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Energia Reveals New Russian Spacecraft
colonist writes "Russian space officials unveiled a full-scale model of the Kliper spaceship. If funding is provided, Kliper will replace the Soyuz space capsule as Russia's human space vehicle. The spaceship, designed by RKK Energia, is twice the size of the Soyuz and will carry a crew of six. It has two main parts: a reusable re-entry craft with a lifting body design, and an orbital module. Like the Soyuz, it has a rocket to pull the spaceship away from the launch vehicle in an emergency. See this photo gallery, Encyclopedia Astronautica and RussianSpaceWeb.com."
There is nothing more depressing to me than finding out that 'the most powerful country' in the world voted Bush back in. It's as if America has lost its sense of humanity. He doesn't even really care about anyone else. Or anything really. All he wants to do is control. Sigh...
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Now that's completely unfair, this administration is working hard every single day to curtail the rights of it's citizens. That alone takes a lot of energy. When you add on the absolutly necissary costs of making sure two guys named frank never exchange wedding vows and the dedicated effort to squash the scientific community its just no wonder we dont have time and energy to waste on trivial things like "exploring"
--aiee
"Has the shuttle program been all it was cracked up to be? Probably not. "
Has been at least twice.
"But it does give us signifigant capabilities that other "industrial countries' space programs" still don't have."
Not sure the ability to kill up to 7 astronauts at a time is a significant capability.
Well, the US has definitely liberated several thousand Iraqi civilians from the burden of breathing.
I can hardly remember a time when US was supreme in space exploration (besider the mars rover)
Most important things were done by soviets, but they do not exist anymore(they call themselfes russians)
Planting a flag on the moon is hardly exploring, it's more like an advertisement for how "great" you are; realy it was a waste of money.
It is not like startrek, where americans rule the world, you know.
It is the "reel" world were americans are valued by the amount of dollars they have(or clusterbombs they carry)
I for one can appreciate russian design.
It may not be pretty, but it works(and very well indeed)
Maybe Americans(and their gov. in particular) should look up the word: "cooperation" in the dictionary, may come in handy!
But Saddam never killed millions of his own population. The worst internal massacre was the Shiite uprising (which the US let happen after Gulf War 1). Ammnesty International estimated that 15,000 Shiites were killed in the three months of fighting. Americans are now responsible for an increase in the yearly death rate by 100,000. So the choice for Iraqis is brutal suppression under Saddam or cluster bombs under "liberation". Doesn't sound much different to me.