronauts. That is, the transportation of one pound of cargo (almost 0.5 kg) cost approximately $ 10,000.
If we do the same calculation with NASA's cheapest carrier at the moment, SpaceX, which costs $133 million per rocket to launch and has a last mission capacity of 5,000 pounds, each pound is valued at about $27,000.
However, SpaceX claims that the Dragon spacecraft, launched from a Falcon 9 booster, can carry 7,300 pounds (more than 3,000 kg) - both to the ISS and back to Earth. So if Dragon were fully loaded at launch and on return, the cost per pound would be only $9,100.
Bottle of water: $9,100 to $27,000
A half-liter bottle of water weighs just about one pound, so it fits the basic cost of sending a cargo into space - from $9,100 to $27,000.
NASA has long decided that it's pretty stupid to send new water every time, given how much of it is in the human body. Therefore, on board the ISS, astronauts drink recycled water from their own condensation, sweat, and urine.
70 mice: at least $470,000
Mice are quite light, weighing only about 300-400 grams, that is, the cost of delivering one mouse to the ISS ranges from $ 6,825 to $ 20,250. However, one mouse is clearly not enough for research in space, therefore, to study the biological effect on the body in space, including muscle atrophy and the aging process, one has to pay between $470,925 and $1.4 million for 70 rodents.
Bagpipes: $162,000
And there are quite a few other instruments being sent to the astronauts, including harmonicas, a guitar, and at least one saxophone.
The weight of a bagpipe is highly dependent on materials and construction, but astronaut Kjell Lindgren appears to be a pretty serious performer, strong enough to hold a full-sized instrument.
It can be assumed that he was worried about the cost of transportation and therefore chose a relatively light bagpipe - 6 pounds, 2 pounds less than the average 8-pound bagpipe.
So the cost could be anywhere from $54,600 to $16,2000, but given how much it means to astronauts who miss their life on Earth, and the YouTube video of him playing, it's worth it.
Coffee machine: possibly over $1 million
Once astronauts used only freeze-dried coffee, which they had to dilute with water that did not reach the boiling point, as a result, coffee caused a lot of complaints among astronauts.
However, in 2015, the ISSpresso coffee machine arrived on the ISS, produced exclusively by an Italian collaboration between Argotec software companies, coffee maker Lavazza, and the Italian Space Agency.
The machine weighs 44 pounds (almost 20 kg), costs from $400,400, and its delivery to the ISS cost $1.2 million.
Greenhouse: over $145,000
In 2015, astronauts aboard the ISS received an unusual reason to rejoice: real greens grown in outer space.
Astronauts study the effects of microgravity (a state of weightlessness) on plants. Given that someday people plan to go to Mars, knowing how to grow vegetables in otherworldly conditions will be extremely important.
A 16 pound greenhouse is about $145,600 to $432,000 in shipping costs from Earth.
Gorilla costume: at least $116,000
A video of astronaut Scott Kelly dressed as a gorilla aboard the ISS has gone viral on the internet.
Each astronaut is allocated a certain amount of special cargo on board the launch vehicles delivering to the ISS. Most often, they receive gifts from home - cards, gifts, even birthday cakes. However, Scott Kelly's twin brother, who is also an astronaut, Mike Kelly (Mike Kelly) sent him such a gorilla suit.
This outfit on Amazon weighs 4.3 pounds, which means that the price for its delivery was about $ 116,000 - $ 391,000.
Lemons: over $2,000 each
Astronaut Scott Kelly, during his year-long stay in space, studied the effect of such conditions (sometimes extremely unpleasant) on his body.
It's not easy to spend that much time indoors, and at some point NASA sent some fresh lemons to the ISS to add some variety to life on board the station, and Kelly juggled them in another video about the science of metabolism in space.
Since the average lemon weighs about 3.5 ounces (nearly 100 grams), the cost of sending them into space would have been between $2,000 and $5,900 each.
