The Russian space organisation Energia has come out with some big news this week. First off, the size of the International Space Station will be doubled to twelve pressurised capsules by 2010. Plus from 2007 onwards, new European and Japanese space vehicles will be taking an active role in resupplying the crews.

Not only that, though - Energia reckon they’ll have a reusable space shuttle in full operation by 2015. This is good news for everyone, but especially Russia themselves, who have had to bear the burden of all the refuelling and recrewing missions to the ISS during the hiatus of the US Space Shuttle after the Columbia accident.

It seems a little sad to me that we only have one tiny little manned space station in orbit around our planet. As I have mentioned before, I was a space-obsessive as a kid in the mid-80s and had imagined, at the time, that when I was reaching my thirties there’d be a whole lot more action up there than we are currently seeing. It would be easy to go finger-pointing, but I can’t be bothered really…there are a multitude of reasons and factors involved, most of them involving governments of one type or another, and of course money. I’m just happy to see things start to hot up again, as far as a public interest in space is concerned. Although I really think it’s high time someone started work on a space elevator so we can avoid this whole tedious, expensive and risky rocketry business…

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