Июнь 2000 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Progress by Integration
• 12-year schooling requires large expenses
• Biomedical scientists from Russia to Rio to explore biology's frontiers at HHMI in June
• NEC Senior Member outlines social trends in info tech
• Eurotech Ltd. Announces Further Commercialization of New Technologies; Management Describes Move to Capitalize On Two Industrial Technologies
• Intl economic forum opens in St Petersburg
• Russian Machine Puts Out the Wash With U.S. Plutonium
• Light Management Group Inc. completes r&d facility, Appoints Arkadi Rozenchtein to Board of Directors
• Emergencies ministry specialists to survey Black sea
• Arctic After-Effects
• U.S. Government Ends Quotas On Ukrainian Launchers; Russian Quotas May Fall Next
• U.S. Businessman Preparing to Be a Space Tourist Aboard Mir
• American businessman wants to go to Mir as "citizen explorer"

Национальная Лаборатория им. Лоуренса в Ливерморе Министерства энергетики США недавно купила у Российского Научного Научно-исследовательского института Атомных Реакторов устройство для промывки солей и окислов плутония. Эта покупка - часть совместной российско - американской деятельности по размещению плутония. После установки оборудования в Лаборатории, будет обеспечен более быстрый и более эффективный метод подготовки плутония к иммобилизации.

LIVERMORE,Calif. (BUSINESS WIRE)- June 9, 2000 --The Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently purchased a plutonium-oxide saltwasher from the Russian Scientific Research Institute of Atomic Reactors.
The purchase is part of U.S.-Russian Joint Plutonium Disposition activities. Once installed in the Laboratory's Plutonium Facility, the equipment will provide a quicker and more efficient method to prepare U.S. plutonium for immobilization.
The equipment will wash plutonium oxides free of contaminating chloride salts. These salts hinder the ceramification process that immobilizes excess weapons plutonium so it can be encased in canisters, sealed and stored until disposal in a repository.
While the chloride salts are removed inside the machine, other contaminants are left behind deliberately, making the plutonium less attractive for proliferation.
In the past, Livermore relied on a more conventional system -- a series of beakers and flasks to wash, filter and dry plutonium. While there was nothing wrong with the old system, the plutonium-oxide saltwasher accomplishes all three tasks in one machine, in less time and with less radiation exposure. "This is the first known piece of plutonium processing equipment from Russia slated to be used for our own plutonium operations," said the Lab's Les Jardine, the Russian-projects manager for fissile materials. The RIAR-designed and fabricated, stainless steel and titanium system will fit inside a glovebox.
"We think this will be a big help," said Mark Bronson, the Livermore associate program leader for plutonium processing. "It's an automated system, which means it will be faster and more efficient then our own current methods."
Bronson and Jardine discovered the machine in May 1999 while touring a RIAR plutonium facility in Dimitrograd as part of the collaborative work on U.S.-Russia Joint Plutonium Disposition.
Jardine currently manages more than 30 contracts with Russian organizations. He said this collaboration indicates "the level of commitment, technical expertise and quality control that exists in Russia. This equipment shows that their technical people are very competent, capable and very dedicated to efficiently handling the plutonium fissile materials," he said.
Once treated, the plutonium would be immobilized in a ceramic matrix roughly the size and shape of a hockey puck. Twenty such disks, each containing about 50 grams of plutonium, would then be sealed in cans and placed in a canister filled with glass containing highly radioactive waste. The canisters will be shipped to the national high-level waste repository, possibly Yucca Mountain. The Lawrence Livermore has the national lead in DOE's research development and testing of plutonium disposition by immobilization. The Lab hopes saltwasher can be part of the national effort to treat and immobilize 13 metric tons of plutonium from Rocky Flats, Hanford and other sites. The work will be conducted in a facility to be built at Savannah River.
Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a multi-disciplinary, national security laboratory that applies science and technology to the important issues of our time. The Laboratory is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Laboratory news releases and photos are also available electronically on the World Wide Web of the Internet at URL www.llnl.gov PAO and on UC Newswire.

