Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Novosibirsk State University –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Vladimir Surdin's lecture, delivered as part of the "Darwin Week" popular science marathon at Novosibirsk State University, generated enormous interest—500 people gathered in the conference hall, and another 500 watched the broadcast in three auditoriums on the new NSU campus.
Vladimir Surdin is a renowned astronomer, author of over 100 scientific papers and dozens of textbooks. He is also an educator, the author of numerous popular science books and videos, and a laureate of the Russian Academy of Sciences Prize, the Belyaev Prize, and numerous other awards. The vast majority of his works are related to space in one way or another, and his "Darwinian lecture" on the evolution of the space industry, which until recently seemed stagnant, is now experiencing a return to active development.
Vladimir Surdin began his speech by noting that predicting the future of technological progress is extremely difficult. Looking at the luxury limousines of the 1960s and 1970s, who could have imagined that half a century later, "small" cars would become so popular. They could fit, besides the driver, only a briefcase or backpack. But they're also very fuel-efficient and easier to park on city streets.
Or take air travel: in the 1930s, it seemed like airships were the future, but they were quickly and confidently replaced by airplanes, and today we are witnessing the dawn of unmanned drones, which are completely different from the aviation we are used to.
"Such unexpected turns are common in the evolution of technology. And cosmonautics is no exception," Vladimir Surdin emphasized.
Until the late 1980s, it seemed that orbital stations would be the main route for the development of near-Earth spaceflight. In 1987, Spaceflight magazine published a forecast that by the year 2000, there would be approximately fifty people in orbit at any one time, the vast majority of whom would be Soviet cosmonauts. In reality, in the first decades of this century, this number was typically ten times smaller, and this was due not to the collapse of the USSR, but to the computerization and automation of many work processes, which eliminated the need for large crews.
In the 1980s, the second mainstay of technology was considered to be reusable shuttles, capable of sending both the crews of those stations and tons of payload into space. But even here, advances in electronics played a role: modern satellites are much lighter, with popular CubeSats weighing grams rather than tons, and powerful rockets aren't required to launch them into orbit. As a result, the American shuttle program was shelved for many years, and the Soviet Buran fell victim to the economic crisis, having completed only one test flight.
Looking a little beyond low-Earth orbit, it's clear that the most popular destination is the Moon, the closest large space object to us. Both humans and manned spacecraft have landed there numerous times.
"You could say we know the visible hemisphere of the Moon quite extensively. But not deeply, literally—we haven't drilled deeper than one and a half meters," Vladimir Surdin emphasized.
For decades, humanity had only photographed the far side of the Moon, and even then only sparingly. But the Chinese were the first to land there. And the result was quite unexpected. In 2013, China succeeded in sending its rover to the visible side for the first time, traveling just 100 meters. Just six years later, in 2019, their Chang'e-4 spacecraft successfully landed on the far side of our satellite, where a new version of the rover operated for several years. According to Vladimir Surdin, Chinese space exploration has been experiencing a boom in recent years, with the industry's pace of development comparable to that of the Soviet Union during its heyday.
He also recalled that during the American Apollo program, when several expeditions landed on the surface of the Moon, they brought back to Earth about 400 kg of lunar soil.
"And then a far-sighted decision was made: half the samples were distributed to leading scientific laboratories around the world for study. The other half were frozen. Half a century passed, research methods had advanced significantly, new opportunities had opened up, but there were no new expeditions to collect lunar soil. Then those reserves came in handy: they were thawed, handed over to scientists again, and in recent years a whole wave of interesting discoveries related to lunar soil has emerged," the scientist noted.
Humanity is currently setting itself a new goal: to create a manned base on the lunar surface. A number of countries, including our own, have similar projects in place. But achieving this requires solving a whole host of complex problems. These problems extend beyond the construction and operation of the base itself. Astronauts and cargo must first be delivered there, and the era of large rockets, as mentioned earlier, is over. Today, they must be redesigned.
Moreover, while engineers in a number of countries have already more or less completed the construction of heavy launch vehicles, the descent modules that will deliver the crew from lunar orbit to the surface and become their home for several weeks are still only in the design stage for all countries participating in the new "moon race."
At the same time, efforts are being focused on the development and construction of a lunar orbital base. It is seen not only as a staging post for colonizing the moon itself, but also as a convenient testing ground for various situations and nuances that may arise on longer expeditions, primarily to Mars. Until 2022, Russia also participated in this project, responsible for the station's docking ports, through which supply ships would be attached. After cooperation with us was severed, this task was assigned to engineers from the UAE. Time will tell how successfully the Arab engineering school will cope with it.
As mentioned earlier, Roscosmos also has its own separate project for a manned expedition to the Moon. However, as Surdin noted, while we've managed to maintain a strong position in orbital spaceflight, the gap is widening in more distant areas.
"For a long time, we haven't implemented projects involving launching spacecraft beyond Earth orbit. Many specialists who previously participated in such projects have retired, and they've been replaced by young people who simply don't have the experience yet. We saw the consequences of this with the Luna-25 accident. Essentially, we must now relearn from our mistakes and rebuild our competencies, and this will inevitably take time," the scientist recalled.
This is due to the constant postponements of the planned stages of Roscosmos's "lunar program."
Under these circumstances, he believes, perhaps we shouldn't engage in this race so directly. Instead of spreading resources thin on a global manned base project, it's better to focus on a narrow area and achieve results that will secure our space program a worthy position in the exploration and development of our planet's natural satellite.
Another option is to explore lunar caves. There's a popular view among experts that it's better to locate a lunar base not on the surface, but underground. This is primarily due to the high levels of cosmic radiation (on the lunar surface, it's approximately 200-300 times higher than on Earth). Moreover, such caves have recently been discovered, but only the entrances are known; no one has explored them. This is an interesting challenge for Russian cosmonautics, which has extensive experience in creating unmanned exploration vehicles, primarily lunar rovers.
Our space industry has already proven that it shouldn't be discounted even in the most challenging circumstances. As Surdin recalled, who would have believed in the 1950s that the Soviet Union, just beginning to recover from the brutal devastation of war, would become the first country to launch first a satellite and then a man into space? This, too, was a striking example of the unexpected turns in the evolution of technological progress.
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