There is a reason American Space Technology works better, performs better, and is the envy of all the other countries on this speck of dust.
Hmm, are you talking about the grounded space shuttles or the only working US space laboratory called SpaceLab that was, according to this article developed by europe's ESA?
...and i can state that they have at least one fiction goal:
The second application is the introduction of Info-MICA as a replacement of paper products that are used for distributing information.
Did they mean something like the "paperless office" or something like real books which people favour over taking their Palms and Laptops into bed for a good night's read? Yeah, right. Next, please...
And i'm really supposed to take a laptop to the lavatory when i'm expecting a longer "session"? I won't even think about the disadvantages a laptop has against common newspapers when the toilet throws an unexpected "out-of-paper-error"
It also says: 3) The media can be mass produced at low cost
So, instead of copying itself, you'll have to ask a friend who illegaly owns this nice commercial auto-writer and he'll give you 29 copies because he "couldn't stop the machine fast enough" or what? And all that, while the former producers of CD-Writers just shrug and go out of business? I doubt it, i really do...
Anyway, DVD sales only started really to boost when people where able to copy them. Same with CD's.
Same was with 5 1/4 floppies. You know, the blank "single sided" ones for the C64; the ones you got a free puncher to make them double-sided if you bought a 100 pieces box... Come to think of it, the last puncher i got was the same brand as the "single sided only" floppies it came with.
Doesn't look like producers of blank media are going away soon (as already promised for the producers of blank audio tapes when the CD introduced - they just gave Sony enough money to get back into the business).
And of what use would be that words if - for example - the eskimos get extinct?
I'm pretty sure the Neanderthals had just as many words to describe different forms of stone knifes. But as the need (and ability) to distinguish that items lessens to zero it would be of no use teaching them words to the children.
I mean, really, how many of us would be able to tell a stone knife used to kill deer from a stone knife used to cut leather? I doubt that many of us could tell the difference of a stone knife from a stone arrowhead (or even recognize it) when they find a stone with a sharp end lying around...
I don't think current computer languages do have that much in common with natural languages except for borrowing a few fitting words. This may change in the future, when computers actually *learn* to understand what you're asking of them.
But at this point, the language used to talk to the computer wouldn't matter, because it could use some internal translation tool. So it generally wouldn't care if you speak English, Suaheli, Klingon, Latin or even a mix of them as long it could be translated.
But for now, i see computer languages more like mathematic formulas (which corresponds nicely to "to compute") than a real language, because you could use it on your "Personal Desktop Calculator" but it would be a bit ridiculous to talk to a fellow geekgirl in foreach loops or to ask her to memcpy(mystackmemforyou, yourthoughtsaboutme, sizeof(mystackmemforyou)-sizeof(int)*beersihad), don't you think?
On the other side, if you want to go for a suicide mission, an F18 would be quite right. Imagine an civilian registrated F18 starting legally from an Airport near New York, flying a bit on the acknowledg course, turning apruptly, speeding up to mach two, dropping two or more external "fuel tanks" full of Napalm over Queens and than plungin' with still Mach 2 somewhere into Manhattan. At that speed and with still enough fuel on board, an exact target wouldn't matter... (the supersonic shockwave alone would do plenty of damage and can kill many people if it shatters windows on the 100th floor)
We've seen on 9/11 how effective Jets where against passenger planes. I'd guess the F18 would have dropped the napalm and reached Manhattan before the first anti-aircraft missile has been fired or the first military plane has lifted off.
You could also try such a thing during an air show near - lets say - Las Vegas. Nobody react at first when you turn course; the pilot could easely hold off the tower a short time by telling he has technical problems or such, that he's ejecting himself and cut off radio contact to proof it...
Many scenarios are available.
Could be better. It could change the registry so it is the ONLY program started on windows startup (make especially sense on NT, 2K and XP where it would also disable the login script and therefore all that nasty desktop thingy that prohibits many users from getting their REAL work done anyway:-)
There's another line of defence, at least for Unix-Geeks (but not your "My browser is a Compaq"-User): Unix-Geeks tend to use non-Intel Hardware more frequently, so just inserting Assembler-Code into a running program will not work for at least one of two reasons:
1) The stack is not compatible 2) The CPU just shrugs at the code and kills your program
Shell-Scripts would be not that easy, because they would be quite complicated to run on enough shells with a huge mess of incompatible commands and command-line tools.
As for Perl: You can either include all needed modules into your script (which is quite hard because some of them need compiling to your EXACT target configuration) or your script might use your victims CPAN-module (which might not even be configured correctly) and tie up the users computer for hours while the virus/worm is *trying* to install required modules.
