April 2005

Russian Science & the World (Monthly Digest on world electronic media)

CONTENTS


• Pétard mouillé
• Neutrino To Be Lucky Catch
• Green Tea For Nerve Cells
• Young Scientists Get $100,000
• Hibernation Prevents Aging
• Filter that makes viruses adhere
• Le programme IST de l'UE arrive en Sibérie grâce au projet SITE
• Russian hydrogen power development program may be approved this year
• Tissue engineering restores cornea
• Russia reviewing restoration of SEZs
• Russian academician calls for state regulation of nano-technologies
• 200 Russian scientists win personal grants for research
• FSB to protect Russian scientific-technical potential
• Russian federal nuclear research centre celebrates jubilee
• Deal inked to build Soyuz launch base in Kourou
• Russian Professor Says NASA Stole Space Elevator Concept From Soviet Scientist
• Green light for Lazio–Sirad
• China, Russia, U.S. Jointly Build, Manage Fiber-optic Network
• Renowned Physicist Dies

Eleven outstanding scientists received 10,000 dollars a year each, 43 Doctors of Science - 5,000 dollars each, and 40 Candidates of Science - 3,000 dollars each.
In 2005, the foundation noted young specialists for the first time since the beginning of operation five years ago: 200 post graduates of the Russian Academy of Sciences /RAN/ will receive 2,000 dollars each for research purposes.
RAN vice-president Nikolai Laverov said the Academy was particularly thankful for the foundation for supporting young researchers: " We are saying through these grants: don't leave the country."
One of the foundation sponsors, chairman of the Troika-Dialogue company Alexander Mamut called the fund's work successful and useful.
"We would like to support our scientists morally and financially; and we can pride ourselves on the fact that of all the grant recipients just a few have left Russia," Mamut said.
In all, the foundation has provided 7.3 million dollars of grants to 1,150 scientists.
Gerasim Eliashberg, a grant winner, complained that if Russia had launched this measure ten years ago, it would have kept dozens of thousands of top-rate scientists from leaving the country.
But nuclear physicist Valery Subbotin disagreed with his colleague, saying Russian researchers should rid themselves of an inferiority complex before the U.S. science which he said " we still lead in many fields."

The FSB directors representing Russian Northwest regions discussed these problems at a meeting in Syktyvkar in Komi republic on March 17, Interfax reported. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the meeting, the head of Komi republic Vladimir Torlopov said the leadership of the republic always relied on the support of the security services. During recent 5 years the FSB made particular efforts to provide security for the science and technical facilities, development designs and prevention of accidents. The military counterintelligence service carried out operations on protecting the perspective arms projects in the frames of the separate State Arms program for 2001-2010, said Vladimir Torlopov.
The Kaliningrad region FSB director vice-admiral Vladimir Sotnikov expressed his opinion to the journalists in the end of the meeting: "The issue of the scientific-technical potential protection is actual for the whole country. Especially in the light of recent decision taken on the level of the Russian government – to establish big institutions where the science could develop. More efficient measures for intellectual property protection are needed. Today it is a product, which should belong, first of all, to the Russians, who develops it." "Our practical scientists have enough experience and developments, which are not precious only for the state. It is big money. It is very important to protect research institutes, plants. It is needed to make order and we will take active part in it" concluded the FSB director.
The Komi republic FSB director major general Nikolay Piyukov reminded about the old soviet system of measures, which "protected the Russian science very well". Due to the new situation and new legislation the role of the security service is increasing. The task of the FSB today is to secure the normal operation of the enterprises, allow honest businessmen to take part in the state programs and prevent stealing of the accumulated resources added the Komi FSB chief, SeverInform reported.
After such statements it is quite likely to expect a new round of spy cases against Russian scientists and researches in the nearest future.

SNEZHINSK (Chelyabinsk region), April 5 - The all-Russia Physics Technical Research Center based in Snezhinsk in the Urals is celebrating the 50th jubilee on Tuesday.
The nuclear research centre that was created in the epoch of the Cold War after its predecessor, Arzamas-16, enabled to step up the development and production of modern weapons and create competition between scientific projects. It was the Snezhinsk nuclear research center where scientists created a first thermonuclear warhead in 1957 that was used to equip the Soviet armed forces.
An interesting exhibiition of photographs will be displayed in Chelyabinsk on jubilee dates. The photographs feature dozens of weapons, created by talented nuclear researchers from the Urals, that make up Russia's nuclear shield used to the present day.
"Our scientists are proud of a series of unique projects created at the Snezhinsk center", said Director of the Federal Nuclear Research Center Georgy Rykovanov. In particular, he mentioned the tiniest nuclear warhead for an artillery shell 152 millimetres in diameter - the lightest nuclear block with ideal parameters intended for the strategic nuclear forces.
The nuclear research centre has been conducting research not only in the field of nuclear weapons production. It has been working on projects for prevention of the proliferation of nuclear technologies, develops methods for control over the implementation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and designs systems for purely peaceful purposes, such as dike and canal construction and geological prospecting. Most of these systems have no analogues in the world. (Itar-Tass).

