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Russian Progress Cargo Ship Docks With Space Station

Posted by samzenpus on from the have-some-supplies dept.

An anonymous reader writes: An unmanned Russian cargo ship has successfully docked with the International Space Station. The successful launch, rendezvous and docking came after two resupply failures. A Progress launched in April spun out of control and a week ago, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket disintegrated, destroying a supply ship loaded with supplies and equipment. "Crew reports, 'feels like Christmas in July,'" the International Space Station tweeted.

47 comments

  1. Re: Space is so amazing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your rage is funny. Also pointless.

  2. Why? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    Can't they 3D-print anything they need? /joke

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    1. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because of the awful smell and the (lack of) speed. Also, PLA isn't like George Clooney, always next to you when you need him.

    2. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is this a joke? Computers got better, therefore everything else will scale the same way. To think otherwise is to be a Luddite.

    3. Re:Why? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      It's a joke since their current 3D-printer can only print in plastic and even if they could 3D-print anything they need they'd still need to be supplied with print materials regularly.

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    4. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It should be possible to recycle some plastic waste.

  3. Looks like we are making Progress by jfdavis668 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm glad the ISS crew won't suffocate now.

    1. Re: Looks like we are making Progress by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or will they? Who said there isn't a plan to cause just that?

    2. Re:Looks like we are making Progress by ClaraBow · · Score: 1

      Funny!

  4. Russian ship. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 0

    I'm imagining a zero-grav race for the control panel with the hidden bottle of vodka inside.

    1. Re:Russian ship. by Paleolibertarian · · Score: 0

      Just send them a sack of potatoes and they can make their own.

    2. Re:Russian ship. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      A microgravity still sounds like a fun thing to design. I can see a few possibilities - you could try a hydrophilic mesh to keep the liquid place, or a super-fine net relying on surface tension to keep liquids from passing through the holes.

    3. Re: Russian ship. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As long as they don't have any Irish crewmembers. Those guys can have a famine even with potatoes.

  5. Re: Space is so amazing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As pointless as putting people a few kilometers up.

  6. Thank you Mr. Putin by SpaceXXX · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Our nation wants to thank you again for saving ISS and July 4th celebration.
    Every year now, during 4th of July week we will salute strong Russia and will be forever grateful for your generosity.

    1. Re:Thank you Mr. Putin by fnj · · Score: 2

      It's hard to tell if you're being serious, or trying (vainly) to be sarcastic. Forgive me for that.

      At any rate, one of the two segments is Russian; the other US and shared with Europe, Japan, and Canada. So it is basically as much a Russian asset as US. It is in the Russian interest to see to it that the thing doesn't come to grief prematurely. As a human of Earth, I'm not against being thankful and grateful to Russia for coming through in a pinch, and rescuing everyone's ass, but basically they are serving their own interest as much as ours.

    2. Re:Thank you Mr. Putin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (seriously, when's the last time Russia's storied multi-billion rocket industry had a failure?)

      Uh.. the progress launch failure? So.. a few months ago.

  7. Southern hemisphere... by Type44Q · · Score: 2

    Crew reports, 'feels like Christmas in July'

    They must be orbiting over the southern hemisphere...

    1. Re:Southern hemisphere... by Xiaran · · Score: 2

      As a Southern Hemisphere type guy... no... Christmas in winter would be weird.

    2. Re:Southern hemisphere... by fnj · · Score: 1

      Not as weird as celebrating Christmas in summer, to a northern type.

    3. Re:Southern hemisphere... by rossdee · · Score: 1

      or as the Rocket Man himself said:
        It's July but it's cold as Christmas In the middle of the year.

    4. Re:Southern hemisphere... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What'd this christmas you speak of? I it anything like yule or saturnalia?

  8. With all those computers NASA should mine bitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With the bitcoin money they make they can buy 3D printers and Arduinos to make much cheaper rockets - it's not rocket science dumbasses!

  9. Re: Space is so amazing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As opposed to putting them six feet under.

  10. Oh, good! by msobkow · · Score: 1

    Oh, good! They were almost out of toilet paper. :P

    --
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  11. I seriously would like to know by ClaraBow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    why NASA is relying on private companies to build the next-generation spacecraft. NASA had a dependable spacecraft. Couldn't they have improved the Space Shuttle? There has to be more going here than just money. Seriously, we can afford a war anytime we feel like fighting one, but when it comes to science and space exploration, we suddenly don't have money.

    1. Re:I seriously would like to know by spiritplumber · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Shuttle: Take 50 ton ship in orbit to carry 5 tons of payload. Rebuild most of it after every flight. Soyuz stack: Take 8 ton ship in orbit to carry 5 tons of payload. Scrap what's left of it after flight, don't worry about reliability of parts. Turns out most of the cost (and the mass) is the fuel.

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    2. Re:I seriously would like to know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That was largely the Air Force's doing, not NASA, which wanted a smaller ship, but the Air Force had to have something to carry their bus sized spy satellites into polar orbit or close to it. The thing is despite all that dumbness, we learned a lot about how to and how not to deal with reusable spacecraft from the shuttle program and we've done nothing useful with that knowledge. There should have been a second round of them in development a decade or more ago to replace what we had, and Congress did what they're good at--getting us into another mess by trying to look all budget conscious and stuff while wasting money left, right, and center. So NASA had a choice--fly what they had or develop something else, but they didn't have the money to do both because shortsighted idiots can't see why that's a problem. It doesn't help that your average low information idiot voter out there thinks NASA consumes 15 to 25 cents of every federal dollar when in actuality it's less than half a cent.

