Russian President Threatens Punishment for Recent Space Blunders (SPACE.com)

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has threatened to dole out strict punishments to officials responsible for a string of recent failures in the country's space program, according to news reports.

Medvedev threatened disciplinary action, heavy fines or even criminal penalties for the country's recent space woes, which have included a series of rocket crashes and lost spacecraft over the past 11 months, according to the Russian news agency Ria Novosti.

"The latest failures [in the space industry] seriously harm Russia's competitiveness," Medvedev said on Nov. 26, according to Ria Novosti. "This means that we need to conduct a serious analysis and punish those responsible."

The country's most recent blunder stranded a spacecraft in orbit around Earth, instead of sending it on its intended path toward Mars. The Phobos-Grunt probe was designed to collect samples from the Martian moon Phobos, but shortly after its launch on Nov. 8, the spacecraft's thrusters failed to fire in a maneuver that would have set it on course for the Red Planet.

An international effort is underway to rescue the $165 million mission, but flight controllers at the Russian Federal Space Agency and the European Space Agency have been struggling to regain contact with the probe, and time is quickly running out. [Photos: Russia's Mars Moon Mission]

The notoriously tight-lipped Russian Federal Space Agency has remained guarded about the status of Phobos-Grunt, which has fueled speculation that the possibility of saving the spacecraft or the mission is unlikely.

If the problem with Phobos-Grunt cannot be resolved, the vehicle will likely fall back to Earth sometime in mid-January, scientists have said. Phobos-Grunt is the 19th spacecraft Russia has launched toward Mars since 1960. None has achieved full mission success.

The Russian space program has also suffered four rocket failures within the past year, adding to the troubles.

In December 2010, three navigation satellites were lost after a Russian Proton rocket failed before it reached orbit. A military satellite and a communications satellite were also lost in two separate rocket malfunctions.

In August, a Soyuz rocket carrying a robotic cargo ship suffered a malfunction minutes after launch in what was a rare mishap for the typically reliable fleet of Soyuz boosters. The rocket and the Progress 44 cargo freighter crashed in Siberia and were destroyed.

Investigations into the accident traced the problem to a faulty gas generator in the rocket's third stage, and spaceflight operations were temporarily halted until the issue was resolved.

On Oct. 30, a Progress 45 cargo ship was successfully launched to the International Space Station, and a manned launch carrying three new crewmembers for the orbiting complex followed almost two weeks later.

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Russian President Medvedev Promises Punishment for Space Mishaps (ContributorNetwork)

According to Space.com, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is threatening to punish officials who are judged to be responsible for a series of space mishaps that have embarrassed that country's space effort.

What are some of the mishaps that have plagued the Russian space program?

The most recent accident concerned Russia's ambitious attempt to send a probe, dubbed Phobos-Grunt, to the Martian moon Phobos to take soil and rock samples and return them to Earth. Phobos-Grunt was stuck in low Earth orbit, having failed to executed a pair of rocket firings that would have sent it on a trajectory toward Mars.

In August, a Russian Progress spacecraft that carrying supplies to the International Space Station suffered a failure of its Soyuz rocket and instead of going to the ISS crashed into Siberia, according to Space.com. The mishap resulted in serious doubts about the ability of the Russians to provide transportation services for both cargo and humans, leading to the possibility that the ISS would have to be abandoned. However the Russians were able to find the cause of the glitch that had destroyed the Progress and have since been able to launch both a Progress cargo mission and a manned Soyuz to the ISS.

Why is Medvedev contemplating punitive action?

Russia clearly sees space travel as an expression of a country that expires to be a super power. It has had this attitude ever since the early space program, when the old Soviet Union was able to accomplish a series of space spectaculars, including Sputnik, the first Earth satellite, and the flight of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in low Earth orbit. More recently, with the end of the space shuttle program, the Russian Space Agency boasted that the world had entered into the "Age of Soyuz" with America being forced to rely on Russia for trips to the ISS. There was even a dig at the fact that the Americans had lost two space shuttles, the Challenger and Columbia, with the boast of how reliable the Soyuz was. This form of chest pounding has come back to haunt the Russians in view of the Progress and Phobos-Grunt failures.

What does Medvedev propose to do to people he finds responsible for Russian space failures?

Reuters reports that the Russian president, perhaps in a fit of whimsy, has promised that they would not be stood up against a wall and shot, as was the practice in Josef Stalin's time. But criminal penalties, including imprisonment and fines, as well as administrative penalties are on the table.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker . He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the LA Times, and The Weekly Standard.

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President Obama kills NASA's moon mission plans

WASHINGTON — President Obama is redirecting America's space program, killing NASA's $100 billion plans to return astronauts to the moon and using much of that money for new rocket technology research.The moon program, which has cost $9.1 billion so far, "was over budget, behind schedule and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies" according to the budget plan issued Monday.

Obama's budget would increase fiscal year 2011 funds for NASA by 1.5% and support the development of rocket systems that eventually might take U.S. astronauts back into deep space. In preparation for those trips, Obama envisions using robotic ships to find locations for future landings and test new technology.

"Simply put, we're putting the science back into the rocket science at NASA," White House science adviser John Holdren said Monday.

Buzz Aldrin, an Apollo astronaut, strongly endorsed the budget. He said investing now in better technologies could accelerate goals such as sending people to Mars. "I applaud the president for working to make these dreams a reality," Aldrin said.

The plan to drop the moon strategy already has drawn opposition from lawmakers such as Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who said they feared the changes could risk U.S. leadership in space. NASA spacecraft are launched from Kennedy Space Center on Florida's Atlantic coast.

The $4 billion that NASA spends yearly on human space exploration will now be used for what NASA and White House officials called dramatic changes in rocketry, including in-orbit fueling. They said eventually those new technologies would be used to send astronauts to a nearby asteroid, a brief foray back to the moon, or the Martian moons.

The White House plan was short on details, such as where astronauts would fly next, on what type of rocket ship, or when. However, officials were quick to point out the failures of the Bush administration's moon program, called Constellation. It included the construction of two types of rockets, Ares I and Ares V, and an Orion crew capsule. All were canceled. Shutting down the program will cost about $2.5 billion, NASA said.

Besides redirecting money to new technologies, NASA is getting an extra $6 billion over five years to encourage companies to build private spaceships that NASA could rent. NASA will also spend an additional $2.5 billion over five years for more research on how global warming is affecting Earth. NASA will also extend the life by several years of the International Space Station, which had been slated for retirement in 2016. NASA's yearly budget is $19 billion.

Contributing: Bart Jansen of Gannett Washington Bureau; the Associated Press; Bloomberg News

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