US Should Use Trampolines To Get Astronauts To the ISS Suggests Russian Official 272
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "The Washington Post reports that Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has lashed out again, this time at newly announced US ban on high-tech exports to Russia suggesting that 'after analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I propose the US delivers its astronauts to the ISS with a trampoline.' Rogozin does actually have a point, although his threats carry much less weight than he may hope. Russia is due to get a $457.9 million payment for its services soon and few believe that Russia would actually give it up. Plus, as Jeffrey Kluger noted at Time Magazine, Russia may not want to push the United States into the hands of SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, two private American companies that hope to be able to send passengers to the station soon. SpaceX and Orbital Sciences have already made successful unmanned resupply runs to the ISS and both are also working on upgrading their cargo vehicles to carry people. SpaceX is currently in the lead and expects to launch US astronauts, employed by SpaceX itself, into orbit by 2016. NASA is building its own heavy-lift rocket for carrying astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, but it won't be ready for anything but test flights until after 2020. 'That schedule, of course, could be accelerated considerably if Washington gave NASA the green light and the cash,' says Kluger. 'America's manned space program went from a standing start in 1961 to the surface of the moon in 1969—eight years from Al Shepard to Tranquility Base. The Soviet Union got us moving then. Perhaps Russia will do the same now.'"
Fat Chance (Score:4, Insightful)
"The Soviet Union got us moving then. Perhaps Russia will do the same now."
Back then those in power and the people in general cared that the Russians could do something we could not. That is no longer the case when it comes to space. Most people don't understand why space is important at all outside of things like satellites that provides communications around the planet.
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Re:Fat Chance (Score:5, Insightful)
True to some extent, but with transmission and travel times factored in science becomes a very drawn out thing the farther we go. At some point having a 'rover' in say, the Oort cloud or on Pluto, is just to inefficient and humans will need to be closer or it will be the grand children of the original scientists analyzing the results of the vehicle launched by the grand parents. In this example it can take up to two decades to reach Pluto alone and even light can take 4 to 7 hours to get to Pluto from Earth. This would imply that we would send a command to move an inch or two and the next day get a response about that movement. This is science at a slugs pace. If we could just move the humans to the orbit of Pluto we now have real time science and the research can be sent back to Earth at a more sedate pace without issue.
Things like ISS were meant to make things like our life support more robust and show us ways to enhanced recycling and other capabilities to extend resupply. Sadly with extremely low priorities because of the expense to run these programs they have never advanced beyond baby steps.
Personally I can see why we favor unmanned missions, but I believe we need to reignite the spirit of exploration and actually fund manned space travel for research and development.
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Re:Fat Chance (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point having a 'rover' in say, the Oort cloud or on Pluto, is just to inefficient and humans will need to be closer or it will be the grand children of the original scientists analyzing the results of the vehicle launched by the grand parents. In this example it can take up to two decades to reach Pluto alone and even light can take 4 to 7 hours to get to Pluto from Earth. This would imply that we would send a command to move an inch or two and the next day get a response about that movement. This is science at a slugs pace.
Nice straw man you have there, too bad we already have autonomous systems that operate far smarter than that. The Mars rovers have a worst case 40 minute round trip (2x20 minutes) so drive-by-wire is already out of the question, they receive driving commands and instructions to use scientific instruments on points of interest once per martian day (24h 40min) and have rather advanced hazard avoidance systems to prevent it from getting stuck, its on-site generated maps are already more detailed than what can be sent back to earth. A 7 hours delay to Pluto doesn't really make any difference in how it would operate, within the solar system we're good handing out daily instructions from Earth. Outside the solar system we don't have any practical means of going with or without people, so that's a moot point right now.
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...Radio is slower than light even in a vacuum...
It takes about 5 seconds of googling to disprove this statement.
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/emspectrum.html [nasa.gov]
http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~cchieh/cact/c120/emwave.html [uwaterloo.ca]
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The Cold War is over. Trying to bring it back won't result in a new space race. More likely, it will just lead to WWIII and a near future where space is the least of our worries.
