Krasnoyarsk.1997

In the spring of 1997 I and a group of 3 or 4 others from Hughes Aircraft went on a mission to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.  The Cold War was over and Russia was opening up to the world, while suffering economically.  Satellite orbit positions in the geostationary orbit, 22,000 miles up in the equatorial plane was perhaps the most valuable real estate known on Earth.   Certain communication satellite orbit slots over the Russian land mass were assigned to Russia by the World Radio Conference.   Russia had neither the financing nor the technological development to fill these slots.  Hughes, on the other hand, had both along with a keen interest in the orbital “real estate.”   Our mission was sent to meet with the Russian engineers and management to explore how we might team up to fill these slots with modern communication satellites.

On the Transaero DC-10 plane trip between Moscow and Krasnoyarsk a magazine was coincidentally being circulated among English speaking passengers (probably just our team) which showed a map of several former Soviet Secret Cities.   I don’t recall for certain if this was on the outbound trip to Krasnoyarsk or the return, but when we departed from the US we were not aware of secret cities or that one was our destination.   Upon arrival in Krasnoyarsk proper we were met by the host delegation and escorted 40 miles north along the Yenisei River to the walled city, Krasnoyarsk 26, where the Russian spacecraft factory is located.    The primary function of the city was the production of plutonium for Soviet weapons.  Interestingly, current web discussions of Krasnoyarsk 26 make no mention of the significant spacecraft design and manufacture we visited.

Though it was June, mornings were frosty as I took a short jog on the deserted streets near our hotel.  Our rooms on the 3^rd floor of the guest hotel were cold and ill equipped – with cold and rusty water from the plumbing - compared to the Moscow hotel and overseen by an old dowager perched on a chair at the end of the hallway.   As I recall we had no key, but had to have her open our room.  The entire “city” of 100 thousand people is heated by a nuclear reactor under the mountain nearby that was also producing plutonium.  The food was bland and common, but at our departure dinner the translated toasts and vodka flowed freely. 

Our visits to the spacecraft factory were very interesting.  Nearly all communication went through an interpreter as maybe only one or two of the engineers knew English and in general they had to be talking to their colleagues as well as us.  It was clear they wanted some work very badly and indeed were coming to work routinely without pay, though housing and necessities were supplied by government.  But these were the elite professionals who want a much more challenging life than just subsistence.  It was also obvious that they were very smart and educated.  However, their spacecraft hardware was relatively primitive.  The Soviet approach in general was to send the Earth environment along with the spacecraft, in contrast to the American approach of designing for minimal weight and to withstand the extremes of space, vacuum, thermal, radiation, etc.  As a result the Soviet spacecraft were typically enclosed in a heavy steel tank and their boosters were very large to launch the heavy weight.  This team had built and launched more than one thousand satellites, while Hughes at that time leading builder in the US was just counting past the one hundred mark.   This because the Soviet vehicles were so unreliable and short lived, maybe 1 – 2 years contrasted to US exceeding 12 – 15 year life at the time, so they were just launching replacements.   As a result Russian launch vehicles were very large and relatively reliable.

On return to Hughes it was pretty clear to all that joining the Russian team to build modern communication satellites would be very risky. I suggested to the Hughes CEO that we consider forming an agreement to build and launch satellites to their orbit slots.  This with a strategy that we simply give them $10 million and assignment to build one satellite while we built all the satellites required.  If the Russian version turned out adequate, launch it, otherwise launch ours.   Ultimately the entire plan was abandoned by Hughes, though it was revived to some degree by a competitor some years later.