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US & Russia Show Off New Rocket Designs

Posted by michael on from the fourth-of-july dept.

jonerik writes "Following up on today's story on the Soviet Union's massive N1 rocket are these two articles on the latest US and Russian rocket designs. Space.com covers the American side of things, with a story on Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 and Boeing's Delta 4 boosters. The Associated Press has this article on the Russians' Rokot booster, originally built in the '70s as the SS-19 ICBM and converted to civilian use in the mid-'90s. The Rokot was in the news this past weekend when it successfully launched a pair of US-German satellites - dubbed Tom and Jerry - into orbit to map the Earth's gravitational field and 'chart large-scale movements of water around Earth.'"

2 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Russian v. US by guamman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In this instance, the russians have the right idea, their Rokot booster follows the market to a tea. As a general rule, private companies have used for smaller and therefore cheaper rockets with up to a 20 ton cargo capacity. It is this private investment that will make space travle feasible. The governemnts of the world cannot simply fund a continuing space progam to the fullest extent and other sources must be sought. Big rockets may be better for space travel to Mars and the like, but the demand now is for smaller ones and that may be how Russia gets its feet off the ground (literally).

  2. Atlas V is russian powered.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Note that the Atlas V is not powered by an American engine, it's powered by a closed-cycle Russian engine - the type Americans could never manage to work out how to build..

    It's interesting to see 1960s Russian tech comfortably beating American tech, despite the sizable difference in available resources.