Re:Fat Chance (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not. It may be for us, but today's Russians — after over a decade of Putin's propaganda efforts — are aching for a revanche. Drunk on the easy success of annexation of Crimea from defenseless Ukraine (approved by nearly 80% of the Russians — I doubt, US had this kind of unity since WW2), they are already joking that Alaska is called "Ice-Crimea". Compared to an average Russian, Putin today is a moderate.
Do not be fooled — if you knew Russian and read their popular web-sites, you'd know... Without that capability to check for yourself, believe me.
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You have this totally unjustified, groundless sense of moral superiority over Russians whose sometimes questionable actions on the international scene do not bring nearly as
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"saving" the world from non-existing WMDs, "protecting" democracy, "figting" "terrorism" and so on.
You forgot to put "democracy" in quotes. What we have in America isn't democracy, it's oligarchy.
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It's a republican oligarchy! If we care to keep it.
Re:Fat Chance (Score:4, Insightful)
A simple well-tested answer to anti-Americans like yourself is thus: whatever wrong you can accuse the US of doing within the last 100 years, Russia (or China) has done on wider and deeper scale in the last 50.
This justifies my sense of moral superiority. We aren't perfect, but we are far better than Russia.
Re:Fat Chance (Score:4, Insightful)
Chechnya comes immediately to mind. That's where Putin himself was ordering tanks, multiple rocket-launchers and bombers to be used against his own citizens — something he now gravely warns Ukrainians against [go.com].
Then Afghanistan, with its over a million victims. Before that go military suppressions of popular uprisings in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, and support (overt and covert) for various Arab regimes in their wars against Israel.
That takes care of military conflicts. Guantanamo is just too precious for words — an American-run prison... Do you know the conditions in Russian prisons — how easy it is to get into it and how hard it is to get out? Please, don't make me laugh.
I'd say you are ignorant, but these numbers are so easy to verify, you must be lying. Soviet war in Afghanistan [wikipedia.org] killed 850,000–1,500,000 civilians (plus up to 90K fighting men). The Vietnam war [wikipedia.org] killed 455,462–1,170,462. This alone deals with your "all military conflicts combined" false claim.
But there is more — the sole reason, Vietnam war was as bloody, was USSR's support for the Viet Cong. While we were fighting the spread of Communism — the single deadliest school of thought known to man (even Hitler's heinous strand of Fascism being but a distant second) — USSR was attempting to spread it. Without it, we would've prevailed — and quickly — and Vietnam today would've been more like South Korea, instead of being more like the North.
I grew up in USSR — my educational system was perfect (in your opinion), so that's another "oopsie" for you. Remember to logout.
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He brings up counter-evidence, and then you just call him crazy. You lost the argument.
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they are already joking that Alaska is called "Ice-Crimea"
What was that quote that was famously misattributed to Admiral Yamamoto?
"You cannot invade Alaska. There would be a high-powered rifle behind every drunken indigenous person."
I think it went something like that...
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Lets be blunt, screw the Ukraine and the screaming about world war three, their continual breakdown of government and oligarchs strip mining the economy, pretending to be pro-Russian or pro-European, nationalists or socialist, fascists or communists, all the while only caring about lining their own pockets and in the process destabilising the whole country. First and foremost, Ukraine can keep its own bullshit within the Ukraine, the rest of the world will not be playing world war three or even pretend to.
Re:Fat Chance (Score:4, Insightful)
And thus the famous words of Kennedy Doctrine [wikipedia.org] became:
Mostly thanks to Russian efforts to sabotage them. Yanukovich, for example — a violent felon in his past — would never have come close to being elected, had it not been for 24/7 propaganda efforts on his behalf by Kremlin-TV...
If BBC could reach American public in the 18th century, we too would've had "continual breakdown of government" back then — possibly even reverting to British rule. Unlike Putin, King George III was a rather benign and benevolent monarch and we had nothing genuinely evil to blame Britain for.
