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Progress Spacecraft Launch Successful
Zothecula writes "The future of the International Space Station (ISS) became more secure on Sunday, October 30, 2011 when the Russian space agency Rosocosmos carried out a successful launch of an unmanned Progress spacecraft. The 15,718 lb (7,130 kg) cargo ship carried its three tons of supplies into orbit and successfully deployed its solar arrays without incident. This launch confirms that the Soyuz-U launch vehicle is once again safe to carry the manned spacecraft needed to ferry crews to the ISS."
Sure, I should read the article, but the summary makes no sense. Why does the successful launch of one spacecraft prove that it's safe to launch manned spacecraft again? One successful launch doesn't prove anything.
Rosocosmos seems like a name someone would come up with if there were making a parody of the Russian space program. Even so, at least some countries still take there space programs seriously.
One safe launch doesn't mean that a launch vehicle is safe.
The failure to have one safe launch *does* mean that a launch vehicle is unsafe, so there's that.
...I fail at these jokes.
Until further notice.
Face it, we're still in the early doors of manned spaceflight, like the early decades of avaition - filled with uncertainty, peril and loss. Perhaps a few decades time will bring safe, reliable travel into space and back, but it's still got a pretty high failure rate.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Is not safe. Is space ship.
return to space station. There were two failed launches and the proposed fix, which seems to work. The International Space Station shuts down in three weeks if a fresh crop of astronauts doesnt make it there by then.
rocket only blows up half of the time!
...until the spacecraft docks, delivers its cargo, picks up the passengers and then returns SAFELY to the earth.
Now, hopefully, we can see SpaceX get their approval to combine COTS 2/3 and then launch in Jan. We need to get multiple cargo going.
Of course, the next big issue is to get CONgress to do the right thing and increase funding to private space. We need multiple launchers and multiple destinations. Hence private space need to use some money on getting Bigelow going (and ideally IDC Dover).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There were two failed launches
Hmm lets check the chronology
M-10M and earlier were this spring or earlier. I can't remember the last Progress failure. They do collide with the station on a regular basis.
M-11M worked fine in June
M-12M shut down early and burned up in the atmosphere in august, more or less
M-13M is this one, successful.
So, what mission was the other failure?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Supposedly the success rate for Russian launchs between 1980-1999 is around 94% while the success rate for american launches is around 86%. Russians are more experience having launched 2589 times with 181 losses while Americans launched 1152 times with 164 losses. Now that the shuttles have been retired I'm going to assume the Russians will be really far ahead but maybe it's better that way with globalization right? As much as I like spaceX I find their newer untested technology not really viable for manned flight. They can't be trusted to carry anything other then low cost cargo until they've worked out their problems.
I sure hope the linked article is just bad journalism, rather than a reflection of what anyone connected to the program actually said. A successful launch does not demonstrate that the vehicle is safe, any more than winning at roulette shows it to be a wise investment.
The program may be, and probably is, safe - but the proof is in the details of the quality program, not the mere fact that the rocket didn't blow up this time.
The Russians had a Proton M/Briz M fail less than a week before the Soyuz/Progress (M-12M) failure. Both failures, IIRC, were for similar reasons.
In the hands of the Russians then, see how they get on. Because the USA doesn't have any other options and they might have to go along with what the Russians decide. Though I am sure the ISS management has contingency plans for putting the station into dormant mode in case of emergency.