Space is a classic childhood dream. It is then that the kids will find out what it is like to work under the command of militant old men, for 20 thousand rubles, with a ban on leaving and under the seal of secrecy. But a dream is a dream, and looking into the black emptiness, the heart is still overflowing with romance.
The popularizers of space, whom we love to read here, also face an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, we must talk about beauty, unexplored and craving. On the other hand, about political squabbles and who has slipped where.
We invited Vitaly Egorov to discuss all this on the podcastZelenyikot... Below are his monologues about everything related to modern space.
Space is inseparable from politics
In part, I try to avoid it. But in general, space is an integral part of politics. All manned space exploration is politics. Gagarin's flight is politics. Flying to the moon is politics. The International Space Station is not science, it is politics. This is solely a demonstration of the superiority of one country over another. If we compare the ISS and, for example, the Large Hadron Collider, the collider produced one and a half times more scientific publications, while costing 10 times less.
Piloted astronautics is comparable to big sports. The Olympics are not a healthy lifestyle. There, people retire at the age of 35. But it still has serious state support, serious funding, because it is a demonstration of excellence: "Our of your ran away - then we are all cooler than you." In space, about the same.
Applied astronautics - not like that. Satellites fly there, take pictures of the Earth, buy pictures. It brings income and benefits to people.
But fundamental space research, manned space exploration - it does not have a direct effect on our lives. No matter how many medical experiments are made in space, a magical space medicine has never been invented. Research continues, yes, there is a lot of science in space, but this is not the motivation for governments.
Space race and confrontation between America and Russia is long gone
Now we are not chasing America. There was competition for commercial launches, but it is almost lost. Musk launches rockets and commercial satellites; Roscosmos launches.
And competition in manned space exploration, where there used to be a "moon race", is not there. Despite the fact that we still have rhetoric pouring from the TV and from Rogozin: “Ha ha! Americans fly on our engines! But we will turn them off for them now. " This is not! There is no race! Russia and America have been cooperating for a long time.
Many do not believe me, but in the 90s - they simply forgot about it now - America saved our astronautics. Almost all the pride that our astronautics have is the merit of America, which paid for the preservation of our potential. In the late 2000s, our budget regained the ability to pull this off, and it began: “And we have a piece of the ISS! And we have the Soyuz ships! And we have RD-180! ”,“ Protons ”occupied our 60 percent of the space market”. And they try to keep quiet about the fact that they were launched through an American company.
Now there is a lot of talk about Sea Launch. Nobody says that this is the American space company Sea Launch. All this was done in the 90s through the efforts of the US State Department, whose task was to preserve Russia's missile competence. So that our hungry engineers don't go to Iran, Iraq, North Korea and other "friendly" America countries. And America was interested in preserving our astronautics. And after that, our saved space program begins to declare that "Americans cannot do anything without us."
Rogozin did the most for Musk in Russia
The man who did a lot for Musk, for the development of his projects and for state support for Musk within the United States is Dmitry Rogozin. When Rogozin is fired from Roscosmos, Musk will have to pay him a "golden parachute", because no one has done so much for Musk in Russia - neither the Green Cat, who popularizes SpaceX flights, nor the authors of the SpaceX public in Russian.
He helped with the very rhetoric. When the Russians worked with the Americans, everyone was fine. When the Russians started saying that the Americans were dependent on the Russians, the Americans said, “Okay. So who is there with us? Mask? You have several billion on you. Who else? "Boeing"? And you are worth several billions. " And that's all, the problem was closed. Not right away, of course. For several years, this dependence on the RD-180 remained.
RD-180 - cool engines, they would buy and buy, if ours were silent about it. And the Americans would fly them calmly, and pay billions more for dozens of these engines. But we started playing "turn off your gas". As a result, the Americans took, made engines on methane, and they no longer need these RD-180s, despite all their reliability. Played out in propaganda.
East is a good spaceport, but there are problems
Vostochny is a normal cosmodrome. Another thing is that they drank it - 10 percent only according to official data went somewhere to the side. But in this regard, I look at the practical result.