Re: Fat Chance (Score:4, Interesting)
Reminds me of a translation of a sign I saw in Ukraine: "If you become part of Russia, you won't be speaking Russian - you'll be silent in Russian."
A large portion of the problem is Putin's crackdown on the press. As bad as the state of a free press often seems in the west, it's nothing compared to Russia where pretty much all opposition to Putin has been eliminated. They're now ranked 148th in world press freedom, worse than half of Africa.
Whatever is the current propaganda message, it gets echoed relentlessly. Just the other day they had the same Ukranian guy (Andrey Petkov) on three different stations, but they didn't even bother to give him the same story on each. On NTV, he was a German spy smuggling money to support the anti-Russian protesters. On Rossiya 1, he was a repentent pro-Ukraine extremest who converted to the pro-Russian side after having been savagely beaten by fellow protesters. In yet another segment he was a neo-Nazi surgeon supporting the new Ukranian government.
Probably the funniest bit of propaganda was after an attack on a pro-Russian checkpoint. They all broadcast images of the two totally burned-out cars which they said that members of Right Sector drove up in to attack it. They then presented piles of American money, satellite images, and a business card with the name of the leader of Right Sector on it, among a bunch of other stuff. Just ignoring the absurdity of right-wing assault groups roaming around carrying business cards of their leader (with a fake phone number on them), the funny part was that everything that they presented was pristine - not only unburned, but altogether undamaged. Whatever material Right Sector makes their leaders' business cards out of that can survive a car-gutting fire, please, disclose it immediately so we can use it for fireproofing! It's gotten lots of coverage [smh.com.au]; the card now has its own Know Your Meme [knowyourmeme.com] entry ;)
As funny as it is, a large portion of the Russian public just takes this sort of stuff at face value. The media keeps repeating the same mantra: "Ukranian neo-nazi extremists overthrew the government and are assaulting innocent Russians". So when international reporters first-hand witness the "little green men" throwing molotov cocktails at a peace rally full of children, it doesn't matter, it gets reported in Russia as "rival protest groups clashed" or even "pro-Russian protesters repel an attack", and there's nobody on the airwaves to say otherwise.
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The American public does the exact same thing.
Note how the Ukrainian unrest to oust Viktor Yanukovych was a natural popular uprising, but the pro-Russian backlash absolutely must be a Russian Psy-Op.
So when part of Ukraine does what the US wants, it was all them and they should be free to determine their own future.
But when part of Ukraine does something the US does not want, saber rattling and sanctions to punish the vile Russian puppeteers are in order.
A public skilled in critical thinking would be suspic
Re: Fat Chance (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because the participants of "pro-Russian backlash" are guided by Russians (not merely Psy-Ops, but actual fighting men acting as force-multipliers). But, of course, a Russian would deny it — or demand indisputable proof.
But what can not be denied, is that these people are carrying Russian flags — and replace Ukrainian flags with them, whenever they capture a government building. That alone is treason. Considering, that Russia is not merely a powerful foreign country vying for influence, but an enemy of Ukraine (which it obviously is since February 27, when Russian military invaded Crimea), this particular treason is most heinous. Its goal is not to change the general direction of Ukraine's foreign policy, they endanger territorial integrity and even the entire sovereignty of their country. There are no excuses for that.
It may have been so before February 27. Since then it is perfectly clear-cut. Russia is an invader, Ukrainians openly taking its side are traitors/collaborators, and attempts (such as yours) to paint it as "well, its complicated" are nothing but propaganda-cover for Kremlin.
No, it is not possible. The pro-Russia uprising is most definitely orchestrated by Russian military. Ukraine's intelligence has arrested some such Russian servicemen — though clearly, not enough.
