On 3/8/2010 10:33 AM, Rick Jones wrote:

They really need something in the Proton payload capacity range to
make even a small station really practical.

Does it have to be practical to stoke national prestige?

After a while it will have to be, as it won't be possible to get any
more propaganda value out of it by doing the same thing over and over.
Each of the Salyut stations did a little more than its predecessor till
you ended up with Mir, which was a pretty slick little space station
when everything was working right, though it kept its crew busy just
keeping everything running with little time left to do productive research
The Chinese station bears a strong resemblance to this never-deployed
Soviet concept that was to be used for manned reconnaissance from orbit:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/soyuzr.htm
It was a cheaper alternative to Almaz that didn't require Proton launches.

Pat