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."
More government control, that's the ticket (Score:4, Insightful)
Because paying folks by the hour rather than by the successful launch is a surefire way to cut Space-X off at the knees. This from the land of the three-man shovel.
Re: (Score:1)
When you're talking about people's lives at stake, and lobbing enormous explosive devices around, minimizing people's hours and maximizing the profit isn't necessarily the best answer.
It's similar to the way private control has completely fucked up the US healthcare system.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The evil capitalist profit incentive has gone a long way toward making the chances of dying in a plane crash approach the probability of winning a lottery. If an airline lost the entire plane on the twenty-fifth flight ala Challenger, and again on the 113th flight ala Columbia there'd be a lot of empty seats.
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm, now that I think of it, I think regulating the producing of Justin Bieber CDs would be in the national interest.
I agree with the regulation comment, the FAA was and is instrumental in making airliners safe. Risk is something companies tend to put a price on, human lives doesn't really enter into that calculation and is probably considered an external cost. The free market might be able to price it in...and the price would fluctuate...depending upon lives lost...which is not a terribly good way to thin
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, if you dig deeper a lot of regulation comes directly from the business themselves. Established businesses often like regulation because it improves the businesses perception (Hey, where government regulated what could go wrong??) while making it harder for start-ups to compete. A really good example of this is the founding of the USDA. Which came about after the European popularity of "The Jungle" which was basically writing down all the sea monster stores of the meat packing industry. I mean he t
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The evil capitalist profit incentive has gone a long way toward making the chances of dying in a plane crash approach the probability of winning a lottery. If an airline lost the entire plane on the twenty-fifth flight ala Challenger, and again on the 113th flight ala Columbia there'd be a lot of empty seats.
The evil capitalist profit incentive has ensured that we no longer have manned space flight at all, and depend on the evil socialist from-each-according-to-ability system to do our launches.
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...
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
One of the reasons the FAA (then CAA) was INVENTED was because planes crashed so often that the industry was never going to become viable.
which is good as long as FAA doesn't get "regulatory capture" by industry like the FCC has become. I also recall for parachuting equipment (canopies, rigs, etc) all are TSO and materials had to be MIL-SPEC. But those mil-specs were defunked but were picked up by Parachute Industry Association which maintains PIA-specs for materials.
Re: (Score:3)
But those mil-specs were defunked but were picked up by Parachute Industry Association
To be sure, most MIL-SPEC docs are pretty dang funky (White Boy....).
Dare I ask: did autocorrect spell-bomb you or have you never seen the correct word in print?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: More government control, that's the ticket (Score:3)
Orville died from a heart attack 35 years+ after Wilbur died.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, right now Spacex is only shipping cargo, and they have competitors. The cost to launch includes insurance on the cargo, wich is set by the success rate. If they have more failures than their competitiors, the insurance cost will go up.
The problem would be if they were a monopoly on launches, where the cost of a failure would go down if they didn't have any competitiors.
If they do start ferrying people, well then they open themselves up to higher liability with a failure. Worse reputation, higher payou
Re: More government control, that's the ticket (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Somehow, even though the actuaries would say you're right, the PR people would tell you you'd be a dead company. Today a billion dollar satellite explodes, the public doesn't really care. Tomorrow, when a school teacher dies with her students on a rocket, and if that company is found to be grossly liable, they're dead.
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it should be the case that any modification to health coverage in the U.S. should not alter any one person's coverage.
Get a grip, of course changing health coverage over a large swath of the U.S. economy is going to generate winners and losers. So you lost, how about the ones who couldn't get coverage before due to cherry picking by the insurance companies that can now get insurance?
Personally, I'd have broken the insurance companies knees. By the way, most of the provisions in the ACA where Republican notions before they became Democrat notions. And the the insurance companies were free to direct that legislation, all in good Republican free market theory. If you didn't get what you expected, blame both parties.
Re: (Score:3)
I would say "thanks Obama" but it's more like "thanks Democrats" since the ACA disaster was passed on a 100% partisan basis.
