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Russia Tops With 45% of Spacecraft Launches in 2006
knight17 writes "This year was a really good year for space exploring nations, but Russians may be the most happiest among them, because they grabbed a huge 45% of the spacecraft launching market this year. The coming year is also very good for Russian space programs, since next year they will finish the GLONASS navigation project. The US is in second place, and China & Japan in third with six launches each. The Russian officials said that the launches of spacecrafts will be lesser than what this year has been seen."
Ok- so that means that Russia had what - 26 launches or so? I don't recall many of them making the news in the US. See - that is the kind of stuff I want to see make the national news for the masses- not the OMG moment of some political nut job of the day-
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It's your mess. YOU clean it up!
Hurray for Russia!!
Perhaps they can teach NASA how to run an economical, yet highly effective, space program.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
It's what they do.
On the Russian side, it sounds like much of that activity is from commercial satellite launches. Useful, but not all that interesting. On the American side, a big chunk is pointless, outdated shuttle launches. Some of those will be useful, such as fixing the Hubble, but most will just be the make work project that is the IIS.
Seemingly the Russians with their outdated technology are winning the space race. The USA with all its money, trying for reusable spacecraft, lost!
I'm not sure what you mean by that, since we didn't just try for reusable spacecraft we actually built them. They're called "Space Shuttles". We've put lots of stuff into Earth orbit using the Shuttle fleet. Granted, the launch cost was far greater than originally projected, but show me a single government on this planet that doesn't incur major cost overruns on a big project. Let's also remember that we didn't spend enough money up front to build the spaceplane that NASA originally wanted: the Shuttle is a flying kluge and it's amazing to me that it works at all. Sometimes it doesn't. Congress, in more ways than one, screwed us by getting cheap after the end of the Apollo program.
In any event, since you seem to think the U.S. space program has been a failure, let me point out that the U.S. Global Positioning System has been operational for decades while Russia's satellite network never achieved more than partial functionality. The entire planet has benefited directly from the U.S. investment in GPS (not that I expect any expression of gratitude at this point) so much so that now entire economies are dependent upon that kind of technology. Sort of like the Internet, for that matter. As I understand it, GLONASS wasn't working at all for a long time and at its peak had nowhere near the global impact of GPS.
Besides, "winning" a race depends upon the nature of the race, and what you are trying to achieve in the first place. Seemingly you need to do some more research before posting.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I am not surprised at all by this statistic. Every few months or so I've been hearning something about russia's space program in the major news sources (like CNN); this while the US space program was completly grounded.
Sometimes, it almost seems like beating the Russians to the moon killed the US space program more than anything else. It meant that we no longer had anything to proove, and could just sit back and watch space-planes evolve on their own. Well, that ain't happening.
What would happen if Russia became the first nation to have a semi-permanent lunar settlement? That I could see happening.
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
The Russians aren't idiots. I'm sure they're collecting loads of scientific data with each flight to help then design and implement future space programs. In the long run, practice will make perfect.
Personally though, I'd just scrap NASA entirely as it's entirely too encumbered by red-tape to do anything worthwhile and replace it with commercial space programs. Competing interests will result in increased innovation and cost reduction.
The ISS is spectacularily behind schedule. Because you are using Space Shuttles to build it. You also seem to forget that the ISS is a international project. Mainly because the US wanted to draw on Russian experience. They designed the Mir. Remember that one? ( Try searching for "Zvezda" or "Zarya" )
This is because the modules are designed for hitching a ride with the shuttle. Try counting *all* missions to the ISS and the picture looks slightly different.
Well - the russians reached the moon first actually. And the reason that you will be first back has to do with the fact that most nations decided that the moon was a waste of time and money. Until someone in GWB's administration decided otherwise.
You should also be aware that the words "competition" and "moon" are rarely used in the same sentence as "space science" and "well spent money".
The Ares I and Ares V designs draw from the launch technologies developed over the past 25 years. The SRB Ares I first stage is fantastically reliable and cost efficient. The parallel staged Ares V combines the best of lightweight shuttle tankage and newly developed LH2 RS-68 engines. It is a smaller simpler design than the Saturn V that will have a 40% greater payload. The Orion spacecraft will support missions of many months and has huge interior volume compared to anything else ever flown. No other nation has a capability remotely comparable.
an ill wind that blows no good