There is such an example - the Menshikov Palace in St. Petersburg, a beautiful museum on the embankment of the Neva. And now who cares - how much dough was taken away by this Menshikov, in order to build this palace among other things. Now it is a beautiful palace in the center of St. Petersburg and is a monument to Russian corruption. But it is also a beautiful monument.
And to hell with him, with this money that was taken away in the East. We wouldn't have given them to us anyway. The main thing is that there is a cosmodrome, and rockets fly from it. This is a really nice modern spaceport. But East itself is also politics. It is needed so that we do not have pressure on Baikonur.
Baikonur covers all Russia's space needs. But if he is alone, someone (well, first of all, Kazakhstan, of course) will have the opportunity to screw on the tap or at least threaten him. And now we say: “Well, guys, we are not afraid. You can block us here, we will stop paying you $ 100 million a year for rent, we’ll just leave for Vostochny. ”
Technically, our cosmonautics is unable to completely go to Vostochny. People cannot be launched from there, heavy rockets cannot be launched from there, so Baikonur is still needed.
Astronautics depends on the railways of Tsarist times
If you look at the modules of the International Space - the modules of the Americans are more "pot-bellied". This is because ours must fit into the railroad gauge.
There is such an old bike that our astronautics there is determined by the width of four horse's butts on a Roman road. The Americans also have details that depend on the size of the "four horse ass", but for us this is more relevant. And here for the "East" the relevance of the railway gauge is exactly the same as for Baikonur. When Energia was being built, it was transported by air. And in this, in general, there was no noticeable limitation either.
The modern superheavy rocket that Roskosmos plans to build fits into the railway gauge; it can be safely transported to the Vostochny through the same tunnels.
But if you read the justification of the "East", everything seemed much more romantic. That not only launching pads will be moved, but also production ones. It was a whole complex program for the development of the Far East region. But the rationale is not always the same as the result.
What programmers should do in astronautics
People can choose what they want - to do space exploration for 20, 30 - even 60 thousand rubles - or write applications for the phone, make games and everything else.
I do not urge you to go to astronautics. Once a man wrote to me, I followed his activities from the time when he was still a schoolboy, was interested in astronautics. And he wrote to me: “Here, I’m finishing studying at the institute. Where should I go? Tell me which Roscosmos enterprise will help me realize my thirst for space. ” I say: "Listen, go to science."
In science, we have several working groups, laboratories that conduct quite interesting research. Right now, a device is crawling on Mars on an American rover. At the same time, they pay normally there. They understand that good young promising professionals need to pay normally. They fight for it, knock out new grants. And young specialists there have normal salaries. Well, not comparable, probably, with the salary at Yandex, but still higher than at the enterprise where it will be necessary to turn nuts.
Do you want to do astronautics while remaining an IT-guy? Yes please. There are companies - startups including - that are engaged in the processing of space data. There are private space companies. The beauty of private astronautics is that you do not need to be an astronaut or go as a junior assistant to a junior locksmith, to carry keys for him for 10 years, so that you can be allowed to screw a nut on a spacecraft worth several billion rubles. Private astronautics makes it possible to realize your interest in space in broader ways than 10-20 years ago.
The same Musk - why is it popular with IT-schnicks? Because he's an IT guy himself. Because he showed how an IT-person can realize his interest in space, while remaining an IT-person. After all, astronautics is 50 percent programming.
Life support system - it needs to be programmed. Ballistics of flight - it needs to be programmed. Engine operating modes are all the work of the programmer. It's all IT.
Scientists do not like popularization, but in vain
There is such a "Sagan effect", when a scientist starts to popularize, other scientists stop treating him as a scientist. And it is very difficult to maintain the activities of a scientist, while actively engaged in popularization. Not everyone succeeds in sitting on two chairs - either a scientist or a popularizer.