Компания Light Management Group, Inc закончила оснащение своего научно-производственного комплекса и назначила руководителем Совета Директоров Аркадия Розенштейна, который был до этого президентом компании Laser Show Systems, Российской компании, расположенной недалеко от Москвы, которая использовала лазерные технологии в системах для телевидения и различных шоу; он работал также в институте исследования энергии в Эстонии в отделе акромеханики Академии науки. Имеет 3 патента.

BURLINGTON, - Ontario--(Business Wire)--June 7, 2000-Light Management Group, inc. (otcbb:LMGr - news) is pleased to announce that its subsidiary, light research and development ("Light R&D"), has completed building its new research and development facility in Burlington, Ontario.
The equipping and furnishing of the site and the placement of personnel are underway. The facility will house a focussed group of scientists and engineers doing research and development on light and optic products. Among the products being developed are the acousto-optical switch for fiber optic lines (patent pending) and an information compressor for fiber optic lines (patent pending). The company's currently patented acousto-optic system for light deflection will be the core technology driving related projects. Research personnel includes don Iwacha, ph.d., who will head Light R&D. Dr. Iwacha will report directly to Barrington L. Simon, chairman and ceo of LMGr. Arkadi Rozenchtein, ph.d., will be the facility's director of science, and Gennadii Ivtsenkov, ph.d., will be senior scientist.
LMGr management is also pleased to announce that Arkadi Rozenchtein, Ph.d. has been appointed to the company's board of directors. Rozenchtein was formerly the president of Laser Show Systems, a Russian company based out of Moscow that applied laser technologies to show business, television, and display and projection systems; he was also a fellow at Estonia's institute of energy research in the department of acromechanics Academy of science. Rozenchtein is co-author of Laser Display Systems' "RBG laser projectors" and holds three patents. In 1996 he received the Belgium order's badge of honor; in that same year he also was a gold medal and grand prix recipient at the international congress of innovations in Brussels, Belgium.
Gennadii Ivtsenkov, ph.d., Light R&D's senior scientist, has recently been the senior scientist at Laser Show Systems (Canada) ltd.; In addition, he was chief engineer for RGB laser projection system operation, the RGB laser projection system design and presentation enhancements; and for Laser/acousto-optic research and development. Ivtsenkov received graduate degrees from the Moscow State Technical University and performed advanced work at the Moscow higher technical school, specializing in radio-electronics and automatics. His later laser-related research focused on the elaboration of high-power chemical lasers and discerning the effect of laser beams on carbon-based materials.
Don Iwacha, ph.d., head of Light R&D, earned his doctorate in organic chemistry from the university of Manitoba; he is responsible for the overall development of LMGr's laser/acousto-optic research and for the creation and exploration of market initiatives.
Work is expected to commence at the Light R&D facility by June 12; additional research personnel continue to be actively recruited. Notes LMGr Ceo Barrington Simon, "we are looking to build highly developed prototypes of our proprietary technology designs by summer's end, with the aim of bringing viable, original, and marketable products to the north American and the world's high-tech sectors soon thereafter."
LMGr is a Nevada corporation specializing in the development of new applications of optical and light technologies. LMGr's breakthrough technology, which was originally developed in the former Soviet Union and brought to north America through the company's Laser Show Systems (Canada) Ltd. Subsidiary, employs sound waves to focus and direct lasers. The company has recently applied for two patents: most recently for its radically new fiber optic information compressor design; and earlier this year for its fiber-optical line commutator, an invention that does not have any mechanical parts and which uses an electronically and computer controlled acousto-optical deflector set that can randomly connect the channels from the array to the single fiber-optical line, resulting in extremely fast switching times - of not more than a few microseconds.
Light Management Group Inc.(LMGr) note: this release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may differ materially from actual future events or results. Readers are referred to the documents filed by LMGr with the sec, specifically the most recent reports which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including potential fluctuations in financial results, dependence on new product development, rapid technological and market change, failure to complete the manufacture of network equipment on schedule and on budget, financial risk management and future growth subject to risks, and adverse changes in the regulatory or legislative environment. LMGr Undertakes no obligation to review or confirm analysts' expectations or estimates or to release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

