Slashdot Mirror
Brazilian Rocket Explodes on Launch Pad
steman writes "BBC News Online says that 16 people have been killed and a Brazillian space rocket was destroyed in an explosion in Brazil. It seems that the space race is heating up again, with many countries getting involved such as China, Europe and Japan to name just three. Will the future of space exploration be dominated by names other than Russia and the USA?"
is Europe just one contry? I'm all for conciceness, and yes, Europe is becoming peaceful and in many ways a single, strong political force, but the contries in Europe are far from being a single contry.
Can someone please change the insinuation in the text that Europe is a country? For heavens' sake, I thought it was just braindead American tourists that visit our "country" who thought this, not Slashdot editors.
So. About a year ago, give or take a little, a NASA shuttle breaks apart and goes kaboom on re-entry. A couple of fucking big articles appear on slarshdot, it's like a national day of mourning is declared and shit. That's OK -- after all, people died and the US warmongering neo-conservative bureaucrat assholes got yet another reason to cut funding to space exploration and related technologies.
But now, a Brazilian launch vehicle explodes, on the pad no less (think Challenger, only a bit sooner) and all those 16 dead people merit are one measly link, a couple of phrases in a slashdot heading (half of which is speculation about the future of missions to space from an unbelievably US-centric viewpoint) and not much else. Like, what the fuck?
Since European carrier rockets are in their fifth generation now, I wouldn't consider them "news".
Europe has sent things up into space for quite a while now...
The day columbia came down, I was talking to a friend of mine and for some reason it occurred to me (trying to cheer her up) to say "at least they pulled off a sucessful mission up to that point". It was just my way of trying to see the silver lining (and I still feel that way), but she glared at me like I was the most callous prick in the world.
Sorry, but mankind will never achieve anything in space if we're not willing to sacrifice lives and money to get there. I salute the brave men and women with the courage and the talent to go, especially these Brazilians who have the balls to keep trying these dangerous satellite launches under a new space program.
To the relatives of the ones who died sincere appologies and heart felt sympathy. I am sure most slash dotters would say this also. We grieve your loss and hope there will be peace for your loved ones.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
My sympathies to the families.
These things are essentially big bombs. No matter how many tests people do, there is always the slight possibility that something like this can happen. Hopefully they'll be able to find the cause and work on that for their next launch.
Competition is a good motivator, and hopefully this will motivate other countries to go up into space.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Just wanted to express my sympathies to the family and friends of those who lost their lives. To quote President Reagan when he spoke to the nation about the Challenger shuttle explosion, "The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted; it belongs to the brave."
I'm hoping the Chinese have some serious success in their announced manned space program. Perhaps that will incentivize the U.S. to get off their butts and start doing some serious exploration.
Will the future of space exploration be dominated by names other than Russia and the USA?
Not with exploding rockets they won't.
In the long run, the US and Russia alone cannot run the International Space Station....they just cant afford it. This will give other nations a change to chip in.
Ofcourse this being /., there will be a barrage of posts saying that China, Brazil, India, etc. should concentrate on feeding their people and improving human rights situation. So much for intelligent, objective conversations...sigh.
There is no patch for stupidity
Visit my blog
Of all the egotistical, ethnocentric bullshit.
"Other countries" (read: the rest of the populated world) wish to develop space programmes because of the huge benefits one brings to the economy and scientific development of the country envolved. Amongst the fact that a space programme gives a country's citizens something to hope and dream about.
Not to "feel on par with the USA".
For fuck's sake.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
Perhaps a maintenance crewman answered his cellphone
while filling up the tank?
Will the future of space exploration be dominated by names other than Russia and the USA?"
In a word: yes.
We see more and more countries involved in space exploration. USA and Russia are not the only players anymore.
Russia is out of money so they can't have ambitious project.
USA are founding the NASA less and less. This is a pity. Maybe this will change in the future. If it happen, USA will make a comeback in space exploration
Now many countries want to do space exploration and are willing to trow money in it. This is a good thing because this will speed up the space exploration race. But USA will now have competition not only from russia but from many country.
What will be real great is when there will be private corporation involved in space exploration. Anyone could think of a business model involving space exploration?
