In Soviet Russia, they don't give up
by
Dancin_Santa
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Let's say this happened in the US. The entire project would be shitcanned and study after study would be performed to show why and how the rocket exploded. Then it would be years before another rocket was sent up.
Meanwhile, the Russians dust themselves off and prepare the next launch vehicle for the earliest possible sendup of the sail.
We go to the moon in this decade... The space race was won by people with drive and ambition. These days NASA is full of over-educated monkeys who cringe at their own shadow.
Re:In Soviet Russia, they don't give up
by
jellomizer
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Well this is an unmanned satilight. No one was hurt (physiclally). In the issue of the shuttle deaths need to be minimized. Because every death in space makes people fear space travel.
-- If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:In Soviet Russia, they don't give up
by
ScentCone
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
These days NASA is full of over-educated monkeys who cringe at their own shadow.
No, NASA is funded by congressional representatives that are too timid to explain the value of the program to their constituencies. And those people are voted into office by people too unaware of the role that science plays in their lives. And those people are raised by parents who think the schools should be the parents, so the schools are so busy teaching Johnny how to Share His Feelings that they never get around to teaching him where his Cartoon Network signal comes from. Don't blame NASA, blame parents.
There, I fixed it.
-- Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Re:In Soviet Russia, they don't give up
by
MooseByte
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"These days NASA is full of over-educated monkeys who cringe at their own shadow."
They definitely need to find some middle ground. The incredibly complex shuttle, in all fairness, was driven more by military/national security design constraints. Meanwhile the "faster, cheaper, leaner" approach of the last decade proved to be a bit too fast and loose.
Then again I wonder if they ever really could get back to the Apollo days? That seemed the best balance to me, but would the American public tolerate several astronauts burning up on the pad due to pure pressurized oxygen sparking up the capsule?
Think of the field day the media (and slashdot) would have over a mistake like that today.
Private enterprise *may* be our best hope in finding the proper spot on the cost/risk curve, but then where's the profit in much of the basic space science we'd all want to see done?
Re:In Soviet Russia, they don't give up
by
djbentle
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Ripped from the post above: "The world's first solar sail spacecraft (search) crashed back to Earth when its booster rocket failed less than two minutes after Tuesday's takeoff, Russian space officials said Wednesday.
In 1999, Russia launched a similar experiment with a sun-reflecting device from its Mir space station, but the deployment mechanism jammed and the device burned up in the atmosphere.
In 2001, Russia again attempted a similar experiment, but the device failed to separate from the booster and burned in the atmosphere."
Maybe, after the third solor sail experiment failure in as many attempts, it's time to do some of that studying and a little less blindly launching failure after failure. But what do I know.
Re:In Soviet Russia, they don't give up
by
bskin
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
We go to the moon in this decade... The space race was won by people with drive and ambition. These days NASA is full of over-educated monkeys who cringe at their own shadow.
Over-educated? They're fucking rocket scientists. A lot of education is generally considered a prerequisite. NASA's problems would seem to have a lot more to do with bureaucracy, politics, and lack of budget than, say, knowing too much.
-- hot foreign sheep.
Re:In Soviet Russia, they don't give up
by
TigerNut
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
You're missing some critical points there:
2005: Booster fails - the solar sail never gets a chance.
2001: Booster separation fails - the solar sail never gets a chance.
1999: Deployment mechanism jammed - the solar sail never gets a chance.
The solar sail part of the experiment hasn't had too many flight hours so far, due to component failures almost completely unrelated to the solar sail craft itself. They're not launching failure after failure... they're having launch failures, which is not the same thing.
--
Less is more.
Re:In Soviet Russia, they don't give up
by
kitzilla
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
> Meanwhile, the Russians dust themselves off and prepare the next launch vehicle for the earliest possible sendup of the sail.
Which seems reasonable, considering this is a low-budget, unmanned project. It's cheaper to risk splashing another probe than spend hundeds of millions on post-mortem analysis.
It would suck, though, if this were a manned program and the Russian Federation went for the "earliest possible" relaunch without deciding what the hell went wrong.
The Soviets might have done this. They were, after all, the folks who sent firefighters into Chernobyl protected only by raincoats. Not a tendency worth lauding, no matter how much Slavic pluck and pride it might demonstarte.