Nevermind that it's virtually identical to the plan that Romney implemented in his home state.
If you still think there's any meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans, you're hopelessly ignorant of the world around you.
Pull your head out of your ass, stop throwing your vote away, and support an independent or third party next time around.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Nevermind that it's virtually identical to the plan that Romney implemented in his home state.
There's an important difference -- Romney signed legislation that the people of Massachusetts (a very liberal state) wanted. In the case of the ACA, the Democrats of Congress pushed it down the throats of an unwilling American public.
If you still think there's any meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans, you're hopelessly ignorant of the world around you. Pull your head out of your ass, stop throwing your vote away, and support an independent or third party next time around.
I know the arguments for voting for a third party, and I also know the arguments against doing so. It's all very depressing.
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:4, Interesting)
Romney signed legislation that the people of Massachusetts (a very liberal state) wanted.
Don't try to distance him from this legislation. While the Massachusetts legislature did make a number of changes to Romney's original proposal before it was passed, it was Romney's proposal. It wasn't some ballot initiative or invention of the legislature.
Additionally, you'll find that there was widespread support for healthcare reform at the national level as well. Much like the Massachusetts healthcare reform, national healthcare reform was also something that the people wanted. And much like the Massachusetts healthcare reform, the national healthcare reform also had its share of opposition. You make it sound like the American public was united against the ACA, when it is plainly obvious to any honest person that there was in fact extensive support for an overhaul of our healthcare system. Obama had made healthcare reform a large part of the platform that got him elected. This wasn't something that was snuck in or pushed down anyone's throat. It may be hard for some people to believe it, but there's actually a whole range of different opinions on this issue. Just because it was pushed down the throat of an unwilling sideslash doesn't mean the rest of the country was opposed to reform.
That being said, I believe the ACA sucks ass and that single payer was the way to go. I suppose you'd count me alongside yourself as part of the "unwilling American public"?
Re: (Score:2)
The ACA was only passed by means of telling some really bold lies, and shutting out the opposition in the most major act of extreme partisanship that Capitol Hill has seen in a long time.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a silly thing to say, and it's obviously false.
*sigh* [google.com]. You're right, we're living in an era of unparalleled cooperation between the two dominant political parties. The Republicans in the legislature haven't been obstinate for the sake of obstruction at all, no. *sigh* [google.com]
According to polls, many Americans were opposed to the passage of the ACA; sometimes a majority.
And so this is your rationale for claiming that it was pushed down Americans' throats? That for the most part a minority of Americans were opposed to it? I suppose you're similarly opposed to any other legislation that falls short of unanimous support?
Sadly, it's unlikely that anything interesting will happen this year. I don't see the Democrat/Republican control over our government weakening any time soon. If you expect any meaningful change to come from either side of the same coin, you haven't been paying attention.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course the re-election of Obama in 2012 could also been seen as referendum on the popularity of the ACA.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. And that's why every Donk who wants to retain their seat in November is running away from the ACA as fast as their little legs can carry them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That being said, I'm inclined to give him a free pass on the point you bring up. Honestly, I don't think it was unreasonable for him to believe that people covered by really shitty healthcare plans didn't actually like those plans. In hindsight, I suppose that was a stupid belief to have; o
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently you're new to the ideas of risk and risk pooling
Oh, brother
Re: (Score:2)
The only possible reason to disagree with the ACA would be out of ignorance, I'm sure.
You can't possibly think that's what I mean, since I myself openly stated that I think the ACA is shitty. There's countless reasons to disagree with the ACA. If the "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan" quote is your biggest problem with this legislation, then you're not looking too closely.
News flash -- Obama still lied. If he hadn't repeated that lie so often, he might not have won reelection.
News flash -- All politicians running for national office, both Democrat and Republican, do nothing but lie to gain or retain office. I never said Obama was an honest man, or that he kept his campaign promises.
Re: (Score:2)
You can't possibly think that's what I mean, since I myself openly stated that I think the ACA is shitty.
