Sergey: In Soviet Russia, Rocket Detonates You!

theodp writes "'We were all foolish enough to go on this adventure,' Google co-founder Sergey Brin told the assembled Brainiacs at Google's Solve for X event last week, recalling the time he and Google co-founder Larry Page took their Gulfstream on a $100K journey to watch a 2008 Soyuz launch in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. 'If the rocket blows up, we're all dead,' Sergey overheard a Russian guard say. 'It was incredibly close,' Sergey continued. 'We drove in toward this rocket and there were hundreds of people all going the other way. It was really an astonishing sight. If you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend it. It's really not at all comparable to the American launches that I've seen...because those are like five miles away behind a mountain, and the Russians are not as concerned with safety.' Sergey received film credit for the recently-opened Man on a Mission, a documentary on the Russian Soyuz mission that wound up putting Ultima creator Richard Garriott into orbit (for $30 million) instead of changing the course of Google history."

Comments

Re:In soviet Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

in soviet slashdot , first post gets you

America to the Rescue

[oldhack]

What the Soviet ruskies desperately need is more lawyers. Let's ship them at least half of ours, pronto!

Re:Greenhouse gas emissions

[bmo]

The F-1 burned 3,945 pounds (1,789 kg) of liquid oxygen and 1,738 pounds (788 kg) of RP-1 each second, generating 1,500,000 pounds-force (6.7 MN) of thrust

What's RP-1?

RP-1 (alternately, Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1) is a highly refined form of kerosene outwardly similar to jet fuel, used as a rocket fuel. Although having a lower specific impulse than liquid hydrogen (LH2), RP-1 is cheaper, can be stored at room temperature, is far less of an explosive hazard and is far denser. By volume, RP-1 is significantly more powerful than LH2 and LOX/RP-1 has a much better Isp-density than LOX/LH2. RP-1 also has a fraction of the toxicity and carcinogenic hazards of hydrazine, another room-temperature liquid fuel. Thus, kerosene fuels are more practical for many uses.

Now shut your pie-hole

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BMO

Re:Greenhouse gas emissions

[phantomfive]

Ha! Thought you had me, did you? Because you think I'm just sitting on my computer, which burns CO2 for electricity, wasting my time on slashdot. Well I'm also exhaling! So take that!