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US Should Use Trampolines To Get Astronauts To the ISS Suggests Russian Official
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "The Washington Post reports that Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has lashed out again, this time at newly announced US ban on high-tech exports to Russia suggesting that 'after analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I propose the US delivers its astronauts to the ISS with a trampoline.' Rogozin does actually have a point, although his threats carry much less weight than he may hope. Russia is due to get a $457.9 million payment for its services soon and few believe that Russia would actually give it up. Plus, as Jeffrey Kluger noted at Time Magazine, Russia may not want to push the United States into the hands of SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, two private American companies that hope to be able to send passengers to the station soon. SpaceX and Orbital Sciences have already made successful unmanned resupply runs to the ISS and both are also working on upgrading their cargo vehicles to carry people. SpaceX is currently in the lead and expects to launch US astronauts, employed by SpaceX itself, into orbit by 2016. NASA is building its own heavy-lift rocket for carrying astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, but it won't be ready for anything but test flights until after 2020. 'That schedule, of course, could be accelerated considerably if Washington gave NASA the green light and the cash,' says Kluger. 'America's manned space program went from a standing start in 1961 to the surface of the moon in 1969—eight years from Al Shepard to Tranquility Base. The Soviet Union got us moving then. Perhaps Russia will do the same now.'"
"The Soviet Union got us moving then. Perhaps Russia will do the same now."
Back then those in power and the people in general cared that the Russians could do something we could not. That is no longer the case when it comes to space. Most people don't understand why space is important at all outside of things like satellites that provides communications around the planet.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Did you ever play tic-tac-toe?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
And we're arguing over a comment about a failing space station.
If by "soyuz", you mean the manned vehicle, it has had two loss-of-crew accidents, and about ten mission failures where the crew survived. In 120 flights.
As opposed to Shuttle's two loss-of-crew accidents and zero mission failures where the crew survived. In 135 flights.
So, no, Soyuz does NOT have a "rock solid safety record".
Nor is Soyuz more versatile than Dragon. Smaller payload, in both men and cargo, and lower deltaV (and lack of reusability) do not make for "more versatile".
The only thing that Soyuz has on Dragon is that it has completed the man-rating part. Of course, with a 50 year head start, we'd expect that as a matter of course.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
On the man-rating...the cargo Dragon is actually already man-rated. Once it's up at the ISS, people have to open the door and go inside to unload supplies and load experiments for return to Earth. What it lacks is a launch escape system. Well, and seats.
On the versatility...apart from carrying more cargo and more crew, the Dragon is equipped with heat shielding that can handle return from lunar or Mars trajectories, and for reuse. It's even adaptable for landing on other bodies such as Mars, as in the Red Dragon proposal. It's launcher can operate in single core or three core variants, eventually with varying degrees of core reuse depending on payload/orbit requirements.
So the OP's claim that Soyuz is "much more versatile" is really rather bizarre...
...and this gets modded "Insightful".
I know Slashdot is popular with a lot of folks with "a zany sense of humour". But suggesting the nuclear bombing of Moscow - or anywhere else - is not clever and it's not funny. It's wicked, and I say that with no religious agenda. If the word "wicked" has any meaning, this is a perfect example of it.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
The trick to winning is to choose your opponents wisely. Drunks and small children are easy prey from my mastery of X's and O's.
"Please explain how not sending a tiny handful of astronauts into space, at immense cost and considerable risk, will affect the survival of the race"
If dinosaurs had advanced enough to have a space program, maybe they could of stopped the rock that hit Mexico 65 million years ago, and they would still be alive today.
Sooner or later another rock is going to be on a collision course with the earth, and if we don't stop it, it will wipe us out.
And there are othere problems in the long term, like the sun running out of hydrogen in a billion years...
If we don't get off this planet, then it will be the end of mankind.
“Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.” Neil deGrasse Tyson
“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!” Larry Niven
As to your follow up post, perhaps if you stopped asking questions with obvious and well-discussed answers, you wouldn't get modded down.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
You forgot to add "I know I'm going to get modded down for this, but..." at the start.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Troll fail:
(1) Entitlement spending doesn't make one bit of difference. These days, NASA gets less than 0.5% of the federal budget. The Pentagon wastes more money in a month than NASA spends in a year. The only reason Congress doesn't double or triple NASA's budget is that they see no political gain in it for themselves without earmarking the money for projects that will never be finished.
(2) Don't know how this is relevant. We knew all along that making ourselves beholden to Russia for manned spaceflight was a bad idea, but Bush and the last Congress did it anyways. If Ukraine hadn't happened, something else probably would have sooner or later.
(3) is flat-out wrong. If you hadn't noticed, the NASA Chief Administrator is a former astronaut himself--not some lawyer who was handed the job on a silver platter for ass-kissing. NASA managers are probably the most competent team in the whole federal government (not least because so many of them are actual rocket scientists), which is why we are able to do so many amazing projects in spite of the idiotic budget cuts that get thrown at us.
Thud's response was far more accurate:
(0) is an accurate characterization of the SLS-Orion project, the official successor to the shuttle and informally known as the "Senate Launch System". This is why we had to contract SpaceX to actually build a rocket, as opposed to pretend to build while distributing pork.
(-1) is really the same thing as (0).
You don't shoot the hand that feeds you.
Sometimes you do. Exactly a century ago, in May of 1914, Britain and Germany were each others biggest trading partners. By August they were killing each other by the millions.