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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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The word 'landed' is the key. As far as I know, all the US manned space flights before the shuttle program splashed into ocean on return. Whether you call it landing, is up to you.
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
You people lash out at every single statement that could possibly indicate some kind of US arrogance. I wonder what assholes like you would complain about if the US got its shit together. Do you think it's remotely possible that the writer simply meant that this is the first time US astronauts have landed in a country other than the US (the Atlantic being a non-country)? Trust me, if my coworkers' grasps of English are any indication, this is a simple usage error.
And Russians, with their space tourism program, proved that econom-class is ok not only for semi-military educated cosmonauts, but even also for space tourists (including US citizens!).
I hope Europians and Japaneese will cooperate with Russians more, heliping to keep their space program. I doubt NASA will keep cooperating with Russians as in US everything is related to politics and Russians joined to Germany and France club, it means US decline trade operations and cooperation with them after they denied to help with Iraq occupation.
Less is more !
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The Russian soyuz spacecraft has been the longest-lived, most adaptable, and most successful manned spacecraft design. In production for forty years, more than 230 have been built and flown on a wide range of missions.
The fundamental concept of the design can easily be summarised as obtaining minimum overall vehicle mass for the mission. This is accomplished by minimising the mass of the re-entry vehicle. This was achived by putting all the systems not needed for re-entry outside the re-entry vehicle in a jetisonable 'livingsection'*, and by having a re-entry vehicle with the highest possible volumetric efficency**.
Compare this to the US capsules of the sixties (in which almost everything that went up came down, and the volumetric efficency was poor) and todays twenty year old shuttle system. Basicly, by finding a good design, keeping things simple and not fixing that which isn't broken, the soviets and later the russians has keept what is basicly the same design flying for the better part of half a century. And in a way, it's a design more optimised to building large spacestations than the shuttle are - just leave your livingmodule on the station as you detach your capsule, and you have just increased the size of the station. The only thing the shuttle has going for it when it comes to stationbuilding is the canadarm (isn't there one mounted at the ISS already?) and the fact that the shuttle could, theoreticly, bring modules down for repair.
Oh well, anotehr victory for KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. While the shuttle has it's uses, for most everyday stuff in space a simple capsule is safer, simpler and possible cheaper.
*) As a rule of thumb, every gram saved this way saves two grams in overall spacecraft mass, as you don't have to support it with parachutes, protected by heatshields and braked on landing.
**) In theory this is a sphere, as the earlier vostok, but as the Soyuz was originaly planned to be used on lunar missions it was required to bank a little, generate lift and 'fly' a bit to reduce the G-loads on the crew - just like the Apollo was. The optimum shape was found to be the classic headlightshape the soyuz have had for it's entire life.
Most information in this post is taken from the linked websites, even if I've barely scraped the surface. I stronlge recomend following the links to learn more of this four decades old design.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
According to this report in German, the capsule came down almost 500km (300 Miles) outside it's planned target area, and it took two hours to locate it.
The astronauts climbed out of the capsule themselves and waved to the people looking for them when they finally turned up. That could have easily have gone very horribly wrong - imagine them coming down on the side of a steep mountain-face.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Since Soyus is so bumpy, they always have custom-built recliners.
It wasn't a case of 'These are whiny americans, let's give 'em special seats'
have you seen the seats in a soyuz? really smart, they let your body wistand far greater g-forces than the 'lay on your back' american chairs, and fit in almost half the space. that's part of why they were able to land on dry ground with just a few parachutes on the capsule, instead of a big plane-like ship, or dropping the thing to the sea.
Unfortunately, they're so thight, i think would be very uncomfortable if not custom-built for every cosmonaut. There have one-size-fits-all models for emergency lifeboats too, but i wouldn't be surprised if there was a risk of minor damage to leg arteries or muscles.
-Kz-
Its about the purchasing power. A dollar buys 4X in Russia what it buys in the states. 1 Billion is really like 4 billion, but the Russians are still a lot more efficient when it comes to space flight though it takes them 300 man hours to build a lousy Lada while it only takes us 28 man hours to build the typical GM. In Japan they do it in 17.
A few years ago Russian comonauts went on strike because they only get 30k per flight, but the Americans were making 300k. Long story short the Russians got a raise.
