How is this possible? (New Roscosmos space capsule)

[fredinno]

https://www.rt.com/news/329949-federation-spacecraft-cheaper-dragon/

Quote

Russia intends to spend three and a half times less than NASA on a new-generation manned spacecraft designed to replace the Soyuz family. The craft will rival the Dragon 2 being developed by America’s SpaceX corporation.

According to the new budget being requested by Roscosmos from the Russian government, the construction of the “Federation” reusable piloted spacecraft will cost 58 billion rubles (US$734 million) over the next six years.

The sum requested is 3.5 times less than what NASA is spending to develop its SpaceX Dragon 2 delivery vehicle, which was allocated $2.6 billion in 2014. In fact, the new research and development budget runs 8 billion rubles ($101 million) less than was planned last year.

How does it intend to spend so little, especially since the PPTS is more like Orion than anything else?

[Spaceception]

Just now, fredinno said:

https://www.rt.com/news/329949-federation-spacecraft-cheaper-dragon/

How does it intend to spend so little, especially since the PPTS is more like Orion than anything else?

I guess it shows how much better capitalism is

In all seriousness, I'm quite intrigued to see what their manned Moon program looks like.

it does look cool though.

[Elthy]

I assume the cost of labor is way, way lower in russia compared to the USA. And noone can say how much more expensive it will become over the years, public projects rarely stay within budget, no matter which nation. Also dont forget RT is russias propaganda channel for people living in other countrys, so maybe they want to implement the thought "if russia can do it cheaper, its propably corruption in the USA that makes it expensive" or similar...

[Mikki]

57 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

I guess it shows how much better capitalism is

Sure. Have you ever seen soviet/russian engineering/technology yourself?
Its not like Hollywood suggests. Its much better .

[lajoswinkler]

1 minute ago, Mikki said:

Sure. Have you ever seen soviet/russian engineering/technology yourself?
Its not like Hollywood suggests. Its much better .

It's not what it used to be. Days of Soviet union are long gone. Even their universities are crumbling under stupidity and corruption.

[fredinno]

17 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

It's not what it used to be. Days of Soviet union are long gone. Even their universities are crumbling under stupidity and corruption.

So are the western world's under PC culture.

[lajoswinkler]

20 minutes ago, fredinno said:

So are the western world's under PC culture.

I think you're suffering from the "it's not Western, therefore it must be better" syndrome. Really, things are pretty bad there. Westerners can be lucky.

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

How does it intend to spend so little, especially since the PPTS is more like Orion than anything else?

Because power points and press releases are cheap.  And that's all you're going to see from this program.

[Exclipse]

I did not see a whole lot of innovation in their concept, basically Apollo.

 

The Dragon II is designed with the ability to land under it's own power, which is revolutionary, and can use chutes as a backup.

[tater]

RT is not a reliable news source, BTW, it's a government organ. Russia has some very capable people, but I'd be inclined to discuss it once it's flying (or at least testing).

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

22 minutes ago, Exclipse said:

I did not see a whole lot of innovation in their concept, basically Apollo.

 

The Dragon II is designed with the ability to land under it's own power, which is revolutionary, and can use chutes as a backup.

Theirs does have propulsive landing, and i don't get their plan either.

[K^2]

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

So are the western world's under PC culture.

Can't speak for Europe. US has a pretty bad school-level education, but starting with University it picks up. Sure, most graduate students in good schools are from abroad, but they finish their education in US and they stay to work in US.

It'd be nice if US fixed their K-12, then we wouldn't need to import so many engineers. But there are a lot of qualified people working in aerospace. I cannot say the same thing about modern Russia. Most of their qualified engineers are pushing retirement age. And there are no replacements. Education system doesn't produce nearly enough, and of these many leave the country for better income in US and Europe. And Russia can't afford to import enough engineers.

I have no idea what the plan is with Federation, but I'd be shocked if it comes to fruition.

Edited March 14, 2016 by K^2

[Exclipse]

2 hours ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

Theirs does have propulsive landing, and i don't get their plan either.

There is a huge difference between what theirs "has" and the Dragon II has. The Dragon II has the ability to direct itself while landing under power, and even hover. The Russian concept capsule has the same rocket blast that the current Soyuz capsule has, which is a last second retro rocket fire just before impact to slow it to acceptable speeds because the chutes are not enough when dealing with a ground landing as opposed to water.

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, Exclipse said:

There is a huge difference between what theirs "has" and the Dragon II has. The Dragon II has the ability to direct itself while landing under power, and even hover. The Russian concept capsule has the same rocket blast that the current Soyuz capsule has, which is a last second retro rocket fire just before impact to slow it to acceptable speeds because the chutes are not enough when dealing with a ground landing as opposed to water.

