Published on: Thursday, November 26, 2009 |
Kota Kinabalu: Malaysia can become a significant entity in the space exploration industry given its experience and expertise in the field.
In making this observation, Russian scientist Dr Igor V. Sorokin of S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, said Malaysia's technical and scientific capabilities together with its pool of researchers and universities, are certainly material for the industry.
"So, why not Malaysia? Malaysia is absolutely capable as it already has experience in space," he said after delivering his paper "Programme of Microgravity Research on the ISS Russian Segment: Collaboration with the International Partners, Priorities" at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), Tuesday.
He said Malaysia's achievement accomplished during the Russian Soyuz TMA-11 spaceship on Oct 10, 2007, showed that Malaysian technology can also be accommodated to future space exploration.
He said that money is not the only focus in such industry but also goodwill and interest in space exploration.
Malaysia's capabilities, he said are valuable contributions to the joint space exploration programme.
However, he said only Malaysia can decide whether it wants to participate or not.
But looking at the situation, he said China and India could be the next giant in the space industry given their interest and keenness as well as technology and capabilities.
However, Dr Sorokoi prefers not to see the space race as a competition as the most important is collaboration for the common goal.
"India would be very capable and we see their ambition as very interesting and very significant to be included in the (space) community," he said.
India's know-how, he said could be developed into something valuable in space technology.
China also, he said is definitely very capable in the space industry considering Energia and Russian have provided some technical aspects to the China Space Agency and private companies to develop human space technology including for transportation vehicle.
"But frankly speaking, I would like to avoid competition from this cooperation," he said.
Dr Sorokin said competition and cooperation are two different things in that any success in space could be connected to cooperation but not competition.
However, he said competition could exist inside the collaboration such as in some areas of research and responsibility in order to achieve higher accomplishments.
On Russia and US competition, he said on board the International Space Station (ISS) they have good understanding and cooperation.
On whether emerging space giants like China and India would be able to overtake Russia in space exploration in the future, he said it is not just the industrial capabilities that is important only but also experience amassed in space exploration and development of space technology.
"Also we have to take into account the special brainpower collected through a long period of time," he said.
In this respect, he said the industrial capabilities of Russia could not be compared with the industrial capabilities of the former Soviet Union (USSR).
The former Soviet Union, he said had the capabilities of the US unlike Russia, which is just another country on the map of the world.
Nevertheless, he said they have saved the brainpower and industrial capabilities in the area of space programme although the industrial capabilities are definitely lower than 20 years ago.
"But we are still capable of accomplishing something new in this area and despite the financial issues, we're still capable," he said.
To affirm his statement, Dr Sorokin said as a professor of a university in Moscow, the new generation of engineers in space technology in the institute of higher learning is interested in space exploration.
As to who would be able to send the first human to planet Mars, he believed that Russia would be ahead.
"Why not? During the Soviet Union era, I was a participant in the Martian project towards the end of the 1980s," he said.
During that period, he said they completely developed the drawings for the system of the nuclear-powered space vehicle.
As a team-member, he said he was responsible for the radar control of the landing system of the Mars Piloted Lander.
He said they were almost ready to accomplish the feat but unfortunately in 1990, due to upheaval in the then Soviet Union, this plan was scrapped.
In the ensuing period, he said they've lost a lot of capabilities.
In this era, nevertheless, he said it would be easy to accomplish it with wide international cooperation and it would less expensive compared to Nasa's plan.
Coupled with Russia's plans, pre-developed Marian expeditions project and power source, he said the dream to send the first human to Mars can be achieved.
"We have developed the scenario for this mission and we already train the crewmembers and understand the behaviour of humans in long flight," he said.
The experience of a Russian cosmonaut, who throughout his 803 days in space in six flights, he said are valuable data for such trip.
Dr Sorokin said another former Russian cosmonaut stayed in space for 475 days, the flight duration to Mars.
"So, we already have technical basis for the human space exploration to Mars and the only problem is fundingÉbut that is the government's problem," he said.
He said reasonable international cooperation in this situation could resolve this issue.