In my opinion, the main reason that there are very few Unix and Linux virii and worms is that binary programs most likely would have to use the autoconf/automake framework (or something similar) and the targets package managment tools to sort out the target's mess before beeing able to do some nasty stuff. Same problem with scripts.
For example: On a barebone NetBSD fileserver, a script worm might have to install pkgsrc (the package managment), perl and Mail::SMTP or alternivitely configure sendmail, allow it in rc.conf and start it before beeing able to act as a mail-relay. A BINARY worm with its own SMTP-engine would be quite useless, because it would not only have to match the target platform, but the System version as well, because network libraries AND threading change constantly these days...
Writing a worm/virus for Unix/Linux might be most promising when you got a very specific target host. But to say writing a general one for a variety of platforms and distributions would be a nightmare is a very optimistic view at best.
Hubble might not be able to see that far into space with failed gyros; but before NASA is going to cancel Hubble because of that, they might wanna have a little chat with ESA engineers about operating their joint-venture IUE project without gyros.
To quote from the project page: The IUE is the longest-lived and one of the most productive satellites ever built. It worked non-stop (only one week of program interruption was made in 1985) until it was switched off in September 1996, 14 years later than originally planned., but the paragraphs NASA's engineers should be interested most in is: The reliability of IUE's operation throughout its 18-year lifetime was staggering. Although the back-up cameras were faulty, the primary cameras remained fully operational. Despite the failure of four of its six gyroscopes, the pointing and slew control remained precise to the last.
When its fourth gyroscope failed in 1985, IUE continued operations thanks to an innovative reworking of its attitude control system by using the fine Sun sensor as a substitute. Targets were acquired blindly by knowledge of their positions and by careful pointing of the telescope. This redesign (the first ever in the history of space) worked well, with the loss of only a few minutes observation time per hour. Even with another gyroscope lost in its last year, IUE could still be stabilised in three axes, with only a single gyroscope, by adding star-tracker measurements.
So, in my opinion, Hubble could stick around a long time, as long as NASA accepts that it can't look into "very deep space" anymore, only into "somewhat deep space". It still can be very usefull to explore nearby stars and our own planets.
It would make more sense to add some kind of robotic arm to complex satelites and space probes and only dock rockets with spare parts.
Especially on space probe Galileo a robotic arm would have been quite usefull. As you might know, the high-gain antenna failed to deploy which couldn't be fixed with on-board tools available (thermo-cycling, speed up rotation of space-craft and such). A simple pull or punch with a robotic arm might have fixed the issue in seconds...
when buying a F18, even one in prime condition. First of all, what kind of airport do you need in terms of runway and infrastructure? Do F18 fly on commercial fuel without killing their afterburner?
Would you need a special pilot license? I mean, this isn't exactly a two-seated Fokker but a supersonic jet.
And last but not least, when the constitution amendment was made that everyone could bear arms i don't think politicians had state-of-the-art jet fighters in mind. Would be like allowing everyone to drive a tank...
Re:The difference between love and lust ...
on
The Science of Love
·
· Score: 1
Well, i'm still working on the flaws in the formulas, so i'm still forced to do more field tests in the bar around the corner:-)
Re:its fine if sparingly used...
on
Cell-Phone Wars
·
· Score: 1
In Europe many cinema's ask you very politely to turn off your cell phone before the movie. If you don't, they often don't stay THAT polite if your phone rings during the show.
And i've already seen cinemas using jammers (when you enter, signal strength drops to zero; and if you don't turn off your phone, so does the battery - because the phone is desperatly traing to find a net connection).
Re:The difference between love and lust ...
on
The Science of Love
·
· Score: 5, Funny
You could also formulate L = (BSTG / BSGF) ^ (BE / DV) * (NS + 1)
Where L is the Lust you currently feel, BSTG the the Bra size of your target, BSGF is MAX_BREASTSIZE(girlfriends) you already have, BE is the number of Beers you already drank, NS is the number of months you've had no sex and DV is the number of divorces you had been through.
As you can clearly see, Beer (or other alcohololic drinks) and divorces have the highest influence. But as shown in the next formula, alcohol may also have a bad side effect:
AS = (V + 1) * L / (B + 1) ^ 3
AS is the ability to have sex, L is the lust and B is the number of Beers you had (which is very likely more than in the first formula). V is the number of Viagra's you took. You see, the more you drink, the more V you must swallow - although i'd recommend against V when you drunk B for reasons of SF (the survival factor of that night) because:
SF = (100 - AG / B ^ V) * RN
Where SF is your survival factor, AG is your age, B the Beers, V the Viagras and RN a boolean (0 or 1) to remember your spouse's name the morning after...