Moscow June 15 (Itar-tass) - specialists of Russia's ministry for emergencies are to survey the black sea in search of toxic or poisonous substances.
An official in the ministry press service told itar-tass on wednesday that the research vessel spasatel Prokopchik is to set out from Gelenzhik on a ten-day voyage to the sea on Thursday with ecologists and ministry specialists on board.
The vessel is to explore the Black sea coast of Russia along the Anapa-Novorossiisk-Tuapse route. The main mission of the research vessel is to find and study supposed dumping grounds of toxic agents.
Besides, the vessel is to survey Novorossiisk's Cemesskaya bhukhta (Tsemes bay), where the motorship admiral Nakhimov sank in 1986. The results of the analyses are to be referred to research institutes based in Gelenzhik and in Odintsovo outside Moscow for scientists to draw conclusions of the ecological situation in the Black sea near the shores of Russia.

Toxic chemicals can persist for long periods of time in high-latitude oceans. Two recent papers highlight the long-term effects of water pollution, whether from acute episodes such as oil spills or the chronic introduction of chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), in marine mammals. Monson et al. examined how the Alaskan sea otters have fared since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill by examining mortality data to determine the age distribution at death of sea otters in Prince William Sound from 1976 to 1998. Although sea otters born after the spill were less affected, decreased survival rates persist for sea otters of all ages. One method for monitoring the persistence of PCBs and other chlorinated organic species, such as those used in many pesticides, is to examine their levels in predatory marine mammals.
Muir et al. have estimated part of the geographical distribution of PCBs and organochlorine pesticides across the Arctic from northern Canada across Greenland and into northern Russia by examining the blubber of ringed seals taken in local subsistence hunting. They find higher levels of PCBs, especially the less readily degraded penta- and hexachlorinated species, in the European and Russian Arctic, which they attribute to the continued use of PCBs in Russian electrical equipment. -- PDS

June 12, 2000 (Satellite News, Vol. 23, No. 24 via COMTEX) -- The satellite industry won a victory last week when the U.S. government lifted a quota that limited the number of U.S.-built satellites that could be launched on board Ukrainian rockets.
Ending the Ukrainian quota regime offers hope that a similar regulation restricting the number of Russian rockets that can be used to carry U.S. satellites also may be lifted, said Clay Mowry, executive director of the Satellite Industry Association.
Mowry, who helped to negotiate those agreements in the early and mid- 1990s as a Commerce Department official, said the need for the quotas no longer exists.
Key reasons why the quotas are obsolete are that the number of geostationary satellites needing to be launched has doubled and partnerships have been formed between U.S., Ukrainian and Russian launch companies since the quota agreements were signed in the 1990s, Mowry added.
In explaining his move during a stop in Ukraine during last week's European trip, president Clinton said, "This decision eliminates launch quotas and gives U.S. firms greater opportunity to enter into commercial space launch joint ventures with Ukrainian partners without limit and reflects Ukraine's steadfast commitment to international nonproliferation norms." The United States has separate bilateral launch agreements with the Ukraine, Russia and the People's Republic of China. The pacts set a quota for the number of launches the three nations each can conduct for commercial satellites to Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) at prices, terms and conditions within 15 percent of those offered by launch providers from market-economy nations, Mowry said.
One immediate beneficiary to the end of the Ukrainian launch quota is The Boeing Co. [BA]. Boeing owns 40 percent of Sea Launch, a joint venture that includes companies from the Ukraine, Russia and Norway.
The quota has restricted Sea Launch in the number of missions it could conduct under the quota, Mowry said. Sea Launch, the first company to launch commercial satellites from an ocean-going platform, was affected by the quotas because its rocket is a hybrid of the Ukrainian-built Zenit booster. Jim Albaugh, president of Boeing Space & Communications Group, praised the president's decision to end the quota and said the Ukrainians had been solid business partners in the Sea Launch program.
"The next step is to hopefully do away with the Russian quota when the agreement expires by the end of this year," Mowry said. "It is unclear what would happen after that." The U.S. company with the most to gain from eliminating the Russian launch quota is Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT], which formed the U.S.-Russian joint venture, International Launch Services [ILS] that markets Russia's Proton rocket.
"In Lockheed Martin's case, Proton launches are highly profitable--likely in the mid-teens percent operating margin, according to the company, but we think it could be higher," said Todd Ernst, an aerospace and defense analyst with Prudential Securities. "Further, the Russians handle most, if not all, the capital expenditures, so whatever margin LMT gets, it is mostly cash. However, a possible downside is that there is way too much capacity in the industry right now, so opening the market, by eliminating the quota, for more Proton launches might change the supply/demand equilibrium in the markets the Proton serves and have a downward effect on overall pricing."
"Clearly, the U.S. government's intention here is not to restrict trade in commercial space through the use of quotas," Mowry said. "There is a link between these quotas and the nonproliferation voiced by the Clinton administration. The key here is to encourage Russia to act responsibly on the nonproliferation front. The administration is using a chance to lift the quotas as an incentive for Russia to cooperate on nonproliferation issues. Mowry has urged dropping the quotas in congressional testimony, briefings with lawmakers and several letters to Vice President Gore, the State Department and other agencies.
Ernst agreed with Mowry that ending the launch quotas with Russia could let the U.S. government provide Russian scientists and rocket builders with worthwhile, commercial projects.
"I think the government would rather have them building rockets to launch satellites, rather than getting desperate and deciding to sell launch vehicle technology for more nefarious end uses, such as ballistic missile development by rogue nations," Ernst said.
A separate quota exists with the People's Republic of China, but there is little chance that the limits set in that agreement will be reached due to the oifficulties for U.S. companies in obtaining U.S. government licenses to conduct Launches there, Mowry said.
These licensing obstacles rose appreciably following claims in recent years that U.S. satellite companies shared sensitive technology with customers that ended up in the hands of officials from the People's Republic of China. Investigations into those matters are continuing.

