UST: News

1 May 1988

Decision of the 1^st scientific and technical conference "Non-rocket industrialization of space"

The 1^st scientific and technical conference "Non-rocket industrialization of space: problems, ideas, projects" was held in Gomel on April 26-28, 1988. The conference was conducted to summarize the results and coordinate research, design and other works performed in the national and public organizations, as well as by individuals in the following areas:

settlement of global problems with space vehicles;
prospects for the industrial exploration of space;
peaceful space exploration as an alternative to its militarization;
global international projects of space orientation; the principles of creation, the theory and calculation of geocosmic non-rocket vehicles;
arrangement of large-scale cargo traffic on the route "Earth - orbit - Earth".

The concepts of non-rocket space industrialization were presented in 30 reports and nearly 100 speeches by specialists from various fields of science and engineering, experts on international relations, economists, philosophers, sociologists and University lecturers. The conference was widely covered by the media (press, radio and TV).

The central point in the agenda of the conference were the prospects of space exploration and the possibilities of cosmonautics in solving global problems of today's world. Special attention was paid to the existing innovative technological ideas and solutions aimed at creating a space transport. The project of the General Planetary Vehicle (GPV) was discussed most actively.

According to preliminary estimates, at the cost comparable with the investment in ongoing international and national projects, GPV is able to ensure in the foreseeable future the deployment of industrial production in space with greater efficiency and reliability than missile systems.

Although the GPV projects discussed at the conference can be implemented in the distant future, the process of designing and building components for them may ensure a prompt inflow of technical solutions and technologies in the national economy. They would facilitate the scientific progress in the State. These technologies include a long magnetic suspension, energy batteries, new materials, heavy-duty control systems and several other GPV elements.

The conference finds it necessary:

to create in the future the all-Union coordination Council on the problems of non-rocket space industrialization;
to address the decision making bodies of various countries, the USSR and Belarusian Academies of Sciences with a petition for inclusion of works on non-rocket space industrialization in the plan of the Academy of Sciences attributing them the status of an important national task;
to mark out the great work of the Gomel Committee on problems of non-rocket space transport systems under the USSR Federation of Cosmonautics and the Gomel Council of the Scientific and Technical Society headed by the author of the project Anatoly Yunitskiy; with the aim to accelerate work on the implementation of the project, to create on the basis of the Committee a scientific organization as a legal entity, with a required staff, acting on the principles of sustainability and self-financing, as well as the Foundation "Star world", which could finance the implementation of Research and Advanced Development on GPV;
to hold the next all-Union conference on the problems of non-rocket space exploration in 1990 in Gomel;
to publish a collection of conference proceedings;
to address the State Committee on inventions for adopting measures to ensure the scientific priority of the USSR in the field of projects "GPV", "Microgravitron", etc.

For more detail, see the document "Decision of the 1st scientific and technical conference "Non-rocket industrialization of space: problems, ideas, projects" (in Russian).