No, I think I read your position pretty well. You're in favor of fully nationalized healthcare, taking the "for profit" companies out of the picture. As such, I would expect you to be cool with the ACA's less granular risk pooling and so forth. You're certainly entitled to your opinion.
I merely pointed out that of all the things to point out as lies, the particular quote you're hung up on is relatively excusable.
I agree that it's possible for such a statement to be "mostly true", but leave out the fine print. That's not really what happened in this case. As far as I can tell, the ACA forced most plans to be canceled, regardless
Re: (Score:2)
In any case, I concede that this "if you like your plan" quote is misleading at best. Deliberately so, if I had to guess. Perhaps the context in which I heard it made me more willing to overlook the bullshit quotient that characterizes it. At the time Ob
Re: (Score:2)
This is the best long thread I've had the pleasure of participating in on slashdot. So civil! So reasonable! Usually things would devolve to ad hominem attacks at this point. Instead, you treat me to "you're certainly entitled to your opinion." Refreshing!
I've enjoyed the exchange as well. Cheers!
Re: (Score:2)
Nevermind that it's virtually identical to the plan that Romney implemented in his home state.
Romney signed the bill with 8 gubernatorial vetos, of which 6 were overridden by the state legislature. The state legislature at the time that bill was passed, by the way, was 6 Republicans and 34 Democrats in the Senate and 21 Republicans and 139 Democrats in the House. It did pass with near unanimous support (only 2 dissenting votes in the house). That said, the bill was introduced and pushed and presented by Democrats and what they had put out was different from what Romney proposed. Given Romney's speci
Re: (Score:3)
The bill was Romney's. He campaigned for it. The legislature made a number of changes, but it was his bill. That it was also supported by Democrats has no bearing on this fact. After the bill's passage, Romney engaged in extensive self-congratulatory behavior. He did not grumble about the terrible healthcare reform bill that was passed against his wishes.
Also, can you please clear up what you mean by "Romney signed the bill with 8 gubernatorial vetos, of which 6 were overridd
Re: (Score:2)
Line item vetoes.
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Interesting)
This is easy to demonstrate. Just look at the health statistics from the rest of the 1st world where government more or less runs it and see how much better off we are then they are. Oh wait.....
Yes, please do look at the statistics of health and life expectancy for countries like Sweden, Norway and Canada.
It's way way above what it is in the US.
I have a surgical joint replacement that doctors here see on the X-rays. More than once they've told me they don't have the expertise to check it out, because US insurance companies would not allow such expensive parts to be implanted in US patients. The US way is to use cheaper parts not built to last, and rely on enough patients dying of other causes before needing replacements for this to pay off.
Also, the US healthcare system is very reactionary and slow to adopt new techniques based on the fear of lawsuits. Treatments can be available for dozens of years other places before you can get it in the US. Laser eye corrections is a good example. It took some 20 years before the US finally got them like other parts of the world.
It's about the dollar, not about the quality of life.
Re: (Score:2)
If you mean biggest bills, longest wait in the ER, and most medical bankruptcies, then yes. If you mean quality of care, then no. The U.S. is well down in that ranking. Even if you have billions in the bank, the U.S. system is too busy running expensive tests to practice any real medicine anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
With medicine I grant that some of your
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, most of the 1st world pities Americans who get sick now. There is no measurement out there that makes healthcare in the U.S. the best or less than the most expensive.
I'm not talking Mumbai vs. NYC here. More like comparing to London or Toronto.
Re: (Score:2)
As I understand it, it's mostly for faster service on elective procedures when money isn't an object.
Re: (Score:2)
What's the proportion of that "steady stream" to the overall population of Canada, though?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought we were discussing healthcare. and Canada vs U.S. What do anecdotes about the old (and dead) Soviet Union have to do with anything?
Someone in need of healthcare is much better off being a Canadian.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought we were discussing healthcare. and Canada vs U.S. What do anecdotes about the old (and dead) Soviet Union have to do with anything?