MOSCOW-- A one-time U.S. rocket scientist plans to experience space flight from the other end as a tourist aboard the Russian space station Mir, the company providing private investment for the station said Friday.
The announcement that Dennis Tito, who now heads Wilshire Associates in Santa Monica, Calif., is preparing to head into orbit came just hours after two cosmonauts returned from a two-month mission that resuscitated the aging and often-troubled Mir.
Officials of Russia's cash-strapped space program had said the 14-year-old Mir would be decommissioned this spring unless investors could be found to keep it aloft.
As the Mir's time appeared to be ending, a Netherlands-based company called MirCorp came up with funds for a mission that began April 4. The mission was aimed at performing small repairs and maintenance aboard the Mir to restore it to full service after flying unmanned for eight months.
A capsule carrying Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri touched down by parachute at 4:44 a.m. Moscow time near the town of Arkalyk in the former Soviet republic of Kazakstan after a three-and-a-half-hour descent, Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said.
"The cosmonauts confirmed that Mir is in good working order, and they demonstrated the value of Mir to the world's business community," said Chirinjeev Kathuria, one of MirCorp's main investors. "We now are preparing the groundwork for upcoming missions to the station." MirCorp spokesman Jeffrey Lenorovitz said later Friday that Tito is undergoing training in preparation for a mission in early 2001 and that he was expected to pay a deposit sealing the mission within the next few days. Lenorovitz declined to say how much the deposit would be, but said the full ticket to fly was expected to cost about $20 million.
Tito, currently in Moscow, could not immediately be reached for comment on what he expected to do on the mission of seven to 10 days. Lenorovitz said what a "space tourist" might do is an open question. "We don't know whether he's just going to enjoy the experience ... or perform experiments, Lenorovitz said by telephone from France.
If he wants to do experiments, Tito has the background to cook up something sophisticated. In a 1999 profile posted on Wilshire Associates' Web site, the Los Angeles Times said Tito once worked for the U.S. Jet Propulsion Laboratory and that his responsibilities included working out the trajectories for Mariner spacecraft, which reached Mars and Venus in the 1960s and 70s.
RKK Energiya company, which built and runs Mir, has a 60-percent stake in MirCorp and the remainder belongs to private investors. The aging station has seen a series of accidents and breakdowns, including a terrifying fire and a near-fatal collision with a cargo ship in 1997. MirCorp officials played down past problems. Russian space officials view MirCorp as the last hope to save Mir, a symbol of the once-glorious Soviet space program that put the first satellite in orbit and the first person into space.
The U.S. space agency NASA has been vexed by Moscow's decision to extend Mir's life, saying it diverts scarce Russian resources from the International Space Station project. The new station is behind schedule because of Russia's failure to deliver a key component, the Zvezda service module, currently set to be launched July 12.