By Nihon Keizai Shinun, the number of death has reached 21. Other 20 persons are heavily wounded. It's tragedy for everyone.
I predict that someday, one of these 'newcomers' to the space race will invent some radical new concept in the design/manufacture/launching of rockets, that will eventually be adopted by the USA and others. But they, too, will suffer their share of failures along the way.
Condolences to the people killed/injured and their families, and hoping they did not die in vain and the Brazilian Space Program and all others will continue.
Okay, the writing is a little sloppy.
However, the slip was understandable in this case given that for the purposes of space exploration and research Europe acts as if it were a single country through the ESA.
Also, calling Europe a country is really just extrapolating based upon current trends. EU member states have given a surprising amount of sovereignty away to the union as a whole, and the current setup looks like it invites a gradual erosion of national sovereignty in favor of centralized power.
Of course, significant cultural differences may slow unification, but increased immigration rates needed to compensate for falling native birth rates may quickly reduce cultural differences between European countries.
I expect the EU to essentially be a single country within my lifetime.
Do Europeans forsee an inevitable centralization of power until the EU acts like a central country, or is there a limiting factor to centralization that I missed?
You know, I was all ready to harp on you for saying "incentivize", but dictionary.com says it's a word. Stupid American Heritage Dictionary. Sheesh, next thing you know, "veep" will be a word....
(Look it up.)
Maybe it's the no-brand batteries they got from the flea market?
The more countries that sign on, the better. Space exploration, limited to one or two countries, or those who control the ballot, is doomed to die. Will we succumb to Space: the Highest Bidder? or will it be: Space Whoever Gets There First?
I personally bet on Who Gets There First.
5 seconds. Americans (speaking as one) always choose brute force when finesse would suffice.
In some ways, a country like the UK has less independent power than Texas, as the EU regulates particularly economic matters more than the federal US government
In most ways, conversely, the EU member states are more independent than US states (e.g. they each have their own army - UK did not need EU approval to send troops to Iraq)
The interesting point is that there is no limit to the power that will be centralised in the EU, and an assumption that every few years a new round of treaties will centralise power further. The treaties are full of the phrase "Ever Closer Union", and explicitly prevent seccession. (To the best of my knowledge, the equivalent question in the USA was, um, unclear until 1861-65).
Obligatory plug (though my membership lapsed some years ago): UKIP
History of Ariane 4
I congratulate them on daring to step beyond this little world and dare something new. It failed, but that is no reason to give up. They have an equatorial launch site, enough money and trained technicians to do more.
Humanity will never reach space unless it is attempted by multiple nations. Their technicians should be on the roll call of heroes who died to give us Space. I envy them what they did with their lives.
This question implies that space exploration in the past was dominated by the two superpowers. From a manned spaceflight perspective, this implication is quite correct; but from an unmanned perspective, it is rather inaccurate. Over the last three decades, a large proportion of the activity in unmanned space exploration has been undertaken by countries other than two superpowers. And let's not forget that, unlike most unmanned misisons, the moon race was about politics, not science.
Looking towards the future, quite a bit of the exploration of our solar system involves both USA/Russia and other countries, either in collaboration or in competition. Particular missions to keep an eye on include:
So, we can see that there is a lot going on at the moment in the field of space exploration. Over the past few days, I've been watching HBO's "From the Earth to the Moon", and its made me regret that I wasn't alive during the space race. But, on reflection, there is plenty going on right now to get excited about!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
After the war, those engineers ended up in the USA and started building bigger/better missles, with an undisclosed, but miserable, rate of failure. Eventually they sort of got it under control, and the Mercury and Gemini programs were launched with much fanfare, and a pretty decent success rate.
The apollo program followed, and there were 2 failures during the apollo program. The first burned on the pad resulting in the loss of the crew. The second failure was on apollo 13. Ingenuity, hard work, duct tape, and luck, prevented a loss of life during that mission. Overall, the combined failure rate for the 3 programs was in the range of 5 %.
During the same time period, the Russian program progressed with it's own set of problems. It's to late in the evening to go try dig up numbers, but it's a reasonable guesstimate that thier failure rate was on par or higher than the equivalent in the USA at the time, 5% or so.
The space shuttle program has been ongoing for 20 odd years, with it's own set of failures. Statistically speaking, the mission failure rate for the shuttle is on the order of 2%.
