Posts tagged as:

Space

Russia to build Space Base in Cuba

September 19, 2008

Russia has begun discussions about building a space center in Cuba.

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Russian Space Shuttle Buran sails the Rhine

April 12, 2008

Pictures and video of the Russian space shuttle Buran, as it is sailed down the Rhine to its final resting place in a German museum.

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Russia sells space toilet to NASA for $19 million

July 9, 2007

According to Gizmodo, NASA is to buy $19 million dollars worth of space toilets from Russia:
So apparently NASA has agreed to purchase toilet technology from the Russian company RSC Energia for the tidy sum of $19 million, to be delivered to the ISS in 2008 in preparation for a crew upsizing from three to six [...]

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What’s Google Maps hiding?

April 11, 2007

The image below is from Google Maps.
Notice the blur in the middle? I didn’t put it there – Google did. Click on this link to check for yourself.
Then scroll out a bit, using the controls of the left of the screen. Notice anything else?

Yep – the blurred out area is in the Russian Far East.
Anyone [...]

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Space Cadets

December 3, 2005

The latest reality show to hit British tv is Space Cadets. A group of contestants are to be conned into thinking they are going on a space mission.
Most people interested in space know that Russia is the home of space tourism. So, even though these people are being hand-picked for their own special [...]

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Captain Kirk in Irkutsk

October 10, 2005

One of the joys of writing siberianlight.net is the random stuff I find while searching the net. Take this piece of Star Trek fan-fiction I found today on Technorati, for example, in which Capain Kirk takes a trip down memory lane and (almost) visits Siberia’s finest city:
“That is correct, Colonel. Our captain has been [...]

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Closed cities from the inside

October 10, 2005

Last week I wrote about the disgraceful number of closed cities in Russia, another of those leftovers from an anarchic age that Russia remains addicted to, despite (or perhaps because of) the restrictions it places on the human rights of their 1.7 million residents.
In a rather timely decision, the BBC have just decided [...]

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Problems for the Russian space industry

October 10, 2005

Following the loss of a European Space Agency satellite – Cryosat – that was designed to map polar ice, the Russian Space Agency has suspended all flights using the Rokot booster system.
The rocket’s second stage failed to separate following the launch and the Cryosat satellite fell into the Arctic Ocean, Russian and European [...]

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Space = money

October 2, 2005

A couple of space related stories from Mosnews have caught my eye over the last couple of days, mainly because they show brilliantly the new face of Russian science – it’s all about the money. True, I guess that’s ultimately what most science is about – even space science from outfits like NASA – [...]

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Russia to join forces with European Space Agency

August 23, 2005

Looks like Russia and the European Space Agency (ESA) could be working together to develop the Kliper (Clipper) space shuttle: 
It’s all but official—Russia and Europe will soon embark on a cooperative effort to build a next-generation manned space shuttle. Speaking at the Paris Air Show, in Le Bourget, France, in June, Russian space [...]

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Darth Lavrov

July 29, 2005

Mosnews – who else? – reports on Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s barnstorming Darth Vader skit at the latest ASEAN conference party (yes, they really know how to party at these conferences):
Wearing a dark brown cape and hood (Darth Vader’s heavy breathing was difficult to create in the low-budget production), Lavrov brandished a lighted [...]

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To the moon (and back)

July 27, 2005

The Guardian reports that Russia’s space agency has announced it is ready to take tourists not just into space, but to the moon (and back).  The cost?  A staggering $100 million.
Roskosmos leaked details of the project as Nasa’s space shuttle Discovery prepared for launch from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. A source at the [...]

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