Excerpts from the transcript of the discourse

February 28, 2001 Mission Control Center, Korolev

	About raising space station MIR orbit
Yu.N. KOPTEV:	Some people suggest: "Let's use this logistics vehicle to boost the orbit, then we'll have two months to make a decision". This brings up the question: what decision? Are we going to gain anything new in these two months, when we have been working this problem since 1997? Given the condition of the station, the next launch will have to be made in April. The results of the trajectory analysis are known to many. And the results are such that even a large logistics vehicle can only raise the orbit by 50 kilometers. In order to get to a parking orbit, that is, an orbit, which would guarantee several years of survival, we would need more than one such vehicle. Let's assume, theoretically, the following procedure: we'll build a new core module. And to maintain the station in orbit, while the core module is being built, we'll raise the orbit. This would require at least 5 to 6 logistics vehicles. The current cost of launching one logistic vehicle is about 300 million rubles. In all fairness, I would like to remind you that when the Council of Chief Designers was reviewing all these problems on October 3, among the issues reviewed were all the necessary plans: how to lay out the further program. And, quite reasonably, they raised the issue of the need to perform certain procedures, namely: a decision must be made at the Government level, a Directive must be released, funds must be allocated, and so forth.
	Does the option of replacing MIR core module make sense?
Yu.N. KOPTEV:	A new core module can be built. The average estimate is that it'll take 4 to 5 years. If you recall how long it took to build previous modules, it takes considerably longer than that. The cost of a core module is on the order of 200 to 300 million dollars. And since we address this issue, this brings up a question: why should we do this? If we are so rich and we have the means, let's build a new space station. Or, at least, let's meet our commitments towards International Space Station, which, by the way, we don't meet too well. Where do you think the Government is leaning towards, what with the currently available budget?
	About governmental support for the work needed to complete MIR operation
Yu.N. KOPTEV:	The fact that in the end of 1999 the State Duma was planning to allocate 1.5 billion rubles to MIR, and we, allegedly, turned down this offer, is being constantly overplayed. The Duma did "allocate" for year 2000 1.5 billion rubles under a line item, which presupposed getting income from turnover of military and dual-application intellectual property. That line item allocated 9 billion rubles for replenishment of the budget; then for general military technologies; and the rest (1.5 billion rubles) for MIR program. Now, in all that year they collected a mere 90 million rubles under that line item, and therefor, we could never get 1.5 billion rubles under that line item. That's how that "great" line item was working.
	On the development of the MIR situation over the last few years
Yu.P. SEMENOV:	For the most part, I agree with what Yuri Koptev has just said. But I disagree with his statements that everything is breaking down on-board MIR, that everything there is past its useful service life, and with the way he twice made reference to Khrunichev. We have here in this room a representative of MirCorporation. This organization was established in 1999 and invested 25 million dollars into MIR. We did not just use this money to send one more crew to the space station. We had a program, which said that, provided a certain amount of additional funds is invested, the space station operation could be extended for a few years. That's why to make references to the fact that Khrunichev did not provide a certificate for MIR structural elements is, to put it mildly, incorrect, since Khrunichev has been issuing the certificates in question for ISS. And that organization did not issue certificates for MIR only because we did not have the money to pay them for the certification. I can earnestly confirm that all the things that we were planning to do and did with MirCorp, which planned to operate the space station in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, were correct. But our plans were not to be because we had only 25 million dollars, and as a result we had to leave the space station flying in unmanned mode. I can guarantee you that, if there had been a crew on-board now, none of you would have ever noticed all those malfunctions that are occurring there now, because over the 15-year period we had similar situations, sometimes even more difficult. Let me remind you, for example, that when our propulsion system completely failed, we repaired it and extended the life of the space station. We had a lot of off-nominal situations. And we always successfully recovered. That's why when they say that today we are in a difficult situation, I fully agree. But the meaning of these words is somewhat different, because we arrived at the current situation due to a lack of funds. And that's why I, as a technical manager, signed the documents that Yurii Nikolaevich [Koptev] was talking about, because today we no longer have any other way out of the situation. I'll tell you one thing: if we just leave the space station alone and hope for the best, the President, the Duma and the Government will have the right to ask the technical management: "And where were you?" Today the Council of Chief Designers, the technical management of the Russian space programs can say with a safe conscience: "We have been talking and warning about the possibility of such situation since 1997". I could put together volumes of our petitions saying that we are losing "the pride of our nation" because of the lack of governmental support and regular funding from the budget. We addressed, among other people, [the Duma Speaker] Seleznev. There was a meeting at Seleznev's office. There were appeals from Seleznev to Yeltsin, Yeltsin gave orders, and so on and so forth. I'm not going to recount all this (It's quite a large tome! And we can actually produce it!). But all our appeals went unheeded. Now we all have been forced to come to a common decision. And today we are working on taking the station off orbit in a civilized manner, without harming anyone. But such a probability still exists. There are problems with control system on-board the station, the kind of problems we had in December. All indications are that this problems are linked, first of all, to the need of quick decision-making and recovery from the current situation in order to implement the adopted program.