The pro-Russian uprising is, as I said, not merely "influenced" but created by Russia. It is possible, that the anti-Yanukovich revolt was so influenced, but it is unlikely — considering how unprepared "the suspects" turned out to be. Yet, even if it were directly managed by the US-embassy — as viewers of Kremlin-TV are being led to believe — that's not an equivalent to what Russia is doing and seeking to do. US is not trying to annex Ukraine or any part thereof — the last time US annexed anyone was in 19th century. Putin, on the other hand, seeks to rebuild as much of the USSR as he can — his Russia today is an enemy.
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Flying the wrong flag is not treason anywhere else in the world. So right off the bat you've lost most of the persuasive power you may have had.
Educate yourself - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]
Also your claim that foreign powers can only be held accountable if they desire to actually annex territory isn't valid. I don't recall Al-Qaeda 'annexing' the twin towers, for example.
Try again, if you'd like, but without the bias, please.
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Throwing down your country's flag to replace it with that of an actual, current, active enemy is treason. If the Confederacy still existed today, using their flag instead of that of the United States would've been viewed as such.
I made no such claim. The claim I made, was that if they do, they are an enemy. There may be other
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I made no attempts to address this particular point. I agree with it. Though, typically, American media tends to be biased against America, not for it.
I refuted your attempts to muddle the issue of unrest in Ukraine. No mere technicalities there — there is no equivalence between the largely unarmed (or armed wit
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Who am I that I can 'attempt to muddle'? Further why do you care what I think about it? These questions are hypothetical, as an exercise in critical thinking.
That said, the goals here are pretty identical - modify the nationality of the country through means other than democracy. Yanukovich WAS legally elected, right? Could you imagine the 49% who voted against Obama conducting an uprising because they didn't care for his policies?
Ever hear of the Bay of Pigs?
I wonder also, if we will eventually see NAT
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Copernicus wasn't the first to discover Heliocentrism. He was the first with the balls to publicly advocate for it.
. That's not really true at all. From wikipedia:
Some time before 1514 Copernicus made available to friends his "Commentariolus" ("Little Commentary"), a forty-page manuscript describing his ideas about the heliocentric hypothesis.[e] It contained seven basic assumptions (detailed below).[60] Thereafter he continued gathering data for a more detailed work. About 1532 Copernicus had basically completed his work on the manuscript of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium; but despite urging by his closest friends, he resisted openly publishing his views, not wishing—as he confessed—to risk the scorn "to which he would expose himself on account of the novelty and incomprehensibility of his theses.
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You forgot this sentence which followed:
Copernicus finally agreed to give De revolutionibus to his close friend, Tiedemann Giese, bishop of Chemno (Kulm), to be delivered to Rheticus for printing by the German printer Johannes Petreius at Nuremberg (Nürnberg)
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This. The Space Race was a dick size contest of the type that most people deplore today. It also was ultimately a sterile exercise that left a whole bunch of people convinced that space exploration is all about Boldly Going and Big Stunts - rather than the reality of exploration, which is that most of it deadly dull daily stuf
Re:Fat Chance (Score:4, Insightful)
So what is left to fight our growing skepticism in everything? ,Angry Birds and Candy Crush. This is actually very depressing stuff. In essence escapist technology.
While we may be out of an economic depression, the world is in a type of cultural depression, were individual feel that there isn't much future. We in essence gave up and stopped trying. Our great success stories of our age are guys who make things like Facebook, Twitter
The Space Race, was a publicity stunt, but a damn good one that really helped America and the world. It helped make people optimistic. If you grew up in the 70's and 80's the Idea that you could be an astronaut, or working in that fancy ground control room with all those monitors, inspired people to try new things study Science and Engineering. This personal exploration often took them off the path of going into space... However it moved people in other areas.
Re:Fat Chance (Score:4, Insightful)
"While we may be out of an economic depression"
we have just begun our decent into the depression. we have a very bumpy ride ahead. the house of cards is coming down.
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A belief strongly held by the Space Cadets - but one for which there isn't one single shred of evidence to support. In fact, all the evidence runs the other way, the general public didn't particularly support the Space Race and didn't care much one way or another. Most escapist literature in fact got it's start in the 60's and 70's...
