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Russian Cargo Spacehip Declared Lost
schwit1 writes: The Russians have declared lost the Progress freighter that had been launched to the ISS yesterday. They never could regain control of the craft, plus it was in an incorrect orbit. Moreover, the U.S. Air Force has detected debris nearby, suggesting a significant failure of some kind. The Russians are now considering delaying the next manned launch, scheduled for May 26, while they investigate this failure. Both Soyuz and Progress use some of the same systems, including the radar system that failed on Progress, and they want to make sure the problem won't pop up on the manned mission. At the same time, they are also considering advancing the launch date of the next Progress to ISS from August 6. Based on these reports, I think they might swap the launch dates for the two flights. A Dragon is scheduled to go to ISS in between these missions, though that schedule could be changed as well to accommodate the Russian plans.
Yeah, I'll give you that one. Of course it would not have been an issue for us either if we were still using 1960's technology
Just imagine how much mass we could have launched into orbit by now if we sunk all of the Shuttle money into Saturn V's
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Umm, Apollo had two failures (1 & 13). Out of 17 Apollos (not all of which carried crew). So a failure rate of 11% or so....
As opposed to Shuttle's failure rate (two shuttles of 133 flights) of 1.5%.
Admittedly, Soyuz also had two failures, of 117 flights (as I recall - could be off by a few), which amounted to a failure rate of 1.7% or so.
Oh, look! Shuttle had a lower failure rate than either Apollo or Soyuz! How is that possible?!
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"