Space Station Crew Lands Safely In Kazakhstan

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."

Comments

I told uI was hardcore

[Dancin_Santa]

Gotta love how those Russians are willing to drop their space heros onto hard ground.

None of that fancy schmancy airplane lookalike space vehicles for them!

Re:I told uI was hardcore

[GORby_]

At least they don't have too many of their space crews going KABOOM on takeoff or landing ;-)
When I would have to choose between takeoff/landing in an american or in a russian vehicle, I'd gladly trade some of the comfort for a better chance of returning in one piece.

Gotta love their safety record when it comes to manned space travel...

Its terribly sad....

[Creepy Crawler]

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.

Re:Its terribly sad....

[Adrilla]

That's why privatizing space missions is clearly the answer. Our government has dropped the ball and it's time for some enterprising corporation(s) to pick it up and run with it. I look forward to seeing what more open-minded people can come up with (if they can get past all the red tape).

Re:Its terribly sad....

[bleckywelcky]

It's a bit more complicated than that. You can't just grab a P4 chip and throw it on a satellite or the shuttle. There are 2 immediate problems.

First: technology readiness level (TRL). In order for a P4 chip to be put into space, it would need to go through about 1000x more testing than Intel currently puts it through. The last thing you want is the guidance chip on a satellite to produce a single error during a trajectory manuever and have the thing come crashing down to Earth or fly out on some highly elliptical orbit. TRL rates from 0 (concept/prototype) to 10 (repeatedly flight-proven hardware). A P4 chip would be somewhere around 2 - production capable, but no flight testing or flight experience. The space shuttle uses stuff in the 6 or 7 and above range.

Second: operating environment (included in the above TRL, but of particular concern due to the nasty conditions of space). Intense radiation from the Sun and space, inability to easily radiate heat away, etc. RAD-hard components are needed for anything going into space.

For current space-ready equipment, we're talking on the order of 6 MFLOPS ... aprox 30 MIPS at 20 MHz. You are not going to run Doom or Quake on this stuff.

Re:Its terribly sad....

[Adrilla]

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?

The problem with this is a lot of important programs will be underfunded.

Perfectly healthy people could end up not caring about disability, and that leaves disabled people without enough money for their healthcare. Rich people wont care about Social Security (they fund a significant amount of it currently) because they'll never need it, so your mom won't have that money to fall back upon when she retires if a few years.

Little, yet important programs that you never think about get no money because no one will think they're worthy (music in schools, homeless iniatives, public libraries, could be anything).

Not to mention the extra work of having to read a thousand+ page book every tax period that explains all the programs you'll be voting on, I'm sure after you've done all your taxes and deductions, (adding line C to line E, subtract section 12) you wont be wanting to have to read about and pick from thousands of programs so you can choose which deserves your money.

It's simply not the answer.

Re:Its terribly sad....

[robertjw]

Columbus once undertook a research voyage funded by Spanish royalty

That's an interesting example. The difference between Columbus' voyage an NASA's work is that the Spanish royal family was interested in making money. In fact, I can't think of one of the early exploration voyages to the Americas that was motivated primarily by research or national security. Magellen, Cortez, Hudson, Drake, they were all motivated to find a way to India, or to take riches from the new world. Some of that exploration may have been funded by the governments, but much of it was private, and nearly all of it was motivated by money.

In my country there is problem...

[charlie763]

And that problem is the shuttle.
Throw the shuttle down the well
And my country will be free

Kazakhstan Television

[DNAspark99]

Where they interviewed by Borat ?

"first we have a party...then we shoot dog!"

The saddest part for me...

[FireballX301]

...is that this was an actual news event.

Seriously. Before Columbia, the 'successful' missions were always tucked away in some 'World Update' column on page 10 inside the paper, or never got a second glance by most readers. The fact that this is both on CNN and .\ is kind of unnerving to me.

How long will it take before we can clear the aura of fear surrounding space missions?

Re:The saddest part for me...

[gad_zuki!]

Call me crazy, but I like it this way. Previously people complained that no one cared about space and that all these missions. This was a very valid complaint. I've heard way too many people say stuff like "What are we wasting our taxes on?"

And no, I'm not saying that its lucky that NASA lost another batch of astronauts as much as I'm saying space-travel is dangerous and these kinds of things will happen. We do space-travel and space mission because they are important. The important of space means risk taking and spending money.

Not to mention, when events are in the news frequently they become more important to people. They talk about them. They might get a better understanding of the issues, the science, etc. Considering space isn't very politicized outside of missile defense, you can usually get some decent information from the mainstream media.

Thanks to things like Hubble, the Mars rovers, the Chinese manned orbit, Rutan, etc space certainly feels more real and important to me, and I assume to many others. I hope it never goes back to page 10 of the World section.

Re:funny comedy scene...

[36 6_42]

I fail to see the link between astronauts landing in Kazakhstan and a gun battle in Falluja. Would it be funny if there was a tornado in Regina while SpaceShipOne landed in Nevada?

Forgiv me .....

[NegativeOneUserID]

In Soviet Russia, space station crew lands safely you!

and

[GoatPigSheep]

As a sign of kazakh hospitality, the crew were each given one donkey and a jar of insecticide.

The problem with the U.S. program

[eastshores]

Is that NASA is not afforded the opportunity or direction to involve the hearts and minds of the average American in their missions. They are forced to rely on outside help for that (e.b. KSC Visitors Complex) The truly appealing quality of the early missons were that it was NOT safe and was far from routine. That's what brings out the crowds.. thats why Nascar is the fastest growing sport in the U.S. Yet, the primary focus of the NASA mission is Safety!

Safety is no different than security, there is a point where it is a limiting factor. It has to be balanced reasonably to achieve the primary objectives, otherwise it's value is lost.

Return to flight will draw a good portion of Americans back into the program. For that mission everyone will waive their flags and cheer upon success. Shortly thereafter shuttle launches will again be routine and Americans will not involve themselves as much as would please me. But then what government program can't you say that about?

Re:Yay! they're back

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see it:

"Allah... Holy shit! Look what we shot down this time!"

Soyuz safty record is comperable to shuttle

[A non-mouse Cow Herd]

They had 2 fatal accidents (Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11) and a number of *extremely* close calls. The reentry of Soyuz 5, and the first launch attempts of Soyuz 18 and Soyuz-T 10 come to mind. (the latter very much went KABOOM on the pad, the crew were only saved by the escape system, which pulled them away at about 20 Gs...)

Soyuz has less total fatalities than the shuttle, but it carries less people per flight, and has flown less flights.

The fact that the most serious Soyuz failures were early in the program is somewhat in its favor, but from a statistical point of view, it is pretty much a wash. Although the system is in many ways simpler and more robust than the shuttle, the recent Soyuz flights have had their share of problems. The people building and operating it have done an amazing job, but have a severely limited budget and a crumbling infrastructure.

So if you get a chance to ride either, you may as well jump on it :P

PIcs of .kz

[caluml]

Why not have a look at Kazakhstan?