	Appraisal of the movement to save MIR
Yu.P. SEMENOV:	The fact that all the public, the entire political community rose to the defense of MIR as the pride of the nation inspires my respect. This is true. But I don't quite understand why some funds are still raising money to save MIR when the final phase of the space station operation including its de-orbiting is already being implemented.
	About the role of manned space flight
Yu.P. SEMENOV:	I said this in the Duma and I repeat it now: manned space flight always leads the way. Whatever some people might say, this remains the most knowledge-intensive field of human endeavor, which works like an engine pulling all the other fields after itself. I can put it this way: The company that works on manned space flight is now capable of building launch vehicles. It is now capable of building systems of state-of-the-art satellites with service life of 10 to 15 years for communications, Earth remote sensing, navigation, and so on. It is capable of building an advanced Sea Launch system for launching space satellites from the surface of the ocean, and a lot of other things. No other branch of space industry will be able to do this at the level that meets the requirements of the modern world market for space services. Let's take as an example the Glonass system. This is the navigation system advocated by Yuri Nikolaevich [Koptev]. It must consist of 24 satellites, but currently only 12 are in orbit. What do you think, can you deploy such a 24-satellite system, if the satellites have a 3-year service life? Have you ever seen such satellites elsewhere? Nobody will ever be able to deploy and successfully operate a system of such satellites in orbit. Manned space flight is the field of activity, which pulls the other fields up to its own level, creating new technologies and directly affecting the development of all other fields of human endeavor.
	About continuing problems with providing funds for manned space flight
Yu.P. SEMENOV:	We have "slept away" the opportunity to save MIR. Now it's too late. We are now on the brink of dropping out of the ISS project. Not because we'll be expelled, but because we need 3 billion rubles, and we are only promised 1.4 billion. Moreover, this is only to compensate for the 937 million rubles of costs that we incurred last year to build long-lead items. For example, logistics vehicle Progress M-44, which has just docked with the International Space Station was built exclusively at the expense of RSC Energia. Current Rosaviacosmos payments are, for the most part, scanty and don't even cover current costs. That's what we've got to be thinking about. We've got to address the issue of manned space flight development in Russia in principle. If we are such patriots, we've got to make a decision on what we are going to do next. That's what we've got to be thinking about. Progress M-44 was built and is operated at the RSC Energia's expense. For the next logistics vehicle, which will be launched in April, only 80% of the costs have been covered by Rosaviacosmos. For the vehicle after that only 2.6 million rubles have been paid while the total cost of each vehicle is 180 million rubles. That's how we live under ISS program. Nobody is going to expel us from the ISS project. The Americans can't expel us in principle. Because if the next month we don't launch the vehicle for which Rosaviacosmos has paid 178 million rubles (but hasn't yet paid up the total sum of 230 million), the crew will have to be evacuated from the space station. And this will be the end for the long-duration missions to ISS. And this will be the end for the whole Space Station project! Why? Because the Space Station requires propellant deliveries, and propellant can only be delivered on-board Progresses. ISS can't be operated without manned spacecraft Soyuz TM either, because they assure the space station crew safety at all times when the Space Shuttle is away. At present, there are no other vehicles, which could replace Progress and Soyuz spacecraft. Production cycle for the vehicles is two years. And production program to support their launch to ISS in 2001 has not yet been paid. As a result, all the memories of lost opportunities will only remain on the pages of newspapers. If there is no cash flow, that'll be it for ISS.