Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is said to be backing the design and construction of a new nuclear-powered spaceship for prospective human missions into the solar system according to Anatoly Perminov, the Russian federal space chief. Perminov indicated that a megawatt-class nuclear reactor design could be completed by 2012 with the first test flights of a Russian-made nuclear-propulsion spaceship by 2021. Noting the challenging aspects of the high-energy, high-tech system, Perminov says that there is considerable Soviet and Russian research in the field on which to build such a human spacecraft.
"The project is aimed at implementing large-scale space exploration programs, including a manned mission to Mars, interplanetary travel, the creation and operation of planetary outposts," Perminov's Web statement said and as being reported by Associated Press.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: The United States should embark into deep space with an Ares-V heavy-lift booster to get a real propulsion system into low Earth orbit. The American test for the near-term space future may well be in the propulsion system designs for long-term competitive deep space operations in the now rapidly globalizing human space launch capability.
NASA's Constellation program does have a mission beyond LEO and Cislunar while ceding yet subsidizing the rapidly developing commercial space launch market into LEO and lunar activities. The American way is to explore and build market economies at the same time.
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