Baby squid: less than $5
A living, writhing squid that was needed for yet another research project: astronauts are using it to study the relationship between animals and beneficial bacteria. Sepiolids are cephalopods that are symbiotically related to certain bacteria. Bacteria live in the body of the squid, and he uses them to create backlight underwater.
A baby squid weighs less than a hundredth of an ounce. Not counting test tubes, sending each squid into space costs between $1.60 and $4.80.
By earthly standards, such expenses may seem unnecessary and meaningless to us, but Margasahayam argues that it is worth it.
The experiments carried out on the space station have great potential to help us understand the human body and the future of space travel. Space programs like NASA have led to major technological developments that we use every day on Earth.
"NASA is the pinnacle of American ingenuity and technology," said Margasahayam. He also noticed that NASA's budget is actually extremely small compared to other US agencies.
Delivering cargo to the ISS can be extremely expensive, but the process promotes international cooperation, scientific progress and innovation.
The idea to inform our extraterrestrial brothers in mind about oneself visited mankind several centuries ago. In the first half of the 19th century, the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss proposed to cut a triangle with sides of 15 km in the taiga and sow it with wheat. Aliens should have noticed this and thus guessed that there is intelligent life on Earth. Gauss's plan was not put into practice, since the area of the triangle proposed by him could be correlated with the size of some small state, for example, Ireland, and there were no people willing to invest in the project.
Gauss was echoed by the Austrian astronomer Joseph von Littrow, who believed that life exists on the moon. He intended to attract the attention of the Selenites with the help of a giant trench in the Sahara desert. He intended to fill it with kerosene and set it on fire at night. It took 5 million cubic meters of gasoline to fill one kilometer of the trench. This, as in the first case, made the project unfeasible.
In 1869, the French poet Charles Crow proposed using a giant mirror to collect the sun's rays and direct them towards Mars. Crowe spent most of his life trying to get officials to implement his idea.
"World. Lenin. THE USSR"
The first message was sent on November 19, 1962 from the center of deep space communication in Evpatoria. It consisted of three words “Peace. Lenin. THE USSR". Formally, this was a test of equipment, but it seemed boring to scientists to send just signals, so a researcher at the IRE RAS suggested sending a romantic “Mir. Lenin. USSR" in Morse code.
The signal was successfully reflected from Venus and returned to Earth, but some of the information went into space and went to the constellation Libra (which contains three planets similar in structure to the Earth). So perhaps many light years from now we will get an alien “Uh, what?” response.
Message from Arecibo
The next message was sent in 1964 from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico (for which it got its name) to the constellation in the Hercules cluster. The authors of the message, Francis Drake (by the way, the author of the famous equation that allows you to calculate the number of planets in the Universe) and Carl Sagan (astronomer, exobiologist and the most famous popularizer of science in the West, such as Academician Kapitsa) encoded in it data on biochemistry, DNA structure, population Earth, the solar system and the Arecibo telescope itself. The message will reach potential recipients in 25 thousand years. And it will take the same amount of time to respond.
In 2001, in Hampshire (England), signs appeared on the fields repeating the message of Arecibo, only instead of a human figure, a humanoid with a large head (such as it is usually depicted in comics) was depicted. The authors of the Arecibo message said that the message in the margins is a clear fake, because everyone knows that any alien with even the slightest respect for himself will not leave messages in wheat, but will use the radio.
Message on Pioneer
Carl Sagan was the author of another message. In 1972 and 1973, anodized aluminum plates with a schematic representation of a man and a woman were sent aboard Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. Following this, Sagan was criticized for sending "obscenity" into space. We will be able to find out what aliens think about this in at least two million years, when the Pioneer reaches its destination - the brightest star of Taurus - Aldebaran.
Message on Voyager
In order to somehow smooth out the awkwardness from indecent pictures, in 1977 another message was sent into space - two gilded records, a phonograph, a needle for playing them, and instructions. If it happened today, we would have to add another user agreement, at the end of which the alien mind would have to put a tick.
