> Russia recently re-activated the Buran Space Shuttle Program. Buran uses the
> Energia rocket as a booster. Thus the Russians are re-activating the Energia
> rocket program as well.
Sorry, but this is incorrect. The original source of this article was in
New Scientist magazine, and was such a poor article it drastically reduced
my once-favorable opinion of that publication. The author of that article
appeared to rely on the musings of a few Russian bureaucrats and engineers,
and neither any official Russian policy nor the opinions of independent
experts. The article also got enough things wrong it appears that the
author may have confused the Buran shuttle with the Energia launch vehicle!
I don't think anyone who knows Russian space efforts in detail takes this
New Scientist report seriously.
In short:
* the Buran was mothballed years ago because it was too expensive to fly;
* the Energia production lines were shut down years ago;
* there is no money to revive the Energia, even if possible;
* there is no market, commercial or government, for such a heavy-lift
booster.
Basically, if you want to go to Europa, you're either going to have to use
an existing heavy-lift launch vehicle (this counts the Delta 4 and Atlas 5
EELVs in development that will replace the Titan 4 in the next few years, as
well as upgraded versions of the Ariane 5 in the planning stages) or wait a
long time for something more powerful. How impatient are you to get to
Europa, and how much money do you have?
Jeff Foust
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
PS: again, speaking as list administrator, please do not post messages in
HTML format. It creates a real mess for people on the digest version of the
list, and also obscures the list information appended to the end of each
message.
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