This isn't a space race. There's no need to recklessly throw man and machine to the wind. Besides, where's the money going to come from? We're being bled dry by our new colonial wars overseas. It costs big bucks to haul our flag atop a new pile of foreign rubble every couple of years.
Sure, NASA has gotten a bit stodgy. They should worry less about losing the odd probe or two and more about how to make the International Space Station do something more useful than transfering our wealth into low orbit.
When it comes to strapping schoolteachers atop a mountain of liquid oxygen and rocket fuel, though, NASA should be as cautious as seems reasonable. There are people in those shuttles. Let's take every care to be sure they don't join the space sail at the bottom of the sea.
-- This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Re:That's what you get with potheads...
by
__aaclcg7560
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The Russian rocket failed 83 seconds into the flight. So the potheads are Russians. At least they were willing to give the idea a shot for the right price. Unlike another space agency that is really good at sitting on their thumbs.
Don't Give Up Hope
by
ndansmith
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
There is still plenty of reason for hope. All that happened was that the booster failed. We still don't know how the actually sail technology will perform, since the systems are unrelated.
You'll note that last week, when the Terri Schivo autopsy results were revealed, Fox's headline didn't mention the fact that her brain had atrophied or that she was likely blind. Rather, it stated something along the lines of "Autopsy results show that Schivo's husband had not poisoned her". Even when reporting the news, Fox will add their commentary whenever possible.
Granted, they didn't with this article, but if they could have made Tom DeLay look good in this article, they would have.
Re:Three strikes and you're *out*...
by
stlhawkeye
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
(One more thing: why are we linking to Fox News [foxnews.com] for our stories? I feel dirty now.)
Probably because Fox News is a news source that can and does report objective stories frequently, despite its editorial slant. Just like CNN manages to report objective stories frequently despite it's editorial slant. Just like EVERY OTHER NEWS SOURCE manages to report objective stories frequently despite having an editorial slant.
Fox's slant is just unacceptable because it's right-leaning. Or, if you're a right-winger, Fox is "objective" and everybody else leans left. Whatever you have to tell yourself to avoid considering that what you believe might be crap.
-- "I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
So much for cold war escalation.
by
holt_rpi
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I guess all those sleepless nights about being nuked by a Russian sub were all for naught.
I mean, if they can't even make a simple booster rocket on a modified SLBM fire correctly, how are they supposed to get MIRVs up to a height to fall (albeit haphazardly) on US soil?
Re:Wasting Money
by
mako1138
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
This is just my opinion, but I think all this crap the space programs are shooting off into space is a total waste of money that could be much better spent on any number of things (research, healthcare, internet security).
You do realize that: research = all this crap the space programs are shooting off into space
Re:Wasting Money
by
Durinthal
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
No progress without trying, and that has to include the possibility of failure.
Re:Three strikes and you're *out*...
by
AKAImBatman
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Russian rocket failure rates are about on par with US rocket failure rates; the only thing that I can think of offhand that they've had serious reliability problems with are their mars probes.
FWIW, *everyone* has had massive failure rates with Mars Probes. The only difference is that NASA has more experience and has managed to get fairly good at avoiding many of the pitfalls that were believed to cause the loss of many of their probes.
Cosmos 1 was funded by the insurance money from the previous failure, so don't think that this is the end.:)
It may be the last time the insurance company underwrites them, though.;-)
Re:Good news, everyone!
by
stlhawkeye
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
You guys act like no other news sources have a political bias in their reporting.
When a poll showed Senator Kerry ahead of President Bush in the 2004 Presidential elections, CNN reported, "Kerry pulls ahead of Bush in latest poll."
When President Bush reclaimed the lead, they reported, "Bush apparantly leads Kerry."
Now, this was an isolated incident. A qualifier like "apparantly" was not used in any other poll reporting for either candidate being ahead. But it happened, it continues to happen, and it will happen again.
We just don't care here because we're mostly liberals and what seems to a right-winger as a "liberal bias" looks to us like the objective truth. It matches our worldview, why would we question it or suspect there of being any bias?
This same phenomenon is responsible for conservative embrasure of FoxNews. Much of what they read on Fox matches their worldview, and other news outlets appear, to them, to be absurdly biased.
