Slashdot Mirror
Energiya Pushes For A 6-Person Space Capsule
voss writes "Apparently the Russians want to build their own reusable capsule called the Clipper that can be used up to 25 times and can fit 6 people. They also say they can build their ship in 5 years. The key here is if they can get the funding. The shuttle will be retired in 2010 and with no credible replacement on the horizon...why doesn't NASA give the Russians a chance?"
Maybe now NASA will stop dilly-dallying around and get some new technology other than the outdated space shuttle. We've really been slacking ever since we stopped going to the moon, and maybe international involvement will help us get back on track.
Accepting someone elses design is almost admitting that a under funded agency can bring up better plans than NASA.
And what makes you think NASA does not have a better one on their plans.
First off, I was really pissed off at NASA and the media outlets for the scant coverage of the mission results concerning water on mars. All we got was a 4 minute introduction and one panelist into the release and it was back to the CNN/FOX 30 minute cycle of endless Pro-Bush news bits and Iraq coverage. Luckily, I have the NASA TV channel on satellite, so I was able to flip over -- but for the >95% of americans without NASA tv, they missed out on an hour's worth of enlightening details of Mars, straight from scientists and not tabloid writers with no understanding of science.
Now, this release isn't even going to be televised. The only initial outlet is a conference call for reporters only.
I'm ashamed of NASA and I am ashamed of our media coverage of science. When I was a kid, every space shuttle launch was televised. Taking 10-30 minutes of time out of my day to watch the occasional launch helped inspire me to think above the quagmire I was born into, to know there was something greater. Kids today get MTV and 24 hour news spin channels in 30 minute loops.
But hey, at least they get a nice, fast Internet and ~225 national channels of garbage via satellite.
Would you really want to be the guy using it the 25th time?
-- If it aint broke, fix it till it is. --
How many missions have the Russians launched with 7 people on board? How many manned space missions have they made? And how many trips to the moon have Russian cosmonauts made? DO not use logic, we arent here for that. You do have a big and valid point. Americans are the leaders in this technology, have been for years, we won the space race. Sadly, space is a very dangerous place to be, and sometimes shortsited people forget that. Or, remembering it, forget that its important to explore space and possibly use it for our advantage. We are getting pretty big real fast, and unless someone wants to take steps to de-populate earth in a very unfortunate manner, we are going to have to go somewhere.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
I've seen a lot of figures that show how the space race in the 60's helped grow the economy here. Personally I think we should take the time to help ourselves. If we don't and we all starve to death, you can be sure that no one is going to help us.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I think the U.S. is a little suspicious of a government that is only a dozen or so years old, a technology base that basically copies others, and an ecomonic base that almost always needs bailing out.
NASA may have lost more people in the space race (numerically) than the Russians, but we've always felt our basic safety standards were a lot higher.
And on the conspiracy theory side, there are those who think the Russians have lost many more cosmonauts than they're letting on they have.
I say we let private industry get into the fray, see what they can build...
Who went there on Russian spacecraft. I am not talking about who is in space. I am talking about who sends them there. Now who's the troll?
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen
"why doesn't NASA give the Russians a chance?"
:)
Very simple - Americans will never admit that Russians did something Americans failed to do.
That's one of the key issues of American public image - supernatural allmighty overdemocratic divine beings. If they can not do something - no one shall!
Such a mass can be trivially [now] assembled from many pieces sent up separately. And the spacecraft, once launched and assembled, will stay up there forever (as long as you care to maintain it), and can travel wherever you want, as long as it has enough fuel (which you are free to send up from Earth, or gather anywhere else, technology permitting.)
Moon work is very pretty, and makes for both nice media events (even if some of the publicity shots were faked), impressive golfing drives and much applause ... however space station work, (and consequently man hours in space experience), is a more valuable field if you're planning to go anywhere that will take more that a couple of weeks.
Notice that of the ten space stations that humanity has lifted into orbit, the ruskies put up eight (Salyut 1 through 7 and Mir), and one was put up jointly by an international consortium that including the Ruskies.
(Not to diss Skylab, but there was only ever one of it, and the USAsians seemed to think a couple of months was a long stay)
So, "We haven't yet caught up in the space race" could also be argued.
Just like a bridge engineer would design a bridge for 30 tons and rate it for loads up to 20 tons.
The owls are not what they seem
If the Russians say it's designed for 25 flights, I'd start to worry around flight 78 :-)
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Yeah, it's new alright... From the linked page:
As for your other claims:
Topol-M: It's wobbling. Big deal. It's not as if the US has a functioning ABM defense.
Sunburn: It's nuclear, who cares if it slams into the deck or the side?
Shkval: We already know how they work.