When the government steps in to mandate a socialist approach to what had been a free market, it turns out that you see the same kinds of patterns.
Someone in need of healthcare is much better off being a Canadian.
Nah. Somebody with money who needs an elective procedure is much better off being in the USA, where the wait time will be shorter.
Somebody without money with a life threatening illness will probably be treated in either country.
Somebody without money who needs an elective procedure may be better off in Canada, but it's not clear because they may also be denied
Re: (Score:2)
Funny you keep claiming that in spite of the evidence clearly showing that Canadians get higher quality care AND it costs less money (no, not just to the patient, but in total). So if socializing the market makes it more efficient, let's get the ball rolling.
Canada doesn't seem to be losing doctors to the U.S. Perhaps Canadian doctors enjoy providing quality care rather than ticking a box or two and bankrupting people.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That's not to say that the people who have made it don't try and use the government to throw up barriers of entry, but that's not part of the American Dream. Those are people who are trying to foil the American Dream, but it's still out there and as viable
Re: (Score:2)
Also, the US has a huge first generation immigrant population. That skews our national numbers pretty badly in things like life expectancy, child mortality, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I've also read, although I'm too lazy to google for it, that where the US gets hit hard is infant mortality.
While part of that is immigrant population, poverty, another interesting factor is supposedly the US tries a lot harder to save preemies that would simply be considered stillborn elsewhere and not counted as infant mortality.
Re: (Score:2)
BTW, the caveats on health habits, immigrant populations, rural areas inaccessible to doctors in the US etc, France has a stillbirth rate twice that of the US. That's probably related to lack of extraordinary efforts for preemies.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, BTW, those 2 are pretty much same thing.
Child mortality drives life expectancy waaaay down. Is like, countries where life expectancy is 30. Isn't like people die at 30. If you made it to 30, most of the time you'll make it to 70. Is just that so many kids die it drives down the average.
There are calculations of life expectancy excluding under 3 or somesuch, but they are hard to find, and not as comprehensive.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:4, Insightful)
What should be an eye-opener is this: "Strikingly, even Americans who are white, insured, college-educated and upper-income are worse off than their counterparts around the world â" a finding that no one quite understands."
Yes, I am white, insured, college-educated and upper-income, and I definitely agree that healthcare here in the US sucks compared to what I had in Europe. It's old-fashioned and the hospitals work hard to get as much money as possible (doing tests which they can't be sued over, instead of treatments which they can), while the insurance companies work hard to pay them as little money as possible.
If I ever need major surgery again, I'll have it in Europe. Because the healthcare provided in the US is far from top.
We may have the best plastic surgeons in the world, and that says a lot about the American society.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:More government control, that's the ticket (Score:5, Interesting)
This is funny to me because even though the Russians beat you in most the early space milestones, the USA finally put a man on the Moon ... by making one giant government-backed project...
While the Russian approach was to set up various competing design bureaus.
Like I said, hilarious.
Re: (Score:2)
This is funny to me because even though the Russians beat you in most the early space milestones, the USA finally put a man on the Moon ... by making one giant government-backed project...
While the Russian approach was to set up various competing design bureaus.
While if we look at today, those design bureaus are still designing and launching rockets while outside of a few pieces of ancient infrastructure and some litter on the Moon, no trace of the Apollo program remains.
The Apollo program put twelve people on the Moon and a space station (Skylab) in orbit, but it hasn't done anything of consequence since. And the design organizations that built Apollo lost their experience after the Space Shuttle.
Re: (Score:2)
The Apollo program was a project, not an organization.
It was a thing which was done and which didn't lead to follow-on things. The Russians were and continue to be much better at developing stuff which is still used decades later.
Nasa is still very much in operation.
But it doesn't have the experience and most of the infrastructure of the Apollo and Space Shuttle eras.
Re: (Score:3)
The thing is Korolev, Chelomei and Yangel were all competing on that project and it wasn't funded until it was way too late. Plus the funding was way below US funding. So... no wonder it fail.