In other words, it's a matter of perspective, and frankly I've found Fox's reporting to be no more egregiously biased than any other. I'm sure somebody will respond to this post with 15 examples of horrible, unforgivable sins of journalism by Fox. I'll be there's hundreds that could be cited in the last 30 days alone. But comparing how Fox spins its stories to how any other large news outlets spins it's stories, I really haven't seen that Fox's trangressions are measurably less forgivable.
And "spin" usually comes in the form of reporting selected truth and omitted selected other truth. Of accurately reporting one side of an issue and often ignoring the opposit side. And the worst is when anchors and journalists recite what one large, unsourceable, unverifiable, and undefined group of people "say" or "think" and ignoring the other. For example:
"Critics of Senator Kerry claim that he (insert thing that would make me not want to vote for Kerry here)."
By not reporting what supporters of Senator Kerry say on the same topic, the anchor/journalist/reporter has spun the story against Senator Kerry.
Another technique is to appear impartial by inaccurately or incompletely reporting the other side, or cherry-picking weak arguments or obvious red herrings, while ignoring stronger arguments.
"Critics of Senator Kerry have suggested that his anti-war rhetoric during Vietnam makes him unfit for office. Supporters counter that Senator Kerry looks good in a suit."
This crap happens all the time, and it's all biased journalism. It just doesn't seem biased when you agree with the slant.
-- "I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Re:Contradiction?
by
Richard_at_work
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'm kind of suprised that the Russians are so quick to call "fail" on this, given the conflicting data, but they had a bad karma space day yesterday, what with their other launch of a military payload failing as well
The reason that the Russians are quick to call a fail on this is due to when the booster failed. The craft may have made it to *AN* orbit, but with booster failure at 83 seconds, its unlikely to be a usable orbit for testing the sail in. If the sail cant be tested for whatever reason, then its failed, regardless of whether its in orbit or at the bottom of the ocean.
Fair and Balanced
by
grahamsz
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I dont know any other news source that open claims that it is unbiased.
Fox make that claim when it's obviously untrue - it's hard to respect them after that.
Donating $$$ for the next Solar Sails attempt
by
otisg
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If all it takes is $4M, I'd donate $50 to a team who has the knowledge and drive to give this another try soon, and I don't think I'm alone.
Re:Fox = Slashdot != Planetary Society
by
ugmoe
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The "Source" is very clear!
What this means is that we are still dealing with a very wide range of possibilities for what could have happened yesterday, made even wider by the fact that it kind of sounds like some of the information that we have is contradictory. If the launch vehicle failed, how did we detect signals at Majuro and Panska Ves? On the other side, if the launch vehicle had a problem but still managed to put the spacecraft into some orbit, why didn't Strat Comm see it last night? We don't know what to make of it. We hope to get more information from Lou in an hour or two. Stand by for that
Re:Apples and Oranges
by
Moofie
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"Manned space flight and exploration space flight are not economically viable."
How is this statement different from saying in 1490 that "Manned crossing of the Atlantic and exploration of the globe are not economically viable."
I think your contention is very, very short sighted.
-- Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:Laughing
by
Brandybuck
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Seriously though, I think current world events has lead to lack of interest/funding/training in space-related activies. The result is inevitable.
Actually, I think we're going about it the right way. It's up for private interests to fund space now, and they will do it. But only when it makes economic sense. I think that's going to be very very soon.
We've already been the moon. We've already demonstrated a resuable orbiter. So what are we proving with all those additional billions of dollars? Now is the time for NASA and the government to step back.
If the government had been in charge of highways in the same way they're in charge of space exploration, then the only automobiles we would have would be billion dollar state owned behemoths lumbering along grossly polluted roads. Every decade or so an automobile would blow up killing a half dozen courageous autonauts, whereupon congress would wring its hangs worrying if driving was a good idea to begin with.
-- Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Re:Update from the Plantery Society
by
LifesABeach
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Talk about mixed emotions. I'm reading about a Russian ICBM choaking with its first stage; AND it is carrying a really neat science package with it!
Re:Three strikes and you're *out*...
by
Rei
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I assume you're prepared to provide counterevidence as to the validity of the study? Heck, are you even prepared to evidence that there's something wrong with Pew, let alone something wrong with People for Excellence in Journalism, let alone something wrong with the study? In short, you're claiming "guilt by association with an association that itself is associated with a group that I claim is liberal, and thus (yet another guilt by association) unreliable".
