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Russia Falls Behind In Annual Space Launches For First Time Ever (themoscowtimes.com)
From a report on the Moscow Times: This year, for the first time in history, Russia has fallen behind the United States and China as the world's leading launcher of space rockets. Russia will finish 2016 with just 18 launches, according to open source data, compared to China's 19 and America's 20 launches. Alexander Ivanov, deputy chief of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, said on Nov. 29 that the launch rate has decreased because Moscow's space strategy has changed. Currently, it's top priority is reviving existing and aging satellite groupings. But there are other reasons Russia's launch rate may be falling behind. Since the 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world's first satellite, Russia has been the undisputed leader in annual launch rates -- a figure that spoke to the general health of its space program and aerospace industry. At the peak of the Soviet space program, Russia often launched around 100 rockets a year. Since 1957, Russia has launched over 3,000 rockets -- roughly twice as many as the U.S. But with the Russian economy in crisis, space budgets have plummeted. Funding for the next decade of Russian space activity stands at just 1.4 trillion rubles ($21.5 billion), a figure that was only finalized after three rounds of cuts to proposed funding, which began at 3.4 trillion rubles ($52.3 billion). The U.S. space agency, NASA, received a budget of $19.3 billion in 2016 alone. To make matters worse, Russian rockets are becoming uncharacteristically undependable.
If I had a nickel for every piece of "NASA's story represents the entirety of the space race/USSR-Russia sucks/Let's pretend that NASA is the only space program" propaganda piece in journalism and pop culture that has come out since 1957, I could fund my own space program that would be better than anybody's.
Yeah, I get it, butthurt Americans are mad that they can no longer send men into space. So they feel the need to come up with any metric to show that NASA is somehow still superior to the Russians, even as they have to beg Russia for rides to ISS.
Americans, still fighting the Cold War long after everyone else went home.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Yeah, I get it, butthurt Americans are mad that they can no longer send men into space.
Umm, actually most of us aren't all that worried about it. Those of us who care know we've got programs in the works to revive our ability to put humans into space and we knew there would be a bit of a gap. It will get resolved soon enough in all likelihood. The rest simply don't care at all. Maybe a few folks get bent about it but they're a tiny minority.
WTF?
Launch services where/are a good source of hard currency for the Ruskys. The rest of the world has supported Russia's space program as it delivers good value. To say nothing of the chaos that would happen if the technical staff hit the world job market.
Other than that, they have oil/gas/weapons/prostitute exports. Not a diverse economy.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
From TFS: Russia has been the undisputed leader in annual launch rates -- a figure that spoke to the general health of its space program and aerospace industry.
It also speaks to the billions of rubles pumped into the programs by the government (not usually seen as a sign of health). It also speaks to the higher failure rate and generally shorter lifespans of the payloads launched.