Schmel: So what? An RPG with a fuel-air grenade, not exactly rocket science.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Ion engine is indeed useless for a planetary launch. However it is kinda possibly OK for a long haul. All depends on what you want to accomplish. It is quite efficient, since its reaction mass is thrown away with a very high speed. But probably it is still too weak for any meaningful flight to Mars. I'd say, H2+O2 would be the best choice, especially if you can refuel on Mars, and because planetary landers can also use this fuel.
Challenger never had a problem with cryogenic pipes. The part that failed was designed for room temperature, and it was used in an engine (solid fuel) that won't be used on an interplanetary craft. Generally, you rarely get a fault where you expect it (and prepare for it.)
Lol. And why isn't this just the thing to base a Mars effort that is an international co-operative effort?
This is one of the things that kills me about slashdot. What, in heaven's name, caused moderators to give this so many mod points? Ewithrow, bless their heart, didn't provide any links to outside references. They just repeated some commonly accepted American dogma.
Moderators -- please -- if you are going to mod something up -- please -- make sure it contains arguments or citations of real lasting value, universal value.
The idea that the Free Market has a supernatural power to produce the "best" solution is not a Universal Truth. It is merely an opinion . Merely repeating this notion, without arguments to back it up does not deserve being rewarded with positive moderation.
In my opinion the superstitious belief in the mysterious power of the Free Market the "best" solution to every problem illustrates a kind of short circuited thinking. In my opinion we should be thinking about the what is best first, we should be trying to reach agreement on what is best first, before we decide on the means to reach that goal.
Those of us who are computer programmers have all met some language enthusiast who won't consider which language to use to approach a program. They will only consider their favourite. Often they don't know any other languages.
Would you respect a programmer who had a belief that a certain programming language should be used in every single instance, if they wouldn't even consider whether other languages were more appropriate?
Well, I don't respect those who promote the Free Market as the solution to every problem.
OK. Rocket Science. Consider the 1960 era moon race. Were the Americans willing to go over-budget, in order to be first? Would the moon effort have been better thought out, have better thought out scientific goals, if it had not been a rush job, whose primary purpose was prestige?
Ninety percent of the first men to walk on the moon were fighter jocks, not scientists. That sucks.
while Russia is now a democracy, they are still communist
That's a good one; they're actually neither. They're rapidly morphing into the same kind of post-capitalist information oligarchy that everybody else is heading towards, wherein a veneer of democracy and free markets thinly disguises the fact that whoever controls the mass media has all the power.
Consider: China is heading towards free markets and (local) elections but keeps a tight grip on its media. In Italy the media czar is also the president, and brazenly changes laws so as to evade corruption charges. Across the Anglo-Saxon world, virtually all the mass media are in the hands of only a half-dozen moguls, and religiously toe the government line.
This new game is played by smart people, they've all read the sign of the times. It's the post-capitalist feedback loop of money and power: the media shape public opinion, public opinion elects politicians, the politicians decide where the money goes, the money buys control of the media. Welcome to the information society.
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
When I started writing this post, I was going to show how the Russian approach care less about the lives of the astronauts, treating them like expendable components, and thus wasn't suitable for a country like the US that puts more of premium on human life.
Then I did the math.
They've done about twice as many manned launches as we have, but lost only 4 people, while we've lost 14 so far. (Not counting Apollo 1.)
Maybe we should be looking more closely at their approach.
Perhaps thats why it's called the NATIONAL Aeronautics and Space Administration. Sure we've worked with other nations before, seeing as how ISS is basically stuck out there. Should we continue with this? ps: save the Hubble
Get up!
Uh, because the people who hold the purse strings (congress) don't like the money going to people who don't vote for them.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
Excuse me, but "give them a chance"? What is this, the lottery?
How is it 'free trade' if companies ship all the decent jobs overseas, but unfair if someone with an advantage technically/militarily (the US) doesn't want to let others catch up?
Makes a lot of sense.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Not one person has been killed during a manned Soyuz launch since 1971. I believe the last fatality related to the space program over there was some ground crew when one of their unmanned rockets exploded on the launch pad last year.
I'd take their modern safety record over NASA's any day.
The Russians don't get fancy. They figured out what works and stuck with the same design with only very slight evolution over the decades. That helps eliminate the variables. No foam or O-rings or other nonsense.
Even when things do go wrong like it did with the ballistic descent of the Soyuz coming back from the ISS, it only resulted in minor injury for the capsule crew.
I think it would take quite a dramatic mishap for a Soyuz to actually disintegrate on re-entry the way Columbia did.
Let's remember that the Russions almost killed the ISS due to cost overruns and overly optimistic projections. NASA had to bail them out again and again with U.S. taxpayer dollars.
Besides, even if this were feasible (and it isn't) it would be insane for the US to spend US tax dollars on this kind of R&D in another country. If the Russians can do it let them spend their own cash on it and persuade the Russian government to fund it.
Let's remember people that the space program is a gigantic job creation scheme, it takes money from us and uses it to fund jobs and development domestically. When it starts spending that money abroad we're all thoroughly screwed.