      Now we're busy re-inventing Apollo and taking a long time about it because we let THAT knowledge decay, so the next time somebody decides we need a space shuttle we'll be almost starting that from scratch too.

      Yet, as previously stated, if somebody wants to start a war tomorrow that's no problem at all...

    3. Re:I seriously would like to know by ClaraBow · · Score: 1

      We learned a lot about how to and how not to deal with reusable spacecraft from the shuttle program and we've done nothing useful with that knowledge.

      Exactly! It feels like we are starting from scratch. I know NASA is sharing knowledge with SpaceX, but a lot knowledge is also being lost for stupid-ass political reasons. It's sad that we can't even get a rocket to reliably deliver cargo to the International Space Station -- It's upsetting and depressing!

    4. Re:I seriously would like to know by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's sad that we can't even get a rocket to reliably deliver cargo to the International Space Station -- It's upsetting and depressing!

      You'd almost think from reading this that the Russians could reliably deliver cargo to ISS...

      Which might suggest that you're aware of the failure of the Dragon at the end of last month and the failure of Cygnus nine months ago, but unaware that in April the Russian resupply mission to ISS failed.

      You also appear to be unaware that this was the second Russian failure to resupply the ISS (the first was in 2011).

      For what it's worth, the EU and Japan haven't failed an ISS resupply mission yet. Of course, between them they've done about 10% of the ISS resupply flights.

      On the other hand, NASA is the only agency that hasn't managed an ISS resupply mission at all. The US resupply missions have all been CRS (SpaceX and Cygnus)....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    5. Re:I seriously would like to know by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 1

      http://www.washingtonmonthly.c...

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      Mostly random stuff.
    6. Re:I seriously would like to know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NASA never built a spacecraft. The Saturn rockets were built by the likes of IBM, Chrysler and Rocketdyne. The Lunar Module was a Grumman design, etc etc.

      The short answer is the government is phenomenally bad at managing and negotiating contracts. There are entire industries set up to take advantage of this.

    7. Re:I seriously would like to know by dbIII · · Score: 1

      why NASA is relying on private companies to build the next-generation spacecraft

      Politics. Same reason Skylab was thrown away when there were enough working bits of Saturn V to keep it up there. The people who didn't want the ISS in the first place are calling the shots.

    8. Re:I seriously would like to know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Air Force does operate a small Shuttle-like, Progress-like ship funnily. The X37-B is both reusable, small and unmanned, though its payload is too small ; I'm learning that there are hints about a X37-C scaled up version. That might be a useful shuttle for once, but I speculate a non reusable ship is cheaper still.

    9. Re:I seriously would like to know by Thelasko · · Score: 1

      NASA had a dependable spacecraft. Couldn't they have improved the Space Shuttle?

      The Space Shuttle was far from dependable. Worst of all, when it failed, it failed catastrophically. The issues were due to its very basic design. One example being solid rocket boosters operating along side the crewed spacecraft. Once the boosters are lit, there is no turning back. They can't be turned off, and they can't be jettisoned.

      The issues were much worse prior to Challenger. Structural changes were made to the stack to allow the spacecraft to continue to fly with main engine failures. From my understanding, the shuttles' main engines were capable of propelling the craft to orbit, but not the fuel. The solid rocket boosters were needed to lift that big orange fuel tank. If the shuttle's engines went out, the connections between the shuttle, tank, and solid rockets were not strong enough, and the whole thing would break apart.

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    10. Re: I seriously would like to know by sda1950 · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but the reason NASA had to build the large shuttle was because they promised cheap access to space if they launched everything. They dropped a load in their shorts when they were told they had to launch Hexagon, but their big mouth got them into that one. Then they gave us the biggest economic disaster space has seen.

    11. Re: I seriously would like to know by chrlsuk · · Score: 1

      Go watch Apollo 13. In fact there's a very good BBC documentary on the iplayer right now about how the US "WON" the space race but then promptly lost. Because once they had the moon, there was no public support for the huge amounts of money required for space. Matter of fact, the only reason the shuttle ever got funded was because of D.O.D. money which funded it as a bus for top secret satellites. Then the pressure of D.O.D requirements led to Challenger (bbc horizon has a good hour on the shuttle) and the D.O.D started to go back to rockets because the Shuttle wasn't a bus. And then you get budget problems again... heck I want to know, why is all this money putting people in space when we need to fix the earth?

  12. Yo Musk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Eat space debris and stay out of space motherfucka!

  13. How much does it cost by ragtoplvr · · Score: 1

    I guess if the flight fails we do not pay. But we lose the value of the cargo. Well there is insurance. Which must have a pretty hefty premium after the latest failures.. Everything is packed special, any idea how many dollars the food and supplies cost. What is the insurance premium now, 1/2 the value??? Rod

  14. funky business... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    has there been any serious attempt in spacecraft after collapse of soviet union in usa? atleast the feeling i have gotten from spacecraft engineering books is that theres literally no funding and all the folks have retired over 10years ago already and soon theres nobody even with skills to do it... even if you put funding up now :D

    1. Re:funky business... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the overarching goal is to do things in the cheapest way possible, why not just fund North Korea to do it? There, engineers will be scrambling to land a good position so they can get a new 120 square meter flat in Pyong Yang and the ration increased to six eggs per week, and TWO chicken a month instead of just one.
      REAL rice too, and a full bottle of oil per month - so much that you can probably afford to waste oil and an egg into making mayonnaise.

      At the space center they probably have the latest pencils too, and you get an assistant to sharpen it for you.
      When the US does State capitalism, it gets the worst of both worlds that's why any project ends up as a $50 billion failure. DPRK is more likely to achieve a $300 million success.