by Matthew Bodner
Just over 30 years after the Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik 1, the nation that opened the space race stood on the precipice of a second golden age of space exploration. A major program, the Energia heavy booster rocket and the Buran space shuttle, was nearing completion — making its maiden flight in November 1988.
Another three decades later, on the 60th anniversary of Sputnik 1, the Russian space program is a shadow of its Soviet predecessor. The Energia-Buran project, its last major accomplishment, flew just once before the fall of communism gutted Moscow’s space program. For nearly three decades now, the Russian space industry has been in a state of triage, teetering on collapse.
But the Russian space program has consistently defied the dire predictions of those foretelling an imminent end to the program. Today, amid a major effort to reform and reorganize the Russian space industry under the new Roscosmos state corporation, there are signs that the bleeding has been slowed. But major questions about Russia’s future in space linger.
“Russia’s space industry is in deep crisis,” says Pavel Luzin, a Russian space industry expert and CEO of research startup Under Mad Trends. “We are able to maintain some of our capabilities, especially military ones, but without significant reforms we will be unable to go further. Soon, Russia will face a choice: either change itself or lose its space capabilities.”
http://spacenews.com/60-years-after-sputnik-russia-is-lost-in-space/