The data is pretty conclusive. Playing with rockets is dangerous stuff, they do blow up once in a while. The trend is pretty clear, the technology is improving, and the next generation of space launchers should be able to achieve a mission failure rate of sub 1% on current trends.
We live at the bottom of a very deep gravity well, and there is a price to pay in escaping that well. It's not a good day to hear/read about another failure, but, as long as folks keep looking up, they will keep trying, and, eventually, somebody will come up with a more reliable propulsion method that is capable of escaping our gravity well, without strapping folks on top of many tons of high explosives, and lighting the fuse.
Technology has a tendancy to mature very rapidly during times of war. The trend on launch vehicle reliability suggests that it'll be another 2 generations before it's an item we can take for granted, like an airplane today. Cant help but wonder if the political landscape will break that trend, like it did for the trend in aviation development between 1939 and 1945.
... but none will remember the names of those brave 20 Brazillian rocket scientists who died today... and they had to work on much worst conditions than every other american / european / japanese scientist... Brazil does not expends tons of cash on space exploration like those other countries does... so they deserv much more respect.... they had to love their job... really...
... not Brazil... BRASIL...
everyone remembers the name of those "brave american explorers", but everybody forgets those "poor bastars down there".....
and yes, I live in Brasil.. BRASIL
- Orgulho de ser Brasileiro!!! - Ouviram do Ipiranga as margens placida de um povo heroico um brado retumbante...
Actually Texas is a odd case, as It CAN secede,
as it was an independant Republic prior to becoming a state.
It can also split itself into up to 5 states.
There have been some interesting studies done (usually someones final year project in college) that makes it appear Texas would be a very powerful country in its own right if it did secede.
What is the definition of "continent"? If is is merely that you can walk across it on land, then Africa is also part of the same continent (or was before the Suez Canal was built), and so too were North and South America (before the Panama canal was built). It is merely that it's an island? How big of one? Why is Australia a continent, but Greenland is just an island of North America? Where is the official cutoff mark in terms of land area, or how narrow an isthmus has to be (such as Panama or the connection between Egypt and Asia) to consider landmasses to be separate? Is there one? No. My point is that *all* designations of continents are arbitrary made-up terms, not just the strange decision to split Europe from Asia. There is no such thing as the concrete definition of what is a continent. It's all arbitrary.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Shuttle Columbia breaks up, killing 7. Several Slashdot articles, tons of coverage. Department: "we grieve".
Brazillian rocket explodes, killing 21. A single slashdot article, small articles in the world press. Department: "try, try again"??
Have some respect, FFS.
I will not let you say those things about my country
...
I am a true Brazillian
I know the truth about Brazil
yes, we have flaws, but we have strenghts too.. our space program is the most cost efective EVER.. we spent a fraction of what other countries have spent and accomplished great things
we don't have money to toss around like those world dominators up there... so we have to do it right, because we can't make mistakes
accidents happen... and I WILL NOT LET YOU BLAME YOUR FLAWED PERCEPTION OF MY COUNTRY BE THE EXPLANATION OF THE CAUSES OF THIS ACCIDENT
oh yes, I could say Columbia went bye-bye because US is a deorganized bunch of hamburgers eaters, and that they were lazy and overconfident, and forgot to check the thermal isolation on the wing... but I know that accidents happen. and we are humans, and humans make mistakes
so, SHUT UP,
I LOVE MY COUNTRY AND I WILL NOT LET YOU SAY STUPID SHIT ABOUT MY BIRTHPLACE
and now, some history class : the whole latin america was EXPLORED from the get go.. spanish and portuguese explorers came here, and took everything we had... wood, gold, minerals, everything... and a bunch of idiots from england dominated us for centuries robbing our money, and our economical and political independency.
with the US the colonization process was totally different. the explorers wanted a true colony. they came to the US to build a new country, and not to rob all the gold from the land.
so, if Brazil and other latin american ( and asian and african ) countries have economical and social dificulties there is only one we can blame : EUROPE. but not today's europe. 1500 europe and their ways...
but think about something.. the same think europeans did from 1500 to 1800 US is doing now, exploring other countries and other people
an example : in the 1800s, Paraguay was a GREAT , RICH country. so great and rich that it was threatening England ! so england financed a war and created reasons (remember the US report on Iraq weapons ? ) so Brazil could fight Paraguay. the war that destroied Paraguay and made Brazil forever knee deep in debts
please, learn some history people... it's a 500 year old problem...