The records contained Eastern and Western classical music (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky), dance music (Chuck Berry and Louis Armstrong). The disc also contains Georgian choral singing, ancient Chinese music and the singing of the peoples of New Guinea. Also, alien music lovers will hear the sounds of human speech and what you can find in the "Sounds of Nature" section: birdsong, the sound of the ocean, etc.
Over half a century of the space age, more than 500 people have been in space, and about 6,500 satellites have been launched into orbit. Man-made devices have studied all the planets of the solar system and reached its borders. But besides them, a number of rather unusual objects also visited space, which will be discussed today.
Luke Skywalker's lightsaber
Many people love star Wars” - and NASA, as you know, uses every opportunity to popularize its activities. No wonder they were destined to cross paths.
In 1999, the Space Shuttle Endeavor delivered Luke Skyukor's lightsaber into orbit, which was used on the set of " Return of the Jedi". The sword was given to the astronauts by Chewbacca himself, and they say that George Lucas personally watched the launch, accompanied by R2 D2 and Imperial stormtroopers
Fallen astronaut
An 8 cm aluminum figurine, symbolizing all the departed astronauts and cosmonauts, was placed on the Moon by the Apollo 15 crew. A plaque is left next to it, on which the following names are listed in the order of the letters of the English alphabet: Charles Basett, Pavel Belyaev, Roger Chaffee, George Dobrovolsky, Theodore Freeman, Yuri Gagarin, Edward Givens, Virgil Grissom, Vladimir Komarov, Victor Patsaev, Elliot See, Vladislav Volkov, Edward White, C.C. Williams.
Astrophilately
The history of space philately began in 1969, when after the docking of the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 spacecraft Evgeny Khrunov and Alexey Eliseev moved from ship to ship through outer space and handed Vladimir Shatalov the world's first space mail. Since then, the cancellation of envelopes has been repeatedly carried out in orbit, as well as the delivery and return to Earth of souvenir postal products, which were then eagerly bought up by collectors. One stamp was even placed on board the New Horizons probe, which is destined to leave the solar system forever and go to interstellar space. Presumably, it will be highly valued by alien philatelists.
But there is another rather scandalous story related to the crew of the same Apollo 15, who decided to combine business with pleasure - to fly to the moon, and at the same time earn some extra money. The astronauts, without the consent of their superiors, took with them 400 gift envelopes with stamps pasted on them and means for their cancellation. For a reward of $7,000, they were to hand over to a German businessman Herman Sieger 100 envelopes (but provided that he starts selling them not earlier than the end of the program), and keep 300 as souvenirs.
But the thirst for quick profit exceeded all agreements - not wanting to wait for the closure of the program, Sieger began trading in envelopes. Very soon, the media found out about this and a loud scandal erupted - the proceedings even reached Congress. As a result, the astronauts disappeared into the dungeons of the CIA, received disciplinary action, and none of them were allowed to fly into space again. The remaining envelopes were confiscated, but a few years later the crew was able to sue them. Now this philately is being sold by relatives of the astronauts for quite good money - a couple of years ago one of the envelopes was bought at an auction for $15,000.
historical items
Americans love historical continuity and therefore often launch into space objects full of symbolic meaning. For example, on board Apollo 11 was a piece of the Wright brothers' plane.
The Atlantis shuttle carried into space a piece of the same apple tree that inspired Newton to create the theory of gravity.
And on board the already mentioned probe "New Horizons" is a fragment of the hull of the first private spacecraft "SpaceShipOne". Finally, some parts of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers are made from the metal of the debris from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
religious items
Some might think that people flying into space should be less religious than the rest of the population - but this is not at all the case. For example, Alexander Skvortsov, commander of the Soyuz TMA-18 expedition, took a small icon with him into orbit. Astronaut Gennady Padalka said that “there is always an icon of the Kazan Mother of God at the station, moreover, almost every cosmonaut brings his home iconostasis into orbit.”