Korolev was the designer of Soyuz. He had a lot of issues in the beginning. At one point he was sent to a Gulag in Siberia where he had to work as forced labor on a mine. They broke several of his teeth there.
Chelomei had a lot of clout when Nikita Khrushchev was in power because he employed one of his relatives. Chelo
Re: (Score:2)
Oh nearly forgot. Yangel designed the R-36 rocket NATO designation Satan i.e. the largest MIRV ICBM in the world.
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: (Score:2)
Not just the aerospace industry, but military in general. If you look at the history behind most new firearms of Soviet era, for example, the competition was fierce, and competitors plentiful. The contest between Tokarev and Simonov that went back and forth (AVS, SVT, SKS - with PTRS on the side) is one prominent example, but there are many others. Kalashnikov had plenty of competition, as well.
Re: (Score:2)
That is also why governmental control is a good thing. When governing body that stands over bureaus sees progress being hamstrung by competition, it can order the cooperation, as was the case in USSR.
Go SpaceX! (Score:2)
Russian lift platform crashes (Score:5, Funny)
Russia: Maybe you should use trampoline to get into space.
*BOOM*
America: You know what Yuri? That sounds like a damn smart decision!
Someone (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
is going to Siberia.
They're already in Baikonur, so Siberia wouldn't be a huge downgrade.
Re: (Score:2)
is going to Siberia.
maybe they should start practicing this dance routine, https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Different problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Last year's failure occurred immediately - it was clear there was a major issue with one of the first stage engines from ignition. This latest failure was in the third stage. That's actually worse, because it's showing problems across the board with different engines in different stages, which would be because of totally unrelated issues. Sounds like either fundamental engineering issues or major quality and control problems (probably the latter).
Re: (Score:3)
Not to anyone with any actual knowledge of rocketry - to them it was clear there was a major problem with the guidance and control systems. (Which in fact turned out to be the case [wikipedia.org].)
Re:Different problem (Score:5, Funny)
They're claiming the rocket malfunctioned after entering a region of intense gay-waves emitted from western Europe.
I should probably stop watching Russian news.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish I had mod points. This had me laughing out loud.
Elon should launch for Baikonur (Score:3)
After all, the first stage could land safely in the uninhabited steppe to the east.
in soviet russia (Score:2)
in soviet Russia we crash your rocket!
Channeling Joe Pesci (Score:2)
A little more to the story... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The telecommunications satellite that blowed up was the Astrium (Airbus) Express AM4R [eads.net], which was to have replaced the Express AM4, which was lost [nbcnews.com] (injected into the wrong orbit) in August 2011.
So they've done nearly the same thing before? Wow.
So are we *sure* the Russians are really launching these things and not just hiding them away for their use later?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, they are for Russian usage, so probably no.
Russia never upgrades (Score:5, Insightful)
It's amazing to me just how ancient most Russian rocket designs are. The Soyuz launcher is literally based on the same design that launched Sputnik, with the addition of a second stage. And even after fifty years of iteration, they still have only a 97.5% success rate with the current Soyuz launchers (Soyuz-U, Soyuz-U2, and Soyuz-FG). That's a full point worse than the Space Shuttle (98.5%), which was a completely new design that didn't have several decades of production testing on basically any of the parts.
Proton is almost as old, dating back to the Soviet lunar program. It was actually first intended as an ICBM, to launch ridiculously heavy warheads (think Tsar Bomba on an ICBM). The changes since then have been fairly minimal, compared to the design changes American rockets went through. One of the biggest features of the latest Proton-M design is "uses less parts made outside Russia". Counting this latest failure, Proton-M has only an 88.9% success rate.
The oft-repeated engineering mantra is "quality, reliability, cost - pick two". Russia's antiquated designs don't give you quality (in terms of efficiency or even lifting power), and they really aren't as reliable as you'd expect from such well-established designs. I can only hope that they're cheap enough that it's worth it - and when you're launching multi-million-dollar satellites, maybe cheaping out on the launcher isn't such a good idea.
