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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."

5 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 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.

    2. 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.

  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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