If you want to dispute the accuracy of the study, dispute the accuracy of the study. None of this "twice removed from a nebulous attribute" nonsense.
-- The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
Re:Why launch off of a sub?
by
ebvwfbw
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Reason 1: To get close to the equator.
Know your geography before answering. The Barents sea is almost as far North as you can get. See here.
Look at the top of the map, it is there. North of Russia.
Reason 2: It's an already-built launch system. Remember the Cold War? These things were built to lob nukes at U.S. targets.
This is like using a model T ford to drive to work in. Already built and that is what it is for. I wouldn't recommend it, however. I am very familiar with that sub BTW. Again, I have to ask why? My point about Kazhakstan - they use it all the time now and that is exactly what they do there. They are very good at it. They are the guys that handle the International Space Station stuff right now. They could have used this as a practice shot for new guys and never known the difference.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's say this happened in the US. The entire project would be shitcanned and study after study would be performed to show why and how the rocket exploded. Then it would be years before another rocket was sent up.
Meanwhile, the Russians dust themselves off and prepare the next launch vehicle for the earliest possible sendup of the sail.
We go to the moon in this decade... The space race was won by people with drive and ambition. These days NASA is full of over-educated monkeys who cringe at their own shadow.
The Russian rocket failed 83 seconds into the flight. So the potheads are Russians. At least they were willing to give the idea a shot for the right price. Unlike another space agency that is really good at sitting on their thumbs.
There is still plenty of reason for hope. All that happened was that the booster failed. We still don't know how the actually sail technology will perform, since the systems are unrelated.
Granted, they didn't with this article, but if they could have made Tom DeLay look good in this article, they would have.
Probably because Fox News is a news source that can and does report objective stories frequently, despite its editorial slant. Just like CNN manages to report objective stories frequently despite it's editorial slant. Just like EVERY OTHER NEWS SOURCE manages to report objective stories frequently despite having an editorial slant.
Fox's slant is just unacceptable because it's right-leaning. Or, if you're a right-winger, Fox is "objective" and everybody else leans left. Whatever you have to tell yourself to avoid considering that what you believe might be crap.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
I guess all those sleepless nights about being nuked by a Russian sub were all for naught.
I mean, if they can't even make a simple booster rocket on a modified SLBM fire correctly, how are they supposed to get MIRVs up to a height to fall (albeit haphazardly) on US soil?
This is just my opinion, but I think all this crap the space programs are shooting off into space is a total waste of money that could be much better spent on any number of things (research, healthcare, internet security).
You do realize that: research = all this crap the space programs are shooting off into space
No progress without trying, and that has to include the possibility of failure.
Russian rocket failure rates are about on par with US rocket failure rates; the only thing that I can think of offhand that they've had serious reliability problems with are their mars probes.
:)
;-)
FWIW, *everyone* has had massive failure rates with Mars Probes. The only difference is that NASA has more experience and has managed to get fairly good at avoiding many of the pitfalls that were believed to cause the loss of many of their probes.
Cosmos 1 was funded by the insurance money from the previous failure, so don't think that this is the end.
It may be the last time the insurance company underwrites them, though.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
When a poll showed Senator Kerry ahead of President Bush in the 2004 Presidential elections, CNN reported, "Kerry pulls ahead of Bush in latest poll."
When President Bush reclaimed the lead, they reported, "Bush apparantly leads Kerry."
Now, this was an isolated incident. A qualifier like "apparantly" was not used in any other poll reporting for either candidate being ahead. But it happened, it continues to happen, and it will happen again.
We just don't care here because we're mostly liberals and what seems to a right-winger as a "liberal bias" looks to us like the objective truth. It matches our worldview, why would we question it or suspect there of being any bias?
This same phenomenon is responsible for conservative embrasure of FoxNews. Much of what they read on Fox matches their worldview, and other news outlets appear, to them, to be absurdly biased.
In other words, it's a matter of perspective, and frankly I've found Fox's reporting to be no more egregiously biased than any other. I'm sure somebody will respond to this post with 15 examples of horrible, unforgivable sins of journalism by Fox. I'll be there's hundreds that could be cited in the last 30 days alone. But comparing how Fox spins its stories to how any other large news outlets spins it's stories, I really haven't seen that Fox's trangressions are measurably less forgivable.