After the Civil War, Texas had to be re-admitted to the United States , and I don't think those provisions were included then.
Interesting, according to the same source the US has an external debt of:
$862 billion (1995 est.)
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Just to clear one point, the rocket that exploded is not intended for space exploration; it is the third generation of the "VLS - Veiculo Lancador de Satelites", or Satellite Launch Vehicle.
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= utf-8&q=brazil+vls&sa=N&tab=wn
It is a rocket to boost satellites to orbit, a scientific and commercial endeavor, since being close to the Equator make the Alcantara base in Brazil a good launch site.
More on english:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200308/23/eng20
More on Google News:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe
Thanks,
a Brazilian.
There isn't much news about the explosion or victims names because the base is military and they want to check everthing (because body reconizition is now impossible, not much left unhappily) before going to media (i quite understand in this case). Most workers where from Sao Bernardo dos Campos, a city from the Sao Paulo state and where changed to Alcantara base for the launch. The explosion (even the fire) could be seen from many kilometers. The Alcantara base is just probally the best rocket launch base in the world. It's just very near to equator line and have a excelent climate, so you can launch things all year. USA tryied to use this base, but they tryied to make a deal where their containers could not be checked when entering Brazil or their personal could not talk to anyone. So it was going to be a american base in Brazil as in many europeans and gulf countries... well here we don't like this kind of thing (Brazil only looses to Jordania as the country that most dislike americans) and have a history of not allowing this kind of thing, so the deal was cancelled. Now we are trying to reach a deal with Ucrania that would make both countries change technology and bases use. In the end I think the important thing is that as the UN bombing, most people is going to keep working in memory of their dead friends. Explosions happens, it happened a lot for USA, Russia, etc, even that they where masked by cold-war. My toughts for the families. And my wish to keep trying to explore space (yes, I like star trek).
It has to do with plate tectonics. If it's a large thickened section of the earth's crust "floating" on the mantle, and it moves around as a single independent unit, then it's a continent.
I've always lived in both Brazil and US. I have more contact with Brazilians from Sao Paulo and Americans from the eastern coast (DE, NJ, MD, PA).
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That said, I guess, from my experience, I have some authority to disagree with some points from your posting.
Brazilians are more disorganized, yes, mostly. But one thing about Brazil that cannot be forgotten: It's a multi-faced country.
While some areas, like some north-eastern cities can be [almost] as poor as most African coutries, other cities like Sao Paulo mix some beggars with extremely wealthy people. Well, they don't really mix, as they live two worlds apart. The poorest people can't possibly grasp the life of a rich one. And that's the problem.
Social distribution is very bad, and that leads to a big distortion. Not an easy problem to solve.
Anyway, I know of an American company that, despite all red tape, prefers to hire Brazilians than Americans, because they think Brazilians are more hard working. So, their oppinion differs from yours.
But why does it differ ? Maybe you have had contact with just one "type" of Brazilian. You may be aware that inside Brazil the "paulistas" (those from Sao Paulo) are known for working hard.
Sao Paulo reminds me of NYC. Just with more homeless, more trash on the pavement, more violence (due to social distortion) but's that's basically it. Most people in Sao Paulo are hard workers. It's actually Brazil's economic capital. Lots of choppers there. Its helicopter fleet one of the biggest in the world, second only to Tokyo.
You said you live in Rio. So you had most contact with happy-go-lucky cariocas. I'm not saying all hard-working Brazilians live only in Sao Paulo, just making a generalization. Generally speaking, paulistas tend to work more than cariocas. Of course there are exceptions.
And, yes, there ARE buzzcut, Coke-bottle bi-focal, white button-down Oxford, pocket protector wearing, STRAIGHT-LACED, ANAL RETENTIVE, NO SOCIAL LIFE HAVING NERDS in Brazil. Think about ITA, one of the hardest universities in Brazil. It has a very hard entrancy test, in wich there's about 70 elite candidates per vacancy. The ones that manage to join ITA are trully nerds. BTW, ITA stands for Instituto Tecnico da Aeronautica, and they did help building this rocket.
