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Space Station Crew Lands Safely In Kazakhstan

Posted by Zonk on from the yay-for-earth dept.

loid_void writes "It's being reported on CNN that a space capsule carrying a U.S.-Russian-Italian crew has landed safely in northern Kazakhstan, following a mission aboard the international space station. Search-and-rescue helicopters spotted the capsule as it floated toward its designated arrival site and made a soft landing, upright. It had undocked with the orbiting station less than 3 hours earlier. Mission Control said the crew reported feeling fine. Remaining behind on the space station are Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and American astronaut John Phillips."

10 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Its terribly sad.... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That we pretty much pull out of the space program and 'invest heavily' into fighting the bugaboo of the day.

    Its now to the point that we're literally afraid to "fly" in space. Thanks to the shuttle entry-blow up, that's retarded apace-flight by how long? 2 years? 4 years? "Until it's safe?"

    The russians have a damned good idea there. They actually fly, knowing the risks. They also are MORE CAPITALISTIC as they actually accept chaperoned flights from 'thrill seekers'.

    Just think, what kind of tech did they have back in the Apollo moon landing? Computers? Hardly. Look what we have now, and look how we ignore to use it. They didnt.

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    1. Re:Its terribly sad.... by TheKidWho · · Score: 1, Interesting

      where to start... let me start with your last one...

      "Just think, what kind of tech did they have back in the Apollo moon landing? Computers? Hardly. Look what we have now, and look how we ignore to use it. They didnt."

      They DONT NEED faster computers to run the space ships, what they need is redundant computers.

      "The russians have a damned good idea there. They actually fly, knowing the risks. They also are MORE CAPITALISTIC as they actually accept chaperoned flights from 'thrill seekers'."

      Sure, they do have cheaper flights and have chaperoned flights for rich "thrill seekers." But, here in the US we are actually trying to get a private spaceflight industry up and running and the US Government is also trying to help that industry to get on its feet. If you don't believe me and think that the government is only into pork barrel politics and into funding Lockheed and Boeing, go watch this http://www.house.gov/science/webcast/index.htm
      Ch eck out the "Webcast of Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics - Hearing
      Future Market for Commercial Space"

      And yes there are risks, everyone knows that. The thing NASA has is that they are trying to minimize the risks that they can so that they can prevent the loss of human life.

      "Its now to the point that we're literally afraid to "fly" in space. Thanks to the shuttle entry-blow up, that's retarded apace-flight by how long? 2 years? 4 years? "Until it's safe?""

      Yeah, its been 2 years since the US has been capable of sending men into space with its own equipment. But like ive said, they aren't Afraid of going into space, the problem is that they want to reduce all risks that can be reduced because the shuttle's are pretty damned expensive and they don't want to lose any of them.

      "
      That we pretty much pull out of the space program and 'invest heavily' into fighting the bugaboo of the day.
      "

      How are we doing that?

    2. Re:Its terribly sad.... by Rakishi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe they will in 20 years, there is no profit right now for the type of things the government does and the initial costs are too great for any sane investor. If you're going to complain about how much the Shuttle incident has "set us back" then private space companies are not the answer. You can't have it both ways.

    3. Re:Its terribly sad.... by nounderscores · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You can't just grab a P4 chip and throw it on a satellite.

      What about cubesats? They seemed to be a way around the red tape when they were reported on slashdot a while ago. Using unmanned launchers and cheap disposable sats allows you to get up there fast, do your mission and throw away the junk at the end.

    4. Re:Its terribly sad.... by albamuth · · Score: 1, Interesting
      I can't imagine a corporate risk and cost analysis that would give the thumbs-up to space exploration. Space tourism, maybe, but even if it only cost $1000, what's the point? The only point of manned flights is to research manned space flight to make way for what...Mars landings? Colonizing Alpha Centari? Not to disparage those purposes, but what profit would private enterprise possibly see in those ends? That would be like waiting 30 years (at least) for the return on the investment, which no company is willing to do unless it's controlled by some Howard Hughes type (eccentric weirdo). Shareholders will not vote for long term space exploration.

      How about this: Instead of paying the gov't tax dollars to plunder natural resources, we decide where our "surplus" income goes to? What if the tax form included a checklist where you decided yea or nay on things like social security, defense spending, paying back national debt, NASA's budget and so forth?

      Even better, how about some Non-governmental, non-profit space agency that gets funded by a bunch of geeks with nothing better to spend their money on? (and by the way, avoid paying taxes altogether) I bet there's already a web site...

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      [pink beam of light]
    5. Re:Its terribly sad.... by FleaPlus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Even better, how about some Non-governmental, non-profit space agency that gets funded by a bunch of geeks with nothing better to spend their money on? (and by the way, avoid paying taxes altogether) I bet there's already a web site...

      Like the Planetary Society? On May 31, they'll be launching Cosmos 1, the first solar sail spacecraft. Here's a Nature article. According to the page, it'll be "the first space mission ever flown by a non-governmental advocacy group."

      Another interesting philanthropic project was Elon Musk's Mars Oasis project to put an experimental greenhouse on the surface of Mars. He hired a team to do some preliminary designs and cost analysis, and found that actually building the thing was pretty affordable for him. However, the launch costs weren't as affordable as he wanted (they would've been the most expensive part of the entire project), so he decided to redirect his efforts towards SpaceX to lower those costs. I suspect the Mars Oasis project is still on the back-burner, and he may pursue it again once he gets launch costs low enough.

    6. Re:Its terribly sad.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Pentium II processors and Pentium processors have been "Space Rated" for a long time now. What do you think is driving around those rovers on mars? an old Intel 4004?

      Shielding tech nowdays, espically in a craft reduce the needs for hardened chips. A 3 mm of aluminum can block most of the gamma crap even in the van allen belts. (one of the "reasons" the we did not go to the moon wack-jobs use... that the van-allen belts are full of horribly lethal radiation.. they gloss over the fact that it is not hard to shield yourself from it. or that it's in a "belt" and not a sphere that encompasses the globe)

      Most of the time they use processors that can do the job and no more because of POWER CONSUMPTION and not other reasons. If the flight computers can do their job at 16 mhz adding a margin of 20 odd percent and goingto a 20 mhz processor will save huge amounts in power consumption compared to a wasteful 233mhz with mmx who's only use is to run a horribly inefficent OS and GUI that is not needed.

      remember these astronauts are scientists and pilots, not drooling morons that require a pretty GUI and mouse.

      I would rather my Guidance computer use 12 watts in normal mode than 60 watts.... because in a power emergency where I have 1/10th the power capacity I can still use guidance...

      THAT is the reason. and Certianly not what you mentioned.

  2. Re:I told uI was hardcore by TheKidWho · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well they aren't just dropping them straight down into the ground, correct me if im wrong but they use rockets to first slow the capsule down and then use a parachute to get them down. People use parachutes all the time, no biggie =)

  3. PIcs of .kz by caluml · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why not have a look at Kazakhstan?

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    Get your own free personal location tracker
  4. Re:template journalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Remember that Russia is "The Enemy", "The Big Evil", etc. Some people still couldn't get past those idiotic old misconceptions our government spoonfed us for decades.

    So, no matter what they do, it's still never good enough, we could do it much better, and they always show an utmost disregard for safety or value for the human life. Even if ours blow up on re-entry and kills everyone. Ours are much better, of course. God save our mighty engineers, so that those commie bastards can copy our designs.

    *sigh*