MOSCOW. Oct 12 (Interfax-AVN) - The failure of the Soyuz-FG launch vehicle after liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Thursday is a symptom of the systemic decline in the Russian space industry, Cosmonaut Yury Baturin told Interfax on Friday.
"The loss of professionalism and the thoughtless rejection of anything rooted in the Soviet era have led to this," Baturin said.
"You should remember that the law on technical regulation was adopted in the 1990s. It was said then that all those Soviet GOSTs [state standards] would be canceled as anachronisms and new Russian GOSTs would be adopted. They would be the strongest and would be endorsed legislatively. It's true, they did adopt two," he said.
"The GOSTs were canceled. The industrial GOSTs became unnecessary. As a result, the manufacturers started setting standards themselves. Naturally, they don't want to set themselves requirements higher than they could meet. And this is the result. And this doesn't just concern the space industry. This is about the entire Russian technological industry, which is in the same condition," Baturin said.
"The second reason is that for many years now, they've been gradually discharging professionals from work, and they've hired you-know-whom instead. The principle is: a subordinate cannot be smarter than the boss. The others in the hierarchy act based on the same principle. And so virtually all professionals have been ousted from the manufacturing sector. And those who stayed have left due to their age or have simply died over the past 20 years," he said.
"I think they'll certainly find a fall guy now - the side [booster] didn't separate on time there because a valve didn't open on time," Baturin said.
"They'll find the person who manufactured it, make him the scapegoat, and punish him," he said.
Baturin presented his new book, "Rulers of Infinity: A Cosmonaut on Profession and Destiny," at the Memorial Cosmonautics Museum on Friday. Baturin is a Hero of Russia. He went to space twice and served as secretary of the Russian Defense Council in 1996-1997.