Russian and French officials gathered Monday in Moscow to sign a contract setting the stage for the development of a South American launch site for Russia's venerable Soyuz rockets.
Anatoli Perminov, head of Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, and Arianespace CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall met to put finishing touches on a joint partnership for Soyuz rockets to begin launching from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The signing comes after four documents agreed upon last month concerning program financing. Officials have been working on joint Russian and European programs more frequently over the past decade, and several governmental treaties and industry agreements over the past few years have been leading up to the final contract signing that came Monday.
The $446 million project will require infrastructure provided by Russian contractors tailored for the Soyuz rocket, which is manufactured by TsSKB Progress located in Samara. Rockets to be flown from Kourou will be fitted with a Fregat upper stage built by NPO Lavochkin, while an industry team led by the KBOM design office will be responsible for ground systems.
The cost will be split between $289 million in direct funding from the European Space Agency, while $157 million will be in the form of a loan to Arianespace from the European Investment Bank.
Activities outlined by the contract include the construction of the launch pad components and their assembly, system testing, required modifications of the Soyuz to work using the Guiana Space Center's tracking and support equipment, and final development of the upgraded Soyuz 2-1b vehicle scheduled to debut next year with a French science satellite payload.
The Soyuz 2-1b features an upgraded third stage engine that enhances performance. A transitional vehicle called the Soyuz 2-1a tested a new digital control system last November that can deliver spacecraft into more precise orbits and allows for an enlarged four-meter payload fairing to carry larger satellites.
With technical upgrades and the ability to take advantage of the Earth's rotation at an equatorial launch site, the Soyuz can double its carrying capacity above its current capability from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launches from Baikonur are currently marketed by Starsem, a joint company owned by Arianespace and other European and Russian industry leaders.
The Soyuz will use a brand new launch complex located about 10 kilometers north of the operational ELA-3 launch pad that hosts the heavy-lift Ariane 5 booster. The ELA-1 facility -- used to launch the earliest Ariane rockets over two decades ago - is now being transformed for launches by the small-satellite Vega launcher currently under development.
The new Soyuz facility in Kourou will consist of a forward zone containing the launch pad and a rear zone where rockets will be assembled and payloads can be attached. The vehicle will be transferred horizontally on 700-meter rail tracks to be erected on the launch pad for final preparations.
Construction of the launch complex should get underway soon, and it is expected to be complete in less than two years in advance of the first blastoff in the next chapter of the Soyuz program's storied history some time at the end of 2007 or in early 2008.
When all three launch systems are in place beginning in 2008, Arianespace will offer rockets covering virtually the entire space launch market. The Ariane 5 rocket currently competes for heavy-lift commercial and European civil missions, and can deliver between six and 10 metric tons to geostationary transfer orbit. Soyuz rockets will capture the mid-level market consisting of payloads to a similar orbit, while the solid-fueled Vega will truck smaller satellites to low orbits.
Le Gall reported that Arianespace has already penned customers for the first Soyuz launch from Kourou in 2008. It is believed the flight will carry a pair of French research satellites and an Australian Optus communications satellite.

A Russian professor has accused the United States of stealing ideas for a "space elevator" from a famous Russian engineer.
Addressing a scientific conference in Khanty-Mansiisk, Novosibirk professor Yuri Vedernikov accused the United States of stealing the ideas of the famous Russian engineer Yuri Kondratyuk.
Khanty-Mansiisk is currently the venue of an international conference on the latest achievements in geophysics and remote probing of the Earth held under the auspices of the Yugorsky Scientific Research Institute for Information Technologies.
Scientists Yuri Vedernikov and Yevgeny Nikolnikov of the Institute of Calculus Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics addressed the conference with a paper entitled "The space elevator by Yuri Kondratyuk for geostationary man-made satellites for natural resources studies."
In comments for Russian Information Agency Sibir, Vedernikov said that the idea of a space elevator was first proposed by Yuri Kondratyuk in the 1920s, but he intentionally omitted the chapter on the invention from his book "Exploration of Interplanetary Space", published in Novosibirsk in 1929, as he believed it was too early to make the project public as it could end up "in the hands of the untrustworthy, including the military".
Nonetheless, later Kondratyuk included the chapter in the so-called "final manuscript" printed in three copies. In 1938 the manuscript was lost.
According to some reports, Vedernikov claims, one of the copies of the final manuscript was obtained by the Soviet KGB, another could have fallen into the hands of NASA. The Novosibirsk professor believes that a copy could also have been handed over to German rocket scientist Werner von Braun who moved to the U.S. in 1945 where he soon became the chief ideologist of the U.S. space program.
Vedernikov claimed that NASA used Kondratyuk's ideas to launch the project for building a "space elevator". A space elevator, as Kondratyuk saw it, is a geostationary man-made satellite put into space by a rocket where it is positioned over the equator at a height of 30-95,000 kilometers. Then the satellite releases a thin cable along which an observing receiver slides up and down. The receiver is equipped with devices enabling it to monitor the environment, predict earthquakes, etc.
NASA announced its plans to build a space elevator several years ago. In 2002 U.S. scientists said they were working on turning a science fiction concept that first appeared in Arthur C. Clarke's book "The Fountains of Paradise" over 20 years ago.
NASA began considering the concept in June 1999 at the Advanced Space Infrastructure Workshop on "Geostationary Orbiting Tether 'Space Elevator' Concepts" held at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. It brought together several dozen experts from NASA and private industry, G4TV.com Web-site reported.
In theory, the space elevator consists of a thin cable placed by the Space Shuttle into low Earth orbit (200 to 300 miles above Earth), and then raised to a stationary, geosynchronous orbit about 22,000 miles up. The cable is then lowered down to the Earth's surface and anchored to a mobile ocean-going platform in the Pacific Ocean along the equator, several thousand miles off the coast of Ecuador - an area chosen for its lack of hurricanes and ship traffic. The cable is as thin as paper, but not as fragile. In fact, it has the same strength as diamonds, and consists of the same base element, carbon nanotubes.
The concept was first described in 1895 by Russian author K.E. Tsiolkovsky in his "Speculations about Earth and Sky and on Vesta."

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