Therefore everyone claiming that having one-night-stands is easy isn't either a) drinking alcohol b) a good mathematician c) or just plain lucky so far
From August 1961 to January 1964 NASA launched six Ranger probes that all failed. I'd assume that if NASA had been given a bit more time, it would have a better success rate than 3 out of 9. Same goes for the Russians with their Mars program.
To give you a nice thinking about success of getting probes to their destination, i'd like to quote from the Science Briefing Webcast of the Mars Exploration Rovers in 2002 before launch:
Attempts for missions to Mars: 30
Success: 12
In Transit: 2
Landings:
Sucess: 3
Failures: 6
You can now add 2.8 sucess to the chart (Mars express orbiter did arrive, but the Beagle lander didn't)
This statistic clearly shows why national governments use space exploration for publicity in a very controlled way...
"Thanks to my American science education, I had never heard of this feat."
Well, i'm glad to be from Europe (Austria to be exact), because we were - as a neutral country - beeing subject to both western AND eastern brainwashing and so got information of both sides of the space race:-)
Well, to get the truth to it: Science experiments of Austria have flown on both sides; we even got an astronaut (or Austronaut) to MIR, which is quite a feat for such a small country...
The launch tower came in contact with many hazardous chemicals (including Hydrazine-Fuel from the CM and LEM and huge amounts of Kerosine from the first stage) and has been painted with a heat resiting paint that mainly consists of heavy metals.
There are also many moving parts that have been oiled with quite heat resistant grease and moved by hydraulic systems.
Don't forget: When they put that thing together, they where in the middle of the space race, so environmental concerns where not even raised....
i don'd think so. Not unless the viruses getting really nastie. The current viruses are in reality just trojans for the spammers.
The only thing that would probably make people starting to think would be a virus that reformates the harddrive and installs a simple (no-)boot screen saying that the user has installed a virus, lost all his files and should ask someone with *real* technical knowledge what to do now....
For my part, the mailserver throws away all mails with an attachment that could be a windows-executeable. No fear of loosing legitimate mail; i DON'T want executeables sent to me, i only accept links anyway (because of mailbox size).
All HTML-Mails are classified as spam as well with the hardcoded exception of two or three mail addresses. Seems to work quite fine and i've gotten only 1 false positive in about 5 month (which wasn't that QUITE a false positive after all because that friend of mine sent me an info about a new shop i wasn't interested in)
Just tell me one thing: What is the general principal difference between rolling the tanks or cutting of your essential supplies when you're showing your "sign of authority"?
And of course, the US doesn't roll their tanks down the street, because they use jet fighters and bombers when they disagree with some country's politics. That makes a complete difference, right?
I live in Austria near the border of Slovenia (former Yugoslavia) and i can tell you one thing: Western companies "helped" Slovenia by making the situation worse than before the fall. An example: Many exporters to Slovenia would only take German Marks (now Euros) or US-Dollars for their goods; helping Slovenias currency to fall into the dump.
Nice - NOT:-(
That's what i meant in my other post. Ok, the Soviets did steal technology (if secretly paying money to weapon facturies in the West can be called "stealing"), but they were often the ones to make the stuff work.
AFAIK the US recruted scientists from the "Buran"-project (the russian shuttle) to upgrade their own technology. Well, even IF Buran is based in plans for the Nasa shuttle, it is certainly much better. Only, the USSR realised that a shuttle isn't as cost-effective as your typical (and very reliable) throw-away progress launcher:-)
Slashdot Mirror
"Now offering: The first overclockable, cryo-cooled pacemaker. If you buy 2, we include a spare remote control unit for free!"
There is a reason American Space Technology works better, performs better, and is the envy of all the other countries on this speck of dust.
Hmm, are you talking about the grounded space shuttles or the only working US space laboratory called SpaceLab that was, according to this article developed by europe's ESA?
...and i can state that they have at least one fiction goal:
The second application is the introduction of Info-MICA as a replacement of paper products that are used for distributing information.
Did they mean something like the "paperless office" or something like real books which people favour over taking their Palms and Laptops into bed for a good night's read? Yeah, right. Next, please...
And i'm really supposed to take a laptop to the lavatory when i'm expecting a longer "session"? I won't even think about the disadvantages a laptop has against common newspapers when the toilet throws an unexpected "out-of-paper-error"
LLAP & LG Rene
It also says:
3) The media can be mass produced at low cost
So, instead of copying itself, you'll have to ask a friend who illegaly owns this nice commercial auto-writer and he'll give you 29 copies because he "couldn't stop the machine fast enough" or what? And all that, while the former producers of CD-Writers just shrug and go out of business? I doubt it, i really do...