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It's easy to think about it that way, but try to put yourself in the average American situation at the beginning of the space race: Russia was shooting up satellites full of god-knows what capabilities flying straight over American cities half a dozen times a day and could launch weapons at the US from the other side of the world in under an hour, and the US had no response. Can you imagine how helpless many people felt about that and how strongly they wanted to change the situation? The obvious US response
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Of course, eventually the tables evened out, the addition of newer capabilities stopped being as big of an issue, etc. The moon race was sort of the jumping the shark moment. I mean, it's not like people were going to start shooting Saturn Vs or N1s at each other.
Why not? Those were improvements on the German V-2 canal-crossing rockets, and developed by the same people.
"Once the rockets are up
who cares where they come down
that's not my department,"
says Wernher von Braun.
-- Tom Lehrer
Re:Fat Chance (Score:5, Interesting)
Just wait until China gets its space station up and running, or lands a person on the moon. It will be panic mode at NASA all over again.
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Mir was 20 years ago. And Russian.
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Just wait until China gets its space station up and running, or lands a person on the moon. It will be panic mode at NASA all over again.
Highly unlikely. The Soviet Union had ICBMs targeted at American cities, armored divisions in Germany, and a leader who said "We will bury you." [wikipedia.org] It was legitimately seen as a threat. China makes the toys we buy at Wal-Mart.
China could be a threat (Score:2)
The Soviet Union had ICBMs targeted at American cities
You seriously think China doesn't? China has the capability and I'm sure both China and the USA have some nukes with the other's name on them. It's not as tense as the cold war was (I'm old enough to have lived through a good bit of the cold war) but any time you have two large nation states there is always the possibility of military conflict.
I'm not hugely worried about getting into a shooting war with China but it's hardly inconceivable. Most likely source would be Taiwan. Also could be issues with J
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Any time you have two large nation states there is always the possibility of military conflict.
Sure, conflict with China is possible, but with the USSR it was seen as almost inevitable. The USSR had a goal of global communism, and a view for the future of the world very much in conflict with the West. China has no territorial claims outside of Taiwan (which both the US and Taiwan itself acknowledge to be part of China) and a handful of disputed islands. They have no significant ideological differences with the rest of the world, and certainly no ideology that they are trying to push on others. I
Re:China could be a threat (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't shoot the hand that feeds you.
Sometimes you do. Exactly a century ago, in May of 1914, Britain and Germany were each others biggest trading partners. By August they were killing each other by the millions.
Re:Fat Chance (Score:5, Insightful)
Never discount the power of nationalism to sway otherwise rational decisions.
There's a good chance SpaceX will benefit from this blockade.
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Space will always be valuable to would-be superpowers here on Earth because it is the ultimate high ground. It doesn't matter if the people understand. If the Powers find it desirable to go to space, they will use the media to lead the people in that direction. Again.
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Not just that - back then we had skills and drive - now we have outsourcing and lawyers sueing everyone who does anything just a tiny bit non-standard...
Russia is a gas station/criminal front (Score:2)
Russia isn't what it used to be...it's anarchy now...basically a gas station that also acts as a front for criminal activities
On a map the country looks big...that's about all they have going for them...that and their oil and illegal activities
The thing is, I agree that most people don't care about Russia being able to do something we cannot...because its temporary and Russia is just a noisy lapdog for international criminals and illuminati
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Maybe we should plant some "lost" Gospels on the Moon, maybe on golden tablets which are nice and shiny and prevents carbon dating etc.
If I know my fellow Americans, setting up a permanent base the Moon will be made America's Priority number 1 with every Cletus and Bubba in the Bible Belt demanding the right to colonize and claim moon property.
mother russia (Score:2)
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Tramp-o-line Theory (Score:5, Funny)
If years of Saturday morning cartooning have taught us nothing else, it's clear you would need, like, several dozen hundred trampolines to pull it off.
