Slashdot Mirror
ISS Crew Returns in Soyuz Capsule
physicsnerd writes "According to CNN the Soyuz capsule from the International Space Station has landed in Kazakhstan. This is the first time US Astronauts have ever landed outside of the US."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
The astronauts were not the first Americans to land on foreign soil after a trip in space because U.S. tycoon Dennis Tito beat them to that distinction.
Russian: ~ 1 billion dollars per year.
American: ~ 15 billion dollars per year.
Of the 1 billion dollars a year, only 20% is paid by the Russian government, the rest is commercial enterprise. That's a fantastically tax efficient space programme for Russia. Can America get even a single shuttle launch for $200million?
Perhaps the US government should outsource the management of their space programme to the Russians. They have a better heavy lift capability more reliable launch vehicles and are many many times cheaper.
They actually missed their landing point and landed in the Kazakhstan desert: over 400km from their intended destination!!
BBC News: story
http://blog.grcm.net/
Above post = troll (matrix spoiler in 2nd last paragraph)
You missed a point. The Hubble program was designed with the idea of being upgraded periodicaly with the aid of the shuttle. This was to allow advances in technology to be incorporated every 3 or so years. In fact, the optics correction was done on a regualar maintainence mission that was planned befor the Hubble was launced. All in all the poster you were responding to needs to grow up, and realizes that there are other people in the world that know what they are doing, and some of those work for NASA. It was his type of whining that caused the graduale scaling back of the original ISS design. So he is in essence to blame ( in spirit) for the failings of the ISS that he is whining about.
The custom bit of the seats is a padded liner that fits into the framework of the seat, the actual frames are all the same size. The station crew bring their custom seat liners up with them on the shuttle, then swap them with the ones for the old crew. Same happens when they swap out a Soyuz, the delivery crew move their seat liners from the new Soyuz to the old one, and the station crew move theirs from the old to the new
Anthony
You should perhaps check out some these websites more closely yourself.
The only US manned spacecraft "in which almost everything that went up came down" was the tiny one-man Mercury capsule. And unlike the first Soviet Vostoks, all US manned capsules have had some aerodynamic steering capability, even the Mercury capsule. Ironically, the steerable blunt-body design was actually originally researched and developed for use on ICBM warheads.
The fundamental design charcteristic of ANY spacecraft launched with a chemically-fueled rocket is "minimizing the overall vehicle mass", I'd hardly say that was a great satori of the Russians. Read anything about the Apollo lunar module and you will see the immense lengths gone through to limit the mass of the lander, including having a skin so thin you could stick a pencil through it.
Both the Gemini and Apollo spececraft had jettisonable service modules.
Apollo:
Command Module Total mass: 5,806 kg
Service Module Total mass: 24,523 kg
Lunar Module Total mass: 14,696 kg
Reentry mass % of total orbital assembly: 13%
Gemini:
Reentry module Total mass: 1,982 kg (2-person)
Retro module Total mass: 591 kg
Equipment module Total mass: 1,278 kg
(Total jettisoned mass prior to entry: 1,869 kg)
Reentry mass % of total orbital assembly: 51%
Soyuz (original design):
Orbital Module Total mass: 1,200 kg
Descent Module Total mass: 2,850 kg
Service Module Total mass: 2,700 kg
(Total jettisoned mass prior to entry: 5,550 kg)
Reentry mass % of total orbital assembly: 18%
The fact is that the vehicles are all optimized for different mission profiles and constraints, so it's really incorrect to generalize based on any one characteristic. The Shuttle for example, is a massive re-rentry object, but it can launch and return a crew of seven and a 14,000 kg Spacelab module. It's all based on what you want to do and how you want to do it.
All that said, I think that the Soyuz is an excellent design, and obeys one of the most fundamental tenets of engineering - refine a basic design. The Soyuz incorporates all of those years of operational experience and the Soyuz is definitely the most proven manned space vehicle design available.
But was it a successful design? According to its original mission, it's hard to say. It never carried a Hero of Socialist Labor to the lunar surface and back because the Soviets couldn't get the N-1 to work, so it never attempted its design mission.