Close partnership of Russia and Europe in piloted space programs today look almost as a decided matter. The two partners are going over from general talks to concrete plans. It became known this summer that Russia had offered the European Space Association (ESA) to take part in designing a new spaceship for manned flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and for flights under a Lunar and Martian program. “Reference here is to the universal spaceship Clipper, being developed by the Energia Space Rocket Corporation, said Anatoly Perminov, chief of the Russian Federal Space Agency (FSA).

An international symposium on gravitation physiology took start in Moscow today. Anatoli Grigoryev, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medical and Biological Problems Director, made an opening address to an impressive scholarly gathering. He took stock of problems science encounters in preparing a manned flight to Mars. Hard radiation and bad gravitation changes are the most formidable stumbling blocks. Be that as it may, we have no reason to bury the idea, Academician Grigoryev said in a communication headed, “Physiological Problems of Manned Martian Flight”.

The sweeping American plans to explore the Moon and Mars are practically impossible to implement single-handed. This idea was expressed before journalists at a major international aerospace forum that met in Berlin by Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian federal space agency. More than 30 years of Russian experience in developing and exploiting orbiting complexes and long-duration space flights makes such an approach well substantiated. Perminov emphasized, however, that Russia need not invest funds into a Martian project. “It is enough to contribute our scientific knowledge, because in many areas it is far superior to all foreign experience.” True. Neither NASA nor anybody else today even try to challenge Russian achievements in space research. But it is far more profitable economically and politically to move beyond the framework of theoretical research alone and to develop a joint comprehensive Russian-American program for exploring deep space.

On Friday a Russian private company presented the conceptual design of a six-member expedition’s flight and landing on Mars in 2009. The spaceship is going to have videos to transmit to earth details of the on-board life in real time mode. This was said at a Moscow news conference by a participant in the project, Georgy Uspensky, section chief at the Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (TsNIIMASh).

American and European astronauts aboard the International Space Station prefer to wear brand-new space suits made by Russian “space stylists”. The Moscow-based special works Kentavr-Nauka develops and makes shorts, T- and Polo-shirts, football-jerseys, underwear, socks and overalls for ISS crews. Kentavr-Nauka general director Alexander Yarov said that Russian-made products for orbital work are much more comfortable – they are made of only natural materials, pleasant-to-touch pure cotton and wool, which let the body “breath”.

Russia and China are planning to open offices of the two countries’ space agencies in Moscow and Beijing, reads a joint communique that sums up the results of the eighth regular meeting between the premiers of Russia and China.

When the construction of the International Space Station /ISS/ is completed, members of a future Martian expedition will be recruited for the cosmonauts’ team, Major-General Vasily Tsibliyev, first deputy head of the cosmonaut training centre of Russia, said on Monday. Describing the new complement to the cosmonauts’ team to journalists, he noted that a flight to Mars would require pilots, medical specialists, biologists, and scientists in other fields. Their training programme, Tsibliyev said, will differ from the current one, because it must be carried out with an eye on an extended mission involving a large volume of research work and “will call for high intellectual standards in physically fit people”.