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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."
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Before the shuttle program, as I recall, they always landed outside the US.
However, Tito was not an astronaut, he was a tourist.
This is the first time US Astronauts have ever landed outside of the US.
I thought the moon people landed in the middle of the atlantic, does the US own that now ?.
Um, I think you'll find that most of the Pacific Ocean is outside the USA, and that's where most of the early US astronauts came down.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
>That could have easily have gone very horribly wrong - imagine them coming down on the side of a steep mountain-face.
That's why they aim for Kazakh steppe - it's about as hard to miss as the Pacific ocean.
NASA spends almost $470 million dollars just on one launch ! Just think about what of research you could do with that money !
NASA needs to learn how to manage their money and build a new economical reusable space craft before they start wasting ridiculous amounts of money on a floating money waster.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
Sorry, I was tired when I submitted the article. What I should have said was that this is the first time that US Astronauts have ever landed in a foriegn country. Tito doesn't really count because he was a paid Tourist, not an astronaut.
from reading this and other articles about the Russian re-entry:
1. The subtle undercurrent of U.S. space program elitism, that is, the Russians run a barebones operation and the U.S. astronauts were incredibly lucky to return alive in such a piece of junk space capsule. Numerous posts have spoken to the incredibly reliable and effective Russian space program, so I won't belabor the point.
2. The absurd notion, much inferred, that since the space shuttle disintigrated on re-entry that a similar disaster will befall the Russian Soyuz. Somewhere out there someone was waiting to say, "Look, I told you so! Space is dangerous!", as if they had divined the second coming. Space is dangerous, expensive and in the opinion of many, not worth the effort.
There is a benefit to mankind in exploration that often does not come without planning, foresight and much trial and error.
Just my thoughts.
Maybe I should have worded myself clearer... but while both Gemeni and Apollo carried jetisonable servicemodules (in fact, even the spam-in-a-can approach of Mercury had a jetisonable module; the retropack), they also carried a lot of stuff down with them on reentry that wasn't really needed for reentry and which 'ought' to have been in a jetisonable livingmodule to save weight. The genius of the soyuz was that the re-entry module was nothing but a reentry module. While looking at percentages can be interesting*, it is also the matter of what you do with the weight you're carrying. To qoute the Encyclopedia Astronautica: The Apollo capsule designed by NASA had a mass of 5,000 kg and provided the crew with six cubic meters of living space. A service module, providing propulsion, electricity, radio, and other equipment would add at least 1,800 kg to this mass for the circumlunar mission. The Soyuz spacecraft for the same mission provided the same crew with 9 cubic meters of living space, an airlock, and the service module for the mass of the Apollo capsule alone!
It is interesting to note that the General Electric Apollo Proposal was very simular to the Soyuz - so simular that some speculate if the Soviets simply copied it. Parts of the ideas of a modular aproach was also reflected in the suggestion of a lunar Gemeni, where the modularity was built into the servicemodule. The most extreme suggestion, as far as weightsaving goes, in that programe was the use of a 3,284 kg bare-bones, open cockpit lunar module...
You are right that the vehicles are optimised for different missionprofiles - but as the Soyuz and the Apollo both were designed to land a man on the moon and bring him back, they are comparable designs - and while the modular design of the Soyuz allowed it to be adapted for use as a efficent low orbit ferry, the Apollo was quickly phased out. But you ought to remember that what ultimatly determines wether a design is 'successful' or not is wether it remains in use or not. The WV Beetle wasn't a great car, but it remained in production for half a century... so it was most definetly successful. The same can be said about the Soyus.
And I never said we didn't need the Shuttle - all I said was that it really is less suited than a simple capsule to be used as a 'commuter transport' to and from a spacestation.
*) Your percentages for re-entry are off btw. Either you ought to take out the mass of the LEM for Apollo, leaving a massfraction of just over 19%, or you must add the weight of the sovet LK to the calculations of the Soyus.
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