Yep, trampolines all the way down.
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Any fool knows you couldn't accomplish this with one, single trampoline.
If years of Saturday morning cartooning have taught us nothing else, it's clear you would need, like, several dozen hundred trampolines to pull it off.
Also from Saturday morning cartoons, we know that all the back-and-forth threats and accusations are just a day at the office. At the end of the day, the wolf and sheepdog punch out and go home [youtube.com], coming back for the same thing again tomorrow.
Re:Tramp-o-line Theory (Score:4, Funny)
I want to see an XKCD on this :D
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Any fool knows you couldn't accomplish this with one, single trampoline.
If years of Saturday morning cartooning have taught us nothing else, it's clear you would need, like, several dozen hundred trampolines to pull it off.
Yep, trampolines all the way down.
But we need trampolines all the way up!
SpaceX isn't ready (Score:2)
I know that's an unpopular viewpoint on Slashdot (where Elon Musk is a god who can do no wrong). But SpaceX isn't ready to just "take over." Soyuz has a rock solid safety record and is much more versatile. SpaceX's design is still largely untested, particularly with human cargo.
If they try to push too hard too soon, people are going to get killed.
Re:SpaceX isn't ready (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "soyuz", you mean the manned vehicle, it has had two loss-of-crew accidents, and about ten mission failures where the crew survived. In 120 flights.
As opposed to Shuttle's two loss-of-crew accidents and zero mission failures where the crew survived. In 135 flights.
So, no, Soyuz does NOT have a "rock solid safety record".
Nor is Soyuz more versatile than Dragon. Smaller payload, in both men and cargo, and lower deltaV (and lack of reusability) do not make for "more versatile".
The only thing that Soyuz has on Dragon is that it has completed the man-rating part. Of course, with a 50 year head start, we'd expect that as a matter of course.
Re:SpaceX isn't ready (Score:5, Insightful)
On the man-rating...the cargo Dragon is actually already man-rated. Once it's up at the ISS, people have to open the door and go inside to unload supplies and load experiments for return to Earth. What it lacks is a launch escape system. Well, and seats.
On the versatility...apart from carrying more cargo and more crew, the Dragon is equipped with heat shielding that can handle return from lunar or Mars trajectories, and for reuse. It's even adaptable for landing on other bodies such as Mars, as in the Red Dragon proposal. It's launcher can operate in single core or three core variants, eventually with varying degrees of core reuse depending on payload/orbit requirements.
So the OP's claim that Soyuz is "much more versatile" is really rather bizarre...
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If by "soyuz", you mean the manned vehicle, it has had two loss-of-crew accidents
The most recent of which was over 40 years ago. Not a single Cosmonaut lost since.
Remind me again how many men and women NASA has lost since then? And even the Space Shuttle was better tested than the SpaceX's vehicle.
But if you want to keep on being a typical arrogant American cocksucker, who thinks your shit doesn't stink and everything with a fucking American flag on it must be the GREATEST GODDAMNED THING IN THE FUCKING WORLD, then be my guest. Just don't be surprised when everyone who isn't American sp
Sad but true... (Score:2)
Injunction against ULA getting more RD-180s (Score:5, Informative)
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits United Launch Alliance from buying NPO Energomash RD-180 engines from Russia.
http://spaceksc.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]
Is this a joke? (Score:2)
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Introducing SpaceX's new rocket ship... (Score:3)
the Trampoline!
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We have the trampolines (Score:2)
I suspect ... (Score:2)
Just another indicator of the US falling fast. (Score:2)
I think this is just another example of how badly the US has slipped in the world standings in just the last decade.
The US now can't even get people up to the space station that just 15 years ago they were taking a lead position in creating.
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It was indeed designed to be "man rated" BUT (Score:3, Informative)
Europe never got its act together to build a manned vehicle to launch on it, AND they've grown weary of using it in a sub-optimal way as a commercial satellite launcher, to the current plan is to cancel it and replace it with a cheaper, smaller, and NOT man-rated "Ariane 6"
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0. NASA being primarily a conduit for the distribution of pork, rather than a research organization.
