"Rusty Barton" wrote in message
...
Here is a short article with an illustration of
the new proposed Russian manned spacecraft "Clipper".

The original article in Russian is listed
below.


http://www.1tv.ru/owa/win/ort6_main....&p_news_razdel
_id=4


Here is the article run through TinyURL and
a Russian to English translator:

http://tinyurl.com/37b6y


Doing a Google News search on "Russia" and "Clipper"
comes up with these articles:


Soyuz to give way to clipper by 2010 - Pravda
http://newsfromrussia.com/science/2004/02/21/52446.html


Russia develops revolutionary spaceship - Pravda
http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/...127_space.html


RUSSIA DEVELOPS PRINCIPALLY NEW SHUTTLE-TYPE SPACESHIP - Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd...row=1&dat e=2
004-02-22&do_alert=0




After looking at the illustration, which end is the "front". ;-)


-Rusty Barton

The article seems to indicate that they plan to use the Buran navigation
system and heat shielding material. That might imply autonomous landing.
Also, if I am not mistaken, the Buran systems were tested out orbitally on
BOR4, so this program already may have a good deal of legwork underneath it.