The American astronauts were also different. Member of the first moon landing Buzz Aldrin He was a believing Presbyterian, and therefore he took on a flight a communion cup and a card with the words written on it that must be said during the sacrament. As a result, Aldrin took communion during the flight, but did not announce it publicly.
The fact is that earlier an astronaut from the Apollo 8 spacecraft allowed himself to quote the Old Testament live. It is not difficult to guess that soon one of the viewers filed a lawsuit against NASA, accusing the organization of propagating religion. Later, the US Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit, saying that the case did not take place on the territory of the country, but in space - but nevertheless, all astronauts received a strict order from their superiors not to show their religious feelings in public during flights.
Paper airplane
If you follow the FAI standard, then 27 kilometers is still far from space. But for an airplane made of paper tubes and wrapped in special paper with a wingspan of 90 centimeters, this is a very decent result. Originally conceived for fun, the project “ PARIS” (short for “Paper Aircraft Released Into Space”) was implemented in October 2010 in Spain. Equipped with a camera and a GPS system, the aircraft was flown to the indicated altitude using a helium-filled balloon and then released, after which it flew 160 kilometers, taking a bunch of pictures along the way.
Toys
In addition to iconostases and other religious objects, Russian (and not only) cosmonauts often take their favorite toys with them on expeditions. For example, together with the commander of the Soyuz TMA-15 and the flight engineer of the 20th mission to the ISS Roman Romanenko his daughter's favorite smesharik flew to the station in a spacesuit. And the mascot of the Soyuz TMA-18 mission was a yellow-green plush duck, named Kwak by the crew members.
Plush talismans are needed not only to calm the cosmonauts - tied over the consoles of the Soyuz cosmonauts, they serve as weightlessness detectors (such detectors are also called "Boris"). Of course, the inhabitants of the ship are able to determine that gravity no longer has power over them even without "Boris" - but it is still more familiar with him.
Lego figures are also very popular. For example, three figures depicting the god Jupiter, his wife Juno and Galileo Galilei were sent to the real Jupiter on the Juno spacecraft.
Ruhnama
Ruhnama (also known as the Book of the Soul, the spiritual guide of the Turkmen people written by Saparmurat Niyazov) was sent into space in 2005, which was supposed to symbolize "Turkmenistan's participation in space activities."
True, it is said that with the advent of the new president, copies of the Ruhnama began to be rapidly withdrawn from all institutions of the country. So it is possible that by 2150, when the Rukhnama capsule is supposed to enter the atmosphere, the copy in it will be of much greater bibliographic value than it is now.
Golf balls
There are enough sports fans among space explorers. As a result, over the years, T-shirts, sports souvenirs, and even commemorative plaques from the stadium of your favorite team have already been in space. But most distinguished Alan Shepard. Before returning to the lunar module, he suddenly said that he "accidentally" found a pair of golf balls in the suit. After that, using one of the tools as a club, he began to try to strike. Due to the uncomfortable spacesuit, it was quite difficult to do this, but in the end he still managed to hit the ball, which flew off somewhere at 400 meters.
His partner was also seized by sports excitement, and before entering the module, he threw one of the racks of equipment, as if it were a spear.
human ashes
It is difficult to say how many people sincerely dream of going to space - millions, tens of millions? But on the other hand, you can say for sure how many succeeded - according to the FAI, by now, the list of people who have overcome the mark of 100 kilometers above sea level (which is considered the official boundary of outer space) includes 532 names.
But sometimes what is impossible to do in life is obtained after death. Officially, the practice of space burial began in 1997 when the Pegasus rocket launched a capsule with the ashes of 24 people into space, which stayed in orbit until 2002.
But the remains of some people were launched over even greater distances. So, the ashes of an astronomer Eugene Shoemaker now rests on the surface of the Moon, along with the debris of the Lunar Proscpector that brought it there. Ashes of the discoverer of Pluto Clyde Tombaugh is on board the New Horizons spacecraft (as everyone might have guessed, there is a whole collection of unusual objects on board) - and this means that he became the first person to be awarded an interstellar funeral.