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Troll fail:
(1) Entitlement spending doesn't make one bit of difference. These days, NASA gets less than 0.5% of the federal budget [wikipedia.org]. The Pentagon wastes more money in a month than NASA spends in a year. The only reason Congress doesn't double or triple NASA's budget is that they see no political gain in it for themselves without earmarking the money for projects that will never be finished.
(2) Don't know how this is relevant. We knew all along that making ourselves beholden to Russia for manned spacefl
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You're also forgetting the stupid decision to start the Shuttle program (instead of using Apollo-like rockets and capsules to launch people into orbit, for far less money), and also the complete mismanagement of our foreign policy by the morons in the Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Reagan Administrations.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Funny)
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Opposing space exploration does not necessarily mean opposing development of new technologies.
Not necessarily, but there's only so much we can do deep in a gravity well. Some technologies will probably require orbital manufacturing.
Vernor Vinge, that science-fiction writer who has spent so much time thinking about technological singularities, has speculated that an advanced race might simply burrow deep under its planet's surface and move into a virtuality reality instead of expanding outward into space.
That's not impossible, but such a culture is probably guaranteed to be wiped out eventually by an impactor if they don't develop their space technology. And if they want to support a large civilization they'll need lots of energy. Unless they strip-mine their atmosphere, putting the generation equipment in space will still be a good way to improve efficiency and safety.
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According to an article in last weeks Aviation Week and Space Technology - you are ignorant.
The value of commercial experimentation on the ISS has taken an unforseen upswing. Real companies are paying Real money to put experiments of different varieties on the ISS.There is a back-log of customers.
I'm thinking the Dragon from Space-X is a nice answer to the Russian suggestion. I also think their minister needs some remedial science classes to learn about the law of gravitiy.... you can't possibly reach escap
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When it comes to space travel, technology that isn't decades-dead has a good chance of turning itself into a cloud of dust on the launch pad.
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ISS isn't space. It's a LEO publicity stunt. The moon is space. Mars is space. ISS is just a jobs program, and a way to justify funding.
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"Cutting us off from space is the worst thing we can do, and will certainly result in the end of man kind".
Eh? What on earth are you talking about? Please explain how not sending a tiny handful of astronauts into space, at immense cost and considerable risk, will affect the survival of the race. As far as I know no one, not even the most wildly enthusiastic advocate of space exploration, has ever said anything of the kind.
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Why do people mod "Troll" or "Flamebait" when I ask them to explain what they are talking about? I'm disinclined to bandy insults in a forum that I thought was aimed at constructive discussion and debate. Maybe I should taper off reading Slashdot, and stop contributing.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Please explain how not sending a tiny handful of astronauts into space, at immense cost and considerable risk, will affect the survival of the race"
If dinosaurs had advanced enough to have a space program, maybe they could of stopped the rock that hit Mexico 65 million years ago, and they would still be alive today.
Sooner or later another rock is going to be on a collision course with the earth, and if we don't stop it, it will wipe us out.
And there are othere problems in the long term, like the sun runnin
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
“Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.” Neil deGrasse Tyson
“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!” Larry Niven
As to your follow up post, perhaps if you stopped asking questions with obvious and well-discussed answers, you wouldn't get modded down.
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To some extent, I suppose I am a Space Nutter myself. It must have been about 1957 that I first opened some Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke and other SF books and thrilled to the stories of galactic exploration and gigantic interstellar empires. I'm all for manned space exploration, even though I must admit that nowadays I can't entirely justify it in practical terms.
But what's this stuff about "the end of man kind"?
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Mankind extending its reach out to space is like moving out of your parent's house when you're an adult. It might not make the most sense financially but it's important for you to learn how to make it out there on your own. It's for your own good.