There is not point, there is plenty of land for the capsule to land in, and the abort system being used is conventional. Dragon V2 only uses the propulsive landings as it needs them for aborts. This is also a lunar capsule, so reducing mass is key.

[Nibb31]

5 hours ago, Exclipse said:

There is a huge difference between what theirs "has" and the Dragon II has. The Dragon II has the ability to direct itself while landing under power, and even hover. The Russian concept capsule has the same rocket blast that the current Soyuz capsule has, which is a last second retro rocket fire just before impact to slow it to acceptable speeds because the chutes are not enough when dealing with a ground landing as opposed to water.

Yet Dragon 2 will only be using parachutes on its CCDev flights, it probably won't be reused (reusability is pointless when you fly less than 10 times) and nobody knows if it will fly again when the ISS is gone.

[11of10]

It's a paper vehicle, until it's built, we won't know what it can actually do and how much it actually costs. 

[Dkmdlb]

$2.6 billion isn't the cost of Dragon V2 development. It's the price of the CCtCap contract for SpaceX to carry astronauts to the ISS aboard Dragon. 

[A35K]

 

On 3/15/2016 at 10:26 AM, mikegarrison said:

If you go to almost any aviation museum in the world, you will see a F-86 on display next to a MiG-15. The two airplanes look much the same and of course were famous rivals in the skies over Korea. The striking difference is that the F-86 looks like it came out of an almost modern airplane factory, while the MiG-15 when seen up close looks like it was built in somebody's garage. You can see the handwork and the hammer marks.

Well, of course they were built in a much more DIY and cheaper manner than Western aircraft, but that does not make them worse.

[Mikki]

37 minutes ago, A35K said:

...Well, of course they were built in a much more DIY and cheaper manner than Western aircraft, but that does not make them worse.

It is not a matter of the look outside at all. For example, everyone who knows about the soviet/ russian jetengines and other powerplants and compares them to other concepts, well, i dunno. Maybe read a book about unicorns and fireflys.

Its not like (Western minds): "It should have the best affordable performance with the cheapest priceworthiest currently on the market accessible and provided compounds within a estimated timeframe of (insert fantasynumber) years/decades untill delivery to our so beloved customers which we don`t know actually, or in the worst case, which won`t buy any, huh."

Its more (Eastern minds): "We build a well functioning machine, with reasonable compounds, end of debate."

I have lots of good friends in russia and western europe, btw. I personally love some french engineering, they got "char".

[Darnok]

Quote

How is this possible?

So you think that US is best of the best and they are able to make cheapest and the best things until end of times?

If no, then I don't understand why it is so strange that somebody could beat them.

[AngelLestat]

They may be lying a bit about the final cost, besides the final cost always increase from previously planned.
But is not shocking for me, in fact, I guess Elon Musk was jumping of joy when NASA give him more than 2 billions for the dragon v2 development.
Of course it does not look much vs 5 billions than Boing receive for the same task, but the true is that all current space cost can be highly reduced if you do the things right.
This Federation ship does not have nothin fancy more than a soft landing to allow reusability.
I always was very critical on the orion cost, that should not be the normal cost of space ships, so when more people realize that, more pressure will receive nasa to make the things in a more efficient way next time.
If the Federation ship is finish with less than 1.5 billion, it will represent a huge slap to the Orion case. 

Edited March 16, 2016 by AngelLestat

[Butterbar]

It's Russia Today, which is a pretty biased source considering that it's funded by the Russian government (Of course they want to present themselves in a better light than the pesky Americans).  Unless some other source like BBC confirms this, it's doubtful.  

[wumpus]

On 3/14/2016 at 2:22 PM, fredinno said:

https://www.rt.com/news/329949-federation-spacecraft-cheaper-dragon/

How does it intend to spend so little, especially since the PPTS is more like Orion than anything else?

You also might want to look at the Space Shuttle procurement.  That whole fiasco of budgeting was done entirely before political correctness (and the rise of young earth creationism and other superstitions being taught as "science").  It is simply how NASA (and the US government in general and the military industrial complex in particular) works.

[GeneralVeers]

On 3/14/2016 at 3:28 PM, DerekL1963 said:

Because power points and press releases are cheap.  And that's all you're going to see from this program.

I'm thinking the same thing here. Nobody specified that Russia's incredibly cheap reusable rocket will actually work........

[Windspren]

Considering that it's from a Russian government owned news source, it seems more like propaganda to me. Plus, the Dragon V2's cost was not n.5 billion; that was the money that NASA gave them as part of the commercial ISS resupply contract.