Re: (Score:2)
What does one give up if they pick reliability and (low) cost? If you can have high reliability without quality, what exactly constitutes "quality," and what does it matter?
Re: (Score:2)
What does one give up if they pick reliability and (low) cost? If you can have high reliability without quality, what exactly constitutes "quality," and what does it matter?
As gman003 noted, quality can include "efficiency or even lifting power." If you let me set the quality metric as "can lift zero kg zero meters off the ground," I can build you a rocket that will do that 100% of the time, and very cheaply.
Re: (Score:2)
The oft-repeated engineering mantra is "quality, reliability, cost - pick two".
Make that the "oft-misremembered..."
The proper 3 ingredients are
1) quality
2) time to develop/deliver
3)Cost
(obligatory)
4)...
5) Profit!
Re: (Score:2)
Soyuz now uses digital avionics as well. Besides it is supposed to get engine upgrades in the near future.
Re: (Score:2)
As far as reliability goes, here's the fun fact: if you look at the last decade, and count the success/failure rate for the launches, the results are kinda funny. Here are the stats for 2001-2013:
Russia: 346 successful launches, 18 failures
USA: 231 successful launch, 9 failures
China: 126 successful launches, 4 failures
In other words, Chinese seem to be doing best at this game.
Re: (Score:2)
As much as I like SpaceX, a) they're far too new to compare on reliability, and b) they don't have anything comparable to Proton in lift capacity. Proton-M can lift 22Mg to LEO - over twice the capacity of a Falcon-9, closer to two-and-a-half when you count usable capacity (the landing/reuse feature requires most of their extra power from the v1.1 upgrade). The Falcon Heavy is supposed to lift 53Mg, but they haven't even built one yet, let alone flown one.
Re: (Score:2)
While you use statistic to back your claim, in theory, Space Shuttle has more components than Soyuz, rephrase, Soyuz is simpler than Shuttle, it's likely more reliable.
I had written up a rather lengthy rebuttal to most of your points, but then I noticed this gem hidden near the end.
You are literally claiming that it doesn't matter what the facts are, your theory says Soyuz is more reliable than the Shuttle was, therefore reality is wrong and you're right.
I can't argue with that - not because you're right, but because I can only argue using facts and logic, which evidently you want nothing to do with.
Maybe they should just (Score:2)
...use trampolines.
Check out the Exhaust Trail (Score:2)
Starting at about 1:30 [youtube.com] the exhaust trail starts to waver a bit, and over the next fifteen seconds it becomes really wild (just before the craft disintegrates). You have to watch before that to compare.
I wonder how many bolts need to break to cause an engine to shear off or shake the thing apart?
Sad, really. (Score:3)
Re:at least they are trying. (Score:4, Funny)
Meanwhile the USA is building up quite a portfolio of images from the surface of Mars and shit. Russia's got a gig driving a space limousine.
Re: (Score:3)
They "DO WORK" when it comes to space. WTF are WE doing? Sitting around, remembering the good-old-days while NASA fine-tunes its diversity statement. Meanwhile the USA is building up quite a portfolio of images from the surface of Mars and shit. Russia's got a gig driving a space limousine.
Not a limousine, I'd call it more of a small truck, like a Ford ranger king cab with a manual transmission and a 4 cylinder engine. Crude way to travel, but if it's the only ride that stops when your thumb is out, you are just happy not to be walking or riding in the cargo bay.
Re: (Score:2)
American sabotage?
LOL
Like everything bad that happens in Russia is due to the Americans... Um, I hate to say it but they have enough home grown issues to account for this. In fact the cold war loss was more about internal issues than anything else...
Re: (Score:2)
Who sees Russian Sabotage in anything anymore? I haven't heard that statement in years, except for possibly in the recent Ukrainian blowup. Where, since Ukraine is right next to Russia and has/had one of it's main seaports, and photos show Russian commandos running around without identifying badges, seems a reasonable suspicion.
Plus, regardless of what everyone thinks: Sucks that the rocket went down, everyone should hate watching attempts like this fail.