I used to think that here I am so cool, I popularize astronautics, science. Probably scientists should appreciate it. And they were like, “You’ll turn everything over there. Yes, these scientific journalists will always weave something. You, popularizers, do not meddle at all. Here we are in science, this is an ivory tower, and we feel good here. ”
But it seems to me that it was just among scientists that it began to wear off a bit (among Russians, at least) after the reform of the Academy of Sciences. When the Academy of Sciences began to be cleaned, scientists began to protest, and several dozen people supported them. The rest are like, “Mmm, Russian science? What have you been doing all these 20 years? Where, where is our Russian science? I’m using the product of American science, Chinese science - telephone, television. Where is your science? Where is Russian? Here you are complaining that you are being deprived of your property. And, actually, what have you been doing there for 20 years on this property? "
And after that, it seems to me, scientists realized that it was impossible without contact with society, without explanation of what they were doing. That we live in a different world. This is no longer the Soviet Union, where you wrote some justification in the Politburo, and you are financing for 20 years. There, an already honored scientist has long gone into another world, and funding is still in progress.
Now everything works differently, science should make contact with society. And here it is just - either to engage in popularization ourselves, or to resort to the help of popularizers.
With the same theme of “The Moon Conspiracy,” they say to me: “Better not touch this topic!” It's just some freaks out there who think that the Americans did not fly to the moon. " According to VTsIOM, 57 percent of the Russian population (well, at least those surveyed by VTsIOM) believe that the Americans were not on the moon. This is not such an original point of view, but scientists or cosmonauts do not want to discuss this topic and even sit down at the same negotiating table with the most active supporters of the theory of the "Lunar Conspiracy". Because this is really a devaluation of the title of a scientist, the title of an astronaut. And they don’t do it - absolutely right. And I'm a blogger. I can. I can calmly take a scientific opinion, talk with a scientist, study scientific research, and I can already argue on this topic.
What can reduce a blogger's authority? Only a deputy is worse than a blogger, so I can. And in doing so, I try to be scientific and present scientific evidence. Therefore, I see a certain meaning in popularization. Let not all scientists appreciate it.
Why should a person fly into space at all, if it’s good here
Cosmonautics, fundamental physics - they all face the same question: “Why do you need this? We already have a good life already. What for?"
We will fly into space, there we will find answers on how to move forward. But, in fact, we have already found a place to dig. Found manifestations of dark matter and dark energy. Found it with the help of astronautics, including the Hubble Space Telescope.
And now we understand that there is much more. Not even what's there. Everywhere. What is here and what is there is one and the same universe, and there is much more in this universe that we don't even know a fig about. And how to study it? We can continue to crush subatomic particles here, but we can observe it from space on a large scale.
The point of flying there does not appear because we will right now find gold-diamond deposits on the Moon or some turbine on Mars, but because we already know that the cosmos that we know and the cosmos into which we can fly, and in general, in principle, everything, all the matter that surrounds us is, damn it, five percent of everything else! That is, everything that we see, the entire Universe that we observe there, whether we look through a microscope or we look up through a telescope - all this is five percent. And everything else - hell knows what it is! And how we can use this to our advantage, we also do not understand. And perhaps it is astronautics that will help find this answer. That is, we know where to dig. We know that not everything is known yet and there is an idea of where else to move.
I have no annoyance, as, for example, Ray Bradbury over the fact that "we exchanged flights to Mars for iPhone." The iPhone is a useful thing. With its help, you can do a lot - and move scientific and technological progress as well. I have a normal attitude towards the desire of people to live well - and if our science also satisfies the ability of people to live well, while people living well develop science and technology much better, why not?
Of course, yes, I know about the manicure service for dogs and cats and the like, which would seem to be a completely irrational use of the resources of human civilization, but we have such a civilization, there is no other. And maybe this is what makes us so aspiring and developing forward. What opportunities we have, we are letting that happen.
It is sometimes said that people spend a lot on war. Well, war gives a serious impetus to the development of science and technology. War (and religion too) is part of our nature, it has persecuted all of humanity all the time.
I myself am an atheist, but I do not stop people from believing in anyone. I think this is normal because every person should have faith. I believe in the omnipotence of man. Someone is more pleasant to believe in the omnipotence of a bearded man in heaven. And we have no rational evidence of either my faith or his faith. But it still determines our actions. Yes and let.
If we cut off the ability to fight and believe in our brain, it will no longer be a human being. And this person may no longer be building rockets, because - why? I don't need to prove my superiority over my neighbor. And that’s it. We will have neither astronautics, nor much of anything else, which we are proud of now, rejoice and pin some hopes on further development. Let the person be what he is.
All video conversation here
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