Space Hotel to Launch... Yeah Right.
Sep. 30th, 2010 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakOrbital Technologies (The Russian company, not the American one) has given an interview! They gave an interview to Russia's RIA Novosti news agency and thus it is news! They have big ambitious plans that no one has apparently done any research on, they just translated the Russian story and looked for background comments from a consultant.
For all the information the consultant actually gave I could have been the one quoted in the BBC story. Heck, I could have written the story and done a better job using nothing more than google.
First off I can find no reference to the company "Орбитальная технологий" in the public press using google prior to the last month. So why is this company's press release newsworthy even in Russia? Well they've got ambiguous quotes from OAO S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (Russian: Ракетно-космическая корпорация "Энергия" им. С.П.Королева Raketno-kosmicheskaya korporatsiya "Energiya" im. S.P.Koroleva) and Roscosmos. RKK Energia is the Russian equivalent of Lockheed-Martin, only exclusively focused on space and rockets instead of being a general defense contractor and Roscosmos is the equivalent of NASA.
What the CEO of RKK Energia Vitaly Lopota actually said (keeping in mind this is through Google translation) was that, "The RSC Energia is ready to become a general contractor for this ambitious project. The Corporation has been considering a commercial space station for more than 10 years." The head of Roscosmos apparently said that it could be a potential refuge for cosmonauts from the ISS. And even the CEO of Orbital Technologies said that this plan is at the design work stage.
I think, but do not know, that the Sergey Kostenko who is CEO of Orbital Technologies is Sergey V. Kostenko, born April 20, 1963 in Moscow, Russia. He has been the head of several midsized companies the most recent ones being "Cosmopolis", "Space Adventures", and "Suborbital Corporation". He was the backup cosmonaut to Gregory Olsen, the third space tourist/cosmonaut. He is probably wealthy, but not quite Richard Branson or Elon Musk. He does not appear to have any ongoing profitable enterprises except whatever is going on with this latest venture.
My guess is that Kostenko has once again found enough money from investors to order up ambitious plans, but nothing more. Energia and Roscosmos go along with this because it means good make work income for their engineers, who like rocket scientists everywhere like dreaming up ambitious plans. The comparison to the Galactic Space Suites project by Xavier Claramunt is an apt one since like that project it is vaporware. Dates have been set and they'll blow by without a hint of anything actually happening. This is nothing more or less than a con game not unlike the ones I remember being promoted at space conferences for a "Space Lottery".
For all the information the consultant actually gave I could have been the one quoted in the BBC story. Heck, I could have written the story and done a better job using nothing more than google.
First off I can find no reference to the company "Орбитальная технологий" in the public press using google prior to the last month. So why is this company's press release newsworthy even in Russia? Well they've got ambiguous quotes from OAO S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (Russian: Ракетно-космическая корпорация "Энергия" им. С.П.Королева Raketno-kosmicheskaya korporatsiya "Energiya" im. S.P.Koroleva) and Roscosmos. RKK Energia is the Russian equivalent of Lockheed-Martin, only exclusively focused on space and rockets instead of being a general defense contractor and Roscosmos is the equivalent of NASA.
What the CEO of RKK Energia Vitaly Lopota actually said (keeping in mind this is through Google translation) was that, "The RSC Energia is ready to become a general contractor for this ambitious project. The Corporation has been considering a commercial space station for more than 10 years." The head of Roscosmos apparently said that it could be a potential refuge for cosmonauts from the ISS. And even the CEO of Orbital Technologies said that this plan is at the design work stage.
I think, but do not know, that the Sergey Kostenko who is CEO of Orbital Technologies is Sergey V. Kostenko, born April 20, 1963 in Moscow, Russia. He has been the head of several midsized companies the most recent ones being "Cosmopolis", "Space Adventures", and "Suborbital Corporation". He was the backup cosmonaut to Gregory Olsen, the third space tourist/cosmonaut. He is probably wealthy, but not quite Richard Branson or Elon Musk. He does not appear to have any ongoing profitable enterprises except whatever is going on with this latest venture.
My guess is that Kostenko has once again found enough money from investors to order up ambitious plans, but nothing more. Energia and Roscosmos go along with this because it means good make work income for their engineers, who like rocket scientists everywhere like dreaming up ambitious plans. The comparison to the Galactic Space Suites project by Xavier Claramunt is an apt one since like that project it is vaporware. Dates have been set and they'll blow by without a hint of anything actually happening. This is nothing more or less than a con game not unlike the ones I remember being promoted at space conferences for a "Space Lottery".