But there is another, unverified story about a NASA engineer who secretly placed a capsule containing his best friend's ashes aboard the Mars Observer, which was launched to the Red Planet in 1992. It is clear that it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to establish the authenticity of the story, but in general it is quite touching. More details about her.
"Painting" by Damien Hirst
Can the calibration panel used for color correction of images be called a painting? If it's painted by an artist Damien Hirst then perhaps everything is possible. This panel was installed on the Beagle 2 lander, which landed on Mars on December 25, 2003 ... after which communication with it was lost. But as images from orbit show, the craft itself was not damaged, and the problem was likely caused by a hardware failure.
So, the "painting" is somewhere on Mars - and it must be assumed that by the time one of the people manages to get to it, its price will become truly astronomical.
If earthlings had a chance to send a message to other inhabitants of outer space, what would they write? What would you say about life on Earth? How would you explain who we are? These are not hypothetical questions. In the summer of 2014 humanity will have a chance to send a message to distant worlds.
NASA specialists have agreed to download digital messages and send them into interstellar space using the New Horizons spacecraft.
Jon Lomberg and Albert Yu-Min Lin, leaders of the new New Horizons Message Initiative, announced the news at a festival in Washington DC.
Which messages will go into space will be determined later depending on the overall picture that participants from all over the planet will form. Messages will begin broadcasting some time after New Horizons circles Pluto in 2015 and sends data collected during the flight to Earth (this will take about another year, since the signal will be very long).
If all goes according to plan, New Horizons will be the fifth man-made object to cross the edge of the solar system. Its predecessors were Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, as well as Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. All vehicles carried messages for aliens that they could theoretically encounter during their journey. So, aluminum plates with symbolic information about a person, the Earth and its location were fixed on board the Pioneers, and the Voyagers sent into space a gold information plate packed in an aluminum case with a recording of sound and video signals.
Recall that the launch of the New Horizons probe was carried out on January 19, 2006, and in 2007 the device already flew past Jupiter.
Lomberg, who worked with Carl Sagan on the Voyager gold record in 1977, came up with the new idea. He created a website with a petition to NASA, which by February 2014 was signed by 10,000 people from more than 140 countries. According to Lomberg, people are much more interested in being participants in such significant events than just witnesses.
Lomberg plans to send a global self-portrait into space. Any earthling will be able to upload potential content (images, sounds or data in any other format). There will also be a vote, during which it will be determined which messages will go on a trip.
Any person who has access to the Internet will be able to participate in the project, although the project team also plans to study the opinions of groups of people who do not have access to the Web. This will help to compile the most accurate statistics.
The "self-portrait" of our planet will take about 100 MB of memory and will be transferred to the onboard computer of the spacecraft. True, the data can only be sent after the New Horizons probe frees up its memory by sending information about Pluto to Earth in 2015.
By the way, the download of the message may be delayed if the device flies past a space object in the Kuiper belt. In this case, you will have to collect data about him, and the scientific component of the mission is still a priority.
What will happen next with the device and whether it will eventually deliver information to aliens, of course, is unknown. Theoretically, it will be somewhere in outer space and maybe even. However, cosmic radiation could damage New Horizons' electronic memory. In this case, the collected messages will not be as durable as the messages attached to the Voyagers and Pioneers.
However, the likelihood that the messages will ever find their addressees is generally extremely small. Even if aliens really exist, there is no guarantee that they will see something the size of a piano in the sky, then be able to parse the message, and even gain any access to the on-board computer of the device. In addition, even if the inhabitants of extraterrestrial civilizations manage to get our messages out of the memory of the probe, there is even less chance that they will be able to understand them.
Be that as it may, hope dies last. And, most likely, a considerable number of earthlings will take part in the New Horizons Message Initiative project.