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Emigration to space never makes sense once you do the maths. The escape velocity of Earth is 11.2 kilometers per second. Assume that a human is around 100kg, the energy required to accelerate the human to escape velocity (assuming 100% efficient propulsion and no support equipment required) is around 6.2GJ, or 1.7MWh to put it into a more consumer-friendly terms. The average American (to pick the country with the highest per-capita energy consumption) uses around 87kWh per year, so the cost of getting a
Re: (Score:3)
6.2 GJ is also the heat content of a whopping 51 US gallons of gasoline. I use that much per month commuting to and from work.
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Did you ever play tic-tac-toe?
Re:Sure we could. (Score:4, Insightful)
The trick to winning is to choose your opponents wisely. Drunks and small children are easy prey from my mastery of X's and O's.
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Re:Sure we could. (Score:5, Insightful)
...and this gets modded "Insightful".
I know Slashdot is popular with a lot of folks with "a zany sense of humour". But suggesting the nuclear bombing of Moscow - or anywhere else - is not clever and it's not funny. It's wicked, and I say that with no religious agenda. If the word "wicked" has any meaning, this is a perfect example of it.
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Actually, with Moscow in particular, it falls even more into the "retarded" category than "evil".
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If it weren't wicked, it wouldn't be funny. Humor is always based on another persons pain.
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It's not funny when a President makes the joke, but I'm guessing that Obama and Putin do not post as an AC on Slashdot.
Life is Beautiful was a fantastic comedy about the Holocaust. There's humor everywhere, and it makes a damn fine coping mechanism for many of us.
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It's not funny when a President makes the joke, but I'm guessing that Obama and Putin do not post as an AC on Slashdot.
It's likely pro-Putin propagandists post provocative comments advocating nuking Moscow, genocide by the CIA in Ukraine, usw. Then they quote those comments in the Russian media as somehow representative of western opinion. Haven't seen it here on /., but it seems to come up on some european online news sites.
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Simply because the Americans have temporarily abandoned a focus on manned missions in favor of autonomous exploration, you couldn't be more wrong.
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No, the thing to do is establish colonies on the Moon and Mars, perform fission experimentation in space vice the Earth's atmosphere, and mine some asteroids.
It would make a lot more sense to kick off a few more Mars missions and learn more about the place before we actually sent humans. Maybe build a better communications infrastructure between the two, first, so that there's always contact. Can't do anything about transmission time, can do something about bandwidth and coverage. A colony on the moon is a really good idea, though. It's nearby, so we could feasibly make a withdrawal plan. Mars is a one-way trip in case of failure. You maybe could bring people ba
Re:Russia is invading eastern Ukraine (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia increased troop presence in the Red Sea area.
Groups spring up in Crimea. Masked men take over government offices and terrorize the local populace.
Groups consolidate and take over the local government after a sham election and then asks to become part of Russia
Russia annex Crimea and continues to mass troops on Russia side of Ukraine/Russia border.
Groups spring up in Eastern Ukraine. Masked men take over government offices and terrorize the local populace.
Guess what comes next. Do you see the pattern? My best guess is you are a Russian who can't wait to visit the new acquisitions.
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> My best guess is you are a Russian who can't wait to visit the new acquisitions.
Any time now. He is just waiting for the permit.
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The US needed to keep its best workers productive as the Shuttle spy satellite boondoggle was slowly ending.
Russia got to keep its best workers productive as the massive science cities/space funding was ending.
A lot of workers got to work with complex metals, fuel, life support systems, complex computer systems... for another few years.
Both countries also invited other wealthy nations in to 'share' in a huge sheltered workshop
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That's pushing a popular misconception, though. Yes, the US did rely heavily on German scientists for its rocket program. Most Americans think that Russia did too, but this simply isn't true. The US got almost all of the high-level German rocket scientists under Operation Paperclip, plus most of the rockets. The Soviets only got a handful of scientists and lower-level line workers. Various research and manufacturing facilities were studied by both sides. While the US incorporated the Germans deeply into the