And "spin" usually comes in the form of reporting selected truth and omitted selected other truth. Of accurately reporting one side of an issue and often ignoring the opposit side. And the worst is when anchors and journalists recite what one large, unsourceable, unverifiable, and undefined group of people "say" or "think" and ignoring the other. For example:
"Critics of Senator Kerry claim that he (insert thing that would make me not want to vote for Kerry here)."
By not reporting what supporters of Senator Kerry say on the same topic, the anchor/journalist/reporter has spun the story against Senator Kerry.
Another technique is to appear impartial by inaccurately or incompletely reporting the other side, or cherry-picking weak arguments or obvious red herrings, while ignoring stronger arguments.
"Critics of Senator Kerry have suggested that his anti-war rhetoric during Vietnam makes him unfit for office. Supporters counter that Senator Kerry looks good in a suit."
This crap happens all the time, and it's all biased journalism. It just doesn't seem biased when you agree with the slant.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
I'm kind of suprised that the Russians are so quick to call "fail" on this, given the conflicting data, but they had a bad karma space day yesterday, what with their other launch of a military payload failing as well
The reason that the Russians are quick to call a fail on this is due to when the booster failed. The craft may have made it to *AN* orbit, but with booster failure at 83 seconds, its unlikely to be a usable orbit for testing the sail in. If the sail cant be tested for whatever reason, then its failed, regardless of whether its in orbit or at the bottom of the ocean.
I dont know any other news source that open claims that it is unbiased.
Fox make that claim when it's obviously untrue - it's hard to respect them after that.
If all it takes is $4M, I'd donate $50 to a team who has the knowledge and drive to give this another try soon, and I don't think I'm alone.
Simpy
What this means is that we are still dealing with a very wide range of possibilities for what could have happened yesterday, made even wider by the fact that it kind of sounds like some of the information that we have is contradictory. If the launch vehicle failed, how did we detect signals at Majuro and Panska Ves? On the other side, if the launch vehicle had a problem but still managed to put the spacecraft into some orbit, why didn't Strat Comm see it last night? We don't know what to make of it. We hope to get more information from Lou in an hour or two. Stand by for that
"Manned space flight and exploration space flight are not economically viable."
How is this statement different from saying in 1490 that "Manned crossing of the Atlantic and exploration of the globe are not economically viable."
I think your contention is very, very short sighted.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Seriously though, I think current world events has lead to lack of interest/funding/training in space-related activies. The result is inevitable.
Actually, I think we're going about it the right way. It's up for private interests to fund space now, and they will do it. But only when it makes economic sense. I think that's going to be very very soon.
We've already been the moon. We've already demonstrated a resuable orbiter. So what are we proving with all those additional billions of dollars? Now is the time for NASA and the government to step back.
If the government had been in charge of highways in the same way they're in charge of space exploration, then the only automobiles we would have would be billion dollar state owned behemoths lumbering along grossly polluted roads. Every decade or so an automobile would blow up killing a half dozen courageous autonauts, whereupon congress would wring its hangs worrying if driving was a good idea to begin with.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Talk about mixed emotions. I'm reading about a Russian ICBM choaking with its first stage; AND it is carrying a really neat science package with it!
I assume you're prepared to provide counterevidence as to the validity of the study? Heck, are you even prepared to evidence that there's something wrong with Pew, let alone something wrong with People for Excellence in Journalism, let alone something wrong with the study? In short, you're claiming "guilt by association with an association that itself is associated with a group that I claim is liberal, and thus (yet another guilt by association) unreliable".
If you want to dispute the accuracy of the study, dispute the accuracy of the study. None of this "twice removed from a nebulous attribute" nonsense.
The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
Know your geography before answering. The Barents sea is almost as far North as you can get. See here.
Look at the top of the map, it is there. North of Russia. Reason 2: It's an already-built launch system. Remember the Cold War? These things were built to lob nukes at U.S. targets.
This is like using a model T ford to drive to work in. Already built and that is what it is for. I wouldn't recommend it, however. I am very familiar with that sub BTW. Again, I have to ask why? My point about Kazhakstan - they use it all the time now and that is exactly what they do there. They are very good at it. They are the guys that handle the International Space Station stuff right now. They could have used this as a practice shot for new guys and never known the difference.