Американский бизнесмен хочет попасть на станцию Мир в качестве "гражданского исследователя"

STAR CITY Russia, Jun 19, 2000 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- An American investment manager on Monday announced his plan to hitch a multimillion-dollar ride on the Russian Mir space station as the first tourist in orbit.
Dennis Tito, a former rocket scientist from Santa Monica, California, hopes to make the trip next year. The trim, energetic 59-year-old said he had wanted to travel to space ever since hearing of the launch of the first satellite, more than 40 years ago. "I always wanted to fly and hopefully that will be my opportunity to realize my life's dream," Tito told reporters at the Star City space center near Moscow. The complex is a mixture of training facilities and shabby apartment buildings dating from the 1960s. The announcement came just three days after two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth after spending more than two months performing repairs and maintenance on the 14-year-old space station. The Mir had been flying unmanned for some eight months before their trip, which was funded by the same private investors who have offered Tito a ride on Mir. The Netherlands-based MirCorp stepped in after officials of Russia's cash-strapped space program warned that the Mir would be decommissioned if investors could not be found to keep it aloft. MirCorp and Tito are still negotiating the fee for the approximately weeklong trip to Mir, and MirCorp president Jeffrey Manber said that the price tag was expected to be tens of millions of dollars. An earlier plan to put tourists on the Mir flopped after the businessman being touted as a candidate turned out not to be a multimillionaire. Manber voiced hope that other "citizen explorers" would follow Tito's example. He said that investors were showing increasing interest in the company's plans to open the first Internet portal in space, which would be capable of relaying live images of the Earth surface, and its plans to produce highly pure medicines and alloys. "We are receiving a very good reception from international investors," Manber said. "They believe in the Mir space station." Tito is the founder of Wilshire Associates, an investment management consulting firm based in Santa Monica, California. Before he qualifies for the flight, Tito will be subjected to grueling tests, Manber said.
"He will be going through months of training," Manber said. "There is no sacrifice of safety. We all understand the steps necessary to send a person into space." Mir has been the site of a series of accidents and breakdowns, including a terrifying fire and a near-fatal collision with a cargo ship in 1997. But Tito said he studied Mir's record and become convinced that the space station was safe. "The Russian space program has a very excellent safety record and I feel that the risks are very low," he said. Tito said he had successfully passed a crucial centrifugal test and several other preliminary exams, but has many more to go before he's judged fit to fly. Before he goes into orbit, another team of cosmonauts will be sent to the space station to resuscitate it after the unmanned flight. No date for that mission has been set yet. The two cosmonauts who touched down last week, Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri, said Monday that the space station was in fine working shape. If found fit, Tito would travel to Mir with two Russian cosmonauts. It's still not clear what he would do for a week on the space station. "I want to experience space. That is my first desire," he said. "I want to be able to assist the crew where I can, not be a burden to the crew." Russian space officials view MirCorp as the only hope to save the space station, the last symbol of the once glorious Soviet space program that put the first satellite in orbit and the first person into space. The firm is 60 percent owned by RKK Energiya, the Russian company that built and operates the Mir; the rest is owned by private investors.
NASA has objected to Moscow's decision to extend Mir's life, saying it diverts scarce Russian resources from the International Space Station project. The new station is behind schedule because of Russia's failure to deliver a key component, the Zvezda service module, currently set to be launched July 12.

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