Count Cash,
Of course, internally, I do not look at things in Russia so dramatically -- this country always had abilities to recreate itself from ashes. And I know some extremely talented young people currently living in Russia, who might one day become its glory and pride, if the country will not loose them like many others. Those -- the real national treasure. So, I would consider myself being optimist regarding that matter. I just express myself at the moment of big frustration with the current Russian leadership, which misrepresents Russian people on the world arena, and builds the course of the country to the future based on oil-gas-and-mafia-ar ound-them methods, some questionable and destructive for Russia cooperat ion with the evil of this world (neocons/NATO), and borrowing the worst practices from the West -- negligence and disrespect to their own "small" people and those around the globe. The USSR got big deal of support of talents on all levels and in all areas (starting from sport and including rocket scientists), starting from the very young age. And this tradition seems going away. So, my anger and tears...

Article "Russia mulls semi-unmanned missions as substitute for ISS" says "With Russia the only country currently able to launch manned missions into orbit,...".

D id the author forget China?

Bogdanov, I see things a little differently. There were great turbulences that ended the Soviet system and effectively threw designers on the streets to fend for ourselves, but I don’t see that period as a Russian creation. Indeed I could only attribute it to two possible causes, the actions of the agent and the drunk, or the failure of the Soviet system’s sustainability. So in this regard I do not hold my past treatment against Russia at all. The failures here are said to be organisational not technical, and whilst of course in the end it is a technical failure, it is well understood that failures in organisation (absence of quality management systems…) can be the root cause of many technical failures leading to ‘mission fatal’ consequences. Yes every generation thinks they were the best designers, we had the best discipline…. But sometimes we forget the failures we had on test… the engines destroyed, airframes lost, cosmonauts lost. Indeed we live in more open times, with everything reported instantly around the world, and the worst news with political value, amplified to deafening proportions. Yes the space program has been under funded, yes it has existed on a predominantly Soviet legacy tweaked continually. But I see that as a success for the engineers involved, who have managed to keep going in the less than ideal conditions you describe. Therefore I don’t have such a negative view of their abilities, or ability to pull through and move forward in space technology. What I see is discussions to fix the organisation, the funding and the conditions; But both know, talk often never turns to reality. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was sold a ‘dummy’ that central control of anything was bad, that a myriad of SMEs could deliver the same huge projects that the Soviet system did. When the reality is that a huge central government agency is necessary for these types of projects. Now we start to return to that reality, underpinning our future in space.