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Second Straight Rocket Failure For South Korea
eldavojohn writes "South Korea suffered its second straight setback today as its Naro-1 rocket carrying a scientific satellite exploded. The rocket produced a bright flash during stage-one ignition as the ground crews lost contact with it. South Korea paired with Russia to produce the Naro-1 and was looking to both relieve its dependence on other nations to put its satellites in orbit and compete with the space programs of China, India, and Japan. Following a failure on August 25, 2009, this marks the second failed attempt for Naro Space Center to launch a Naro-1 rocket. It appears the old adage revolving around the complexities of 'rocket science' remains valid."
Progress plods on, and if they keep trying, they will eventually get it right, even if it isn't particularly easy.
I'm not sure I'm discouraged (because this makes it look like it will take more time before humanity can easily colonize space) or encouraged (because this makes it look like it will take more time before every third-world country will be able to produce intercontinental missiles).
I guess they're just following the Soviet era tried and tested rocket development program. Start by blowing up rockets, and continue until they stop blowing up. Then strap some pilots on top.
This sounds pretty much like the US space program.
It is unfortunate people still have to learn from their mistakes when this has already been done at least twice (CCCP and the US). A person might figure they could afford to hire a couple of engineers who already went through this trial and error.
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
Problem is not complexity, but lack of error margin.
In any other field, even aircraft, you can over-engineer it a lot more. But with satellite launch rockets, everything has to be cut to absolute minimum. And even then, payload is only a miniscule fraction of launch weight.
The other problem is that tests are expensive and failures tend to get noticed. If a new car engine prototype seizes up on the test track, it does not make the news.
"Second straight rocket failure for South Korea"
But would bent rockets work any better?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
North Korea has the most brilliant people in the world and can help its neighbor accomplish anything. North Korea has punched the sky in the face and broke through to the stars where his magnanimous, magnificent even magniloquent Leader, the holiest Kim Jong Il is orbiting the planet right now making sure the imperialist porcine satellites do not beam deadly radiation again unto the North Korean people's glorious fields of cabbage, rice and giant bunnies.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
It is unfortunate people still have to learn from their mistakes when this has already been done at least twice (CCCP and the US). A person might figure they could afford to hire a couple of engineers who already went through this trial and error.
Actually, the Naro-1 is a Korean-Russian collaboration, with a Russian-built first stage and a Korean-built second stage. It's still unclear at this point which stage (or interaction thereof) caused the problem.
As an aside, the Russian-built first stage basically a slightly modified first stage of their under-development Angara rocket.
Not trying to be nasty, but if the people that work on the space program are anything like the Korean I'm working with, then maybe they should stop working through the night, stop working 18 hour days, get a weekend off every now and again, and get some proper food and some sleep.
After a few months of 18 hour days you become a zombie. Regardless of effort (and well done to them for sacrificing their family life for work), Koreans are also human being, and they also need to go home and sleep every now and again, even if "going home" or "sleeping" is not part of the culture.
This sounds pretty much like the US space program.
This is not flamebait.
The first attempt at launching a US satellite blew up shortly after launch. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_TV3
The Explorer program which followed, started with the successful launch of Explorer 1, the first satellite placed by the United States.
The Explorer program has launched about 100 satellites, but 8 of the first 17 failed.
Everyone seems to forget that it took a while to make these launches consistent as we saw (mostly) with the Gemini and Apollo missions.
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
As opposed to Gay Rockets which head directly to Uranus.
....it had to be done
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
South Korea == Hyundai
North Korea == Huh?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Progress plods on, and if they keep trying, they will eventually get it right, even if it isn't particularly easy.
Maybe this will shut up all the people who said that the achievements of SpaceX and Falcon 9 were nothing... when a nation state with a GDP of $929 billion and space agency annual budget of ~$250 million fails twice to achieve the same thing.
A person might figure they could afford to hire a couple of engineers who already went through this trial and error.
Two failures on a brand-new launch vehicle is not unusual for any country. These are complex systems operating close to their design limits, and they can only be partially tested on the ground. It's certainly a setback for the Korean engineers, but I would not look at two failures and immediately conclude they lack the right talent.
This is an especially difficult case because none of the components have much flight heritage, which is ultimately how you reduce risk. This is why you see so much re-use in rocket designs in general, especially of high-risk components like engines and avionics.
In many ways it's like software development. Any good developer knows that no matter how smart and experienced the engineers are, new code will almost always have bugs early on. Testing under realistic conditions is the only way to identify them. Unfortunately the only fully realistic test for a rocket is a launch.