I saw Obergs article later.

I see how they got past the nose mounted aerodynamic body problem - folding wingelts.

The design looks bulletproof aside from that, but those winglets have got to deploy before re-entry. Of course, they have a full air lock, so that problem is down, as is inspection of thermal tiling in the case of strikes by launch debris. They do need to store a tether on board.

Read Semenov quotes in Oberg article. Apparently sales to China have hit a problem due to thermal tiling - it could be used for ballistic re-entry vehicles, i.l. nuclear warheads.

I also finally think I see why Semenov was kept on after the $65 million MirCorp fiasco/swindle - relationship with Kuchma from Yuzhnoi (spelling - my g*d, my Russian is all going away).

If Kuchma goes, I expect Semenov to finally "retire", na pensii, and professorship at MAI - of course, I have been seeing Semenov's retirement for a long time - Energia has many younger managers within it who are capable of running it, who have more vigor and a better understanding of markets, and western business practices -

Russia has all the Zenit technology, of course, and if things got really bad they could build it on their own, and stop work on Angara. They're already in agreements with ESA on Soyuz.

But everyone likes cash, and there's a new launch agreement among many of the former nations of the Soviet Union, which they all seem to like quite well... I doubt if any Ukrainian government would like to trash that agreement, and strain their relationship with Kazakhstan, but one never knows...

ep