[FPSPACE] Where are Russia's Industrial "Space Spin-Offs"??

[JamesOberg@aol.com]

Where are Russia's Industrial "Space Spin-Offs"??

I'm cataloguing any "success stories" in Russian/Soviet application of 
space-developed technology to commercial and industrial processes in their 
non-space sectors of industry. Unlike in Europe, Japan, Canada, and the U.S., 
there don't appear to be many -- if any -- good examples. Am I missing 
something? Are there any products being successfully sold which depend on 
materials made in space, or in processes discovered in space? I know there 
are economic and managerial reasons why such advances couldn't be implemented 
in decades past, but is there any prospect for change now?

Jim Oberg


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In July 1999, the United Nations sponsored a conference called "Unispace III" 
to discuss the value of space activities for human civilization. Aleksandr 
Yakovenko, a Russian member of his country’s permanent mission to the Outer 
Space Affairs Committee in Vienna, presented Russia’s official assessment of 
its use of space for its national needs.

The report gave tribute to traditional civil applications of space 
technology, such as communications satellites, weather observations, 
navigation, and ecological monitoring.

Yakovenko then addressed the fundamental issue which motivates nations to 
engage in space research, the improvement in the technological base of its 
industrial infrastructure through space research and even space-based 
manufacturing. 

"Transfer and active application of the latest scientific and technical 
achievements [to] the Russian economy is a very important aspect of space 
activity," he wrote. "At present, experience is being gained and work carried 
out to create a system assuring an intensive development of the potential of 
scientific and technological achievements in the field of space-rocket 
equipment into various sectors of the economy. The necessary legal 
preconditions for the efficient development of such a system are taking 
shape."

Jim comments: this paragraph is meaningless blather. It only shows they don't 
have a clue on how to do what they say they want to do.