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Unmanned Russian Soyuz Blows Up On Launch
adagioforstrings writes "CNN reports that a 300-tonne unmanned Soyuz-U launch vehicle exploded 29 seconds after take-off from Russia's Arctic Plesetsk cosmodrome late on Tuesday, its blazing debris showering onto the launchpad and its blastwave killing one and injuring eight others. A modified version of this same kind of rocket will be used to carry cosmonauts to the ISS later this month."
A modified version of this same kind of rocket will be used to carry cosmonauts to the ISS later this month
Lance Bass still wants to go, right?
"A modified version of this same kind of rocket will be used to carry cosmonauts to the ISS later this month."
Let's hope they modify it to not blow up next time. I'd bet those ACME rocket plans and mail order boxes wasn't the best approach for their space program after all. Perhaps we should cut off their access to the Cartoon Network until after the manned launch.
As it says here, the R7 family is "..the most often used and most reliable launch vehicle in history".
The unmanned versions are built to a lower spec, as the cargo isn't as important as human life. Manned soyuz boosters continue to be the safest way into orbit.
Ok, 1 shuttle explosion out of ~ 100 launches is about 1%. If 1% of plane flights crashed, we would have around 60 crashes in the U.S. EVERY DAY. If 1% of the time a car was used it crashed, we would have about 2 million car accidents per day (assuming 200 million drives per day). Rockets DO blow up all the time. Manned rockets have the best safety records because no expense is spared to ensure their quality. Unmanned is a different story though. There was a year or two in the US where nearly 1 out of 10 rockets blew up. We lost a lot of business to Europe and Asia in that time.
Don't Bogart the fish sticks