Proton-M Rocket Carrying Russia's Most Advanced Satellite Crashes 160
schwit1 (797399) writes "When it rains it pours: A Russian Proton rocket crashed Friday nine minutes after launch. Considering the tensions between the U.S. and Russia over space, combined with the increasing competition for the launch market created by SpaceX's lower prices, another Proton failure now is something the Russians could do without. Moreover, the Russians were planning a lot of Proton launches in the next few months to catch up from last year's launch failure. Many of these scheduled launches were commercial and were going to earn them hard cash. This failure definitely hurts, and will certainly be used as justification by their government in increase its control over that country's aging aerospace industry."
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Informative)
It often comes as shocking to many people in the West, but Soviet aerospace industry was pure cutthroat capitalism to the extreme. Competition between respective bureaus was brutal, far more so than current climate in Military Industrial complex in US for example. That is how they ran away several decades ahead of the West in many aspects of that industry. As a result, comparison to current situation with same industry in the West and assuming that what is suggested here is going to Western style "government lead" model is just nonsense.
Going back to that from the current situation seems like a good plan for the industry in fact. Right now it's massively inbred and corrupt, very similar to industry in the West in the same sectors. This is better than space-x model, this is what it should be - government lead industry that is driven to fierce competition within itself, without the massive overspending that results from need to corrupt government to get contracts and produce profits.
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Informative)
Um... you are forgetting that the reason that the airlines have such excellent safety records is due to the strict government oversight of just about every aspect of the industry. Pilot, Fight Attendants, Mechanics... heck, even the luggage handlers have to be certified to one level or another by the FAA. Every, even minor, mishap with a plane is documented in detail by the NTSB.
Yes, if the evil capitalistic profits were welcome to run amok there would be no seat belts, oxygen masks, life jackets, interiors would be of highly combustible materials, and the seats would rip from the floor/collapse in a crash - because all of those things add weight - and weight reduces profits. They are there to make the planes safe - not because the airlines want them there.
Challenger blew up due to political reasons (decision to not-launch (line engineers) was overridden by upper mgt. to make the president look good). Columbia was due to errant assumptions on the part of the engineers at both NASA as well as Lockheed Martin's. 'There is no way this chunk of lightweight foam could possibly cause any damage.' Ooops...