This troll has elements of a reasonable idea, but tries to support them with mistakes and misinterpretations:
>> the ISS (which is an utter joke compared to Skylab or Mir) was placed into a rapidly-decaying orbit...
"Utter joke"? It's reasonable to ask what ISS can do that Skylab or Mir couldn't, but making unbuttressed assertions isn't reasonable.
ISS is not in a "rapidly-decaying orbit". As a satellite in low-Earth-orbit, ISS requires occasional use of onboard thrusters to maintain the correct orbit. This is common.
>> Most of the satellites that are "launched" by the shuttle suffer from the design constraint that they have to fit into the friggin' bay AND have room for the accompanying boosters that will put them into their real orbit once the shuttle lets them out. Again, the shuttle can't go high enough for real deployment.
Height has nothing to do with it. Orbit is achieved by virtue of velocity. While it can be argued that some satellites didn't need to be launched via the shuttle, it is silly to argue that satellites have been compromised by being ddiesinged to fit in the shuttle's cargo bay. All satellites must be designed to fit in the craft that launches them, whether a shuttle or an expendable booster.
>> The safety record sucks.
It is naive to expect spacce travel to have a safety record that even approaches that of commercial air travel. This is risky and experimental work, and we should accept that. A safety record that approximates that of the X-series of manned experimental aircraft would be more than acceptable.
>> Scrap the silly "space-plane"...
The purpose of putting wings on a spacecraft is recovery and reuse. Otherwise, they're more trouble than they are worth.
The real problem with the U.S. space effort is that it has lacked a clearly defined mission since the Nixon administration told NASA it had to cut its funding, following the initial lunar missions, from about 3% to 1% of GDP. That played havoc with NASA'a scheduled remaining lunar missions, with its plans to return to the moon for long durations and possible permanent basing, and for logical and incremental increase of low-Earth-orbit and trans-lunar infrastrcture. Hence, the space station and the shuttle, and none of the rest happened.
Here's what we need:
1. A clearly defined mission -- the President needs to direct NASA and the nation to reach a specific target within a specific timeframe. E.g, permanent manned Lunar presence, manned asteroid flyby and return, a manned Mars mission. The target is less important than the fact that it exists, thereby providing reason to build and use the infrastructure needed to get there.
2. Recognize that the purpose of getting to orbit is to buld and construct equiment to accomplish the assigned mission. (Yes, you can do scientific research there, but that is only incidentakl to the primary purpose. Trying to justify manned presence in Earth orbit as "reasearch" is tantamount to justifying the 747 as an airborne laboratory.
3. Build boosters than get the most stuff to orbit at the least cost. Don't fixate on reuse. If that's cheaper, fine, but don't build over-complex hardware simply to ahere to the mantra of reuse. If that means building contemporay versions of the Saturn and Nova booster, so be it.
4. Ditto for hauling people to low-Earth orbit. Once you're there, how you got there is not important. Use big, cheap capsules.
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since this set of ISS crewmen went up in the shuttle...
and since when they went up they assumed that they were going back down in the shuttle...
and since there was a different set up people in that soyuz capsule when it was launched...
and since that soyuz capsule was originally going to be the return trip for the people who brought up the *next* soyuz...
how did this trio get custom-built seats?
jf
The Orbiter has wings so it can land and fly again. Sounds great re: reuse, but getting it ready to fly again takes months of effort and millions of dollars. The external tank burns up on re-entry and is a comlete loss. The solid fuel strapons are recoverable, after bobbing around in the Atlantic.
In other words, the Shuttle is "reused" only in the broadest meaning of that word, and only after significant, expensive and timeconsuming work is done on the Orbiter.
The shuttle achieves its limited degree of reuse only by virture of a complexity that drives up cost. Vehicles that repeatedly can make the trip to low-Earth orbit and return do not necessarily need wings. What's wrong with using large, 'dumb" capsules? As early as the mid-sixties, designs were afoot to build an expanded Gemini vehicle to carry several passengers, or equivalent cargo capacity, to orbit. The craft returned to land at Edwards AFB on skids. Similiar proposals were made vis-a-vis Apollo. Absent the heat shield (which would need replacement), is there a technological reason why -- 40 years later -- we can design and build fully recoverable and reusable versions of these proposed capsules?
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