For more info about Sao Paulo (in English), please read
http://www.fragilecologies.com/jul09_97.html
http://www.frommers.com/destinations/saopaulo/285
http://www.skyscrapers.com/re/en/wm/ci/101076/
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Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
The treaties are full of the phrase "Ever Closer Union", and explicitly prevent seccession.
The new EU constitution, due for adoption next year if things go right, explicitly guarantees member states the freedom to leave the Union:
Article 59: Voluntary withdrawal from the Union
1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the European Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.
2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention; the European Council shall examine that notification. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council of Ministers, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
The representative of the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in Council of Ministers or European Council discussions or decisions concerning it.
3. The Constitution shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, decides to extend this period.
4. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to re-join, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 57.
As an American that has lived in Brazil, I would have to agree that Brazilians do have a strong distrust of the American government but love American culture and people.
There were many times people would come up to me, seeing that I was an American, and try to strike up a conversation and learn about who I was and were I came from. American music groups and movies are heard and seen throughout Brazil, (in addition to many local groups and productions that are outstanding) and a very common second language to learn in the public schools is English. I ended up meeting several High School English teachers, several of whom wanted to practice their English skills with me (all while I was trying to practice and learn Portuguese).
I will agree that the U.S. government policies toward Latin America in general are simply terrible and show a very strong colonial attitude (as in Latin American countries are treated as though they are colonies of the USA...I do know better). There is also a very strong tendancy of US foriegn and trade policy being set up to compete with Pacific Rim countries, Europe, and the Middle East, and Latin America in general gets screwed over because of the overly broad policies set up due to its relations with other world powers.
For Brazil in particluar, historically it has been a very faithful ally of the USA, and was the only Latin American country to send soldiers into battle during WWII (they had a couple of major engagements in northern Italy against the Third Reich...well, major for Brazil, and would have been headline international news if it weren't for other battles elsewhere at the same time). The Brazilian military is still quite friendly with the US military, but that fact politically in Brazil is more of a liability than an asset right now.
One particular issue I remember back during the Reagan Administration was in regards to shoe import tarriffs. There were a bunch of shoe manufacturers in New England in the 1980s that were having a really hard time competing against international manufactuers, especially because making shoes requires quite a bit manual labor to produce each shoe. Rather than admitting that paying $20/hour for unionized labor (and everything else that brings up...just don't think I'm anti-union however) and considering they are compeating against countries that have laborers that earning less than $10 per day, the shoe manufactures tried to substantially increase the import tarriffs to something like 300% tax on imported goods.
At that time about half of the shoes sold in America were made in Brazil. What actually happended was that no only did the price of the imported shoes go up (the desired affect), but the price of the domestic shoes also went up. Demand for shoe purchases dropped almost overnight, and huge numbers of shoe factories in Brazil shut down for more than a decade, sometimes permanently. Of course these shoe workers were pissed at US policy. And this was something that, to be honest, most US citizens didn't really care about anyway, and would prefer the cheaper shoes as well, even if they did come from Brazil. BTW, those American shoe companies that "needed" that tarriff protection: they closed up shop anyway, or moved production to some place like Malaysia or Singapore.
Another incident that I had while living in Brazil: I had lived in Brazil for almost two years and had over time aquired a pretty good suntan (seasonally too, because summer is between December and March), as well as some more local clothing. I was walking in downtown Sao Paulo with a native-born Brazilian and mistaken for a local myself. A Texan with a traditional 30-gallon cowboy hat, 150 lbs. overweight, wearing blue jeans (Levi's), a bolo tie, and a huge 10 lbs. belt buckle with the words "Don't mess with Texas", came up to me and said something that I considered rather insulting in English. Then he said something like "Why can't y'all learn how to speak a real language". I can't remember exactly what he asked, but even tho
Well, at just $6.5-million dollars for the rocket, essentially they come free.
That's the coffee tab for NASA for a month.
Can anyone enlighten us on how it's possible to have a credible space program based on rockets that cost 6.5-million dollars?
Bah. By that definition, much of the West Coast is not part of North America. For that matter, India isn't part of Asia.