Anyway, DVD sales only started really to boost when people where able to copy them. Same with CD's.
Same was with 5 1/4 floppies. You know, the blank "single sided" ones for the C64; the ones you got a free puncher to make them double-sided if you bought a 100 pieces box... Come to think of it, the last puncher i got was the same brand as the "single sided only" floppies it came with.
Doesn't look like producers of blank media are going away soon (as already promised for the producers of blank audio tapes when the CD introduced - they just gave Sony enough money to get back into the business).
LLAP & LG
Rene
And of what use would be that words if - for example - the eskimos get extinct?
I'm pretty sure the Neanderthals had just as many words to describe different forms of stone knifes. But as the need (and ability) to distinguish that items lessens to zero it would be of no use teaching them words to the children.
I mean, really, how many of us would be able to tell a stone knife used to kill deer from a stone knife used to cut leather? I doubt that many of us could tell the difference of a stone knife from a stone arrowhead (or even recognize it) when they find a stone with a sharp end lying around...
I don't think current computer languages do have that much in common with natural languages except for borrowing a few fitting words. This may change in the future, when computers actually *learn* to understand what you're asking of them.
But at this point, the language used to talk to the computer wouldn't matter, because it could use some internal translation tool. So it generally wouldn't care if you speak English, Suaheli, Klingon, Latin or even a mix of them as long it could be translated.
But for now, i see computer languages more like mathematic formulas (which corresponds nicely to "to compute") than a real language, because you could use it on your "Personal Desktop Calculator" but it would be a bit ridiculous to talk to a fellow geekgirl in foreach loops or to ask her to memcpy(mystackmemforyou, yourthoughtsaboutme, sizeof(mystackmemforyou)-sizeof(int)*beersihad), don't you think?
LLAP & LG
Rene
On the other side, if you want to go for a suicide mission, an F18 would be quite right. Imagine an civilian registrated F18 starting legally from an Airport near New York, flying a bit on the acknowledg course, turning apruptly, speeding up to mach two, dropping two or more external "fuel tanks" full of Napalm over Queens and than plungin' with still Mach 2 somewhere into Manhattan. At that speed and with still enough fuel on board, an exact target wouldn't matter... (the supersonic shockwave alone would do plenty of damage and can kill many people if it shatters windows on the 100th floor) We've seen on 9/11 how effective Jets where against passenger planes. I'd guess the F18 would have dropped the napalm and reached Manhattan before the first anti-aircraft missile has been fired or the first military plane has lifted off. You could also try such a thing during an air show near - lets say - Las Vegas. Nobody react at first when you turn course; the pilot could easely hold off the tower a short time by telling he has technical problems or such, that he's ejecting himself and cut off radio contact to proof it... Many scenarios are available.
Isn't that used to make blondes? I'm sure, the cosmetic industry would like to have a word with Mr. Bush about NASA's future plans...
Could be better. It could change the registry so it is the ONLY program started on windows startup (make especially sense on NT, 2K and XP where it would also disable the login script and therefore all that nasty desktop thingy that prohibits many users from getting their REAL work done anyway :-)
Yeah, sure. Lynx is secure. Proven by this and this and this pages. NOT!
There's another line of defence, at least for Unix-Geeks (but not your "My browser is a Compaq"-User): Unix-Geeks tend to use non-Intel Hardware more frequently, so just inserting Assembler-Code into a running program will not work for at least one of two reasons:
1) The stack is not compatible
2) The CPU just shrugs at the code and kills your program
Shell-Scripts would be not that easy, because they would be quite complicated to run on enough shells with a huge mess of incompatible commands and command-line tools.
As for Perl: You can either include all needed modules into your script (which is quite hard because some of them need compiling to your EXACT target configuration) or your script might use your victims CPAN-module (which might not even be configured correctly) and tie up the users computer for hours while the virus/worm is *trying* to install required modules.
In my opinion, the main reason that there are very few Unix and Linux virii and worms is that binary programs most likely would have to use the autoconf/automake framework (or something similar) and the targets package managment tools to sort out the target's mess before beeing able to do some nasty stuff. Same problem with scripts.
For example: On a barebone NetBSD fileserver, a script worm might have to install pkgsrc (the package managment), perl and Mail::SMTP or alternivitely configure sendmail, allow it in rc.conf and start it before beeing able to act as a mail-relay. A BINARY worm with its own SMTP-engine would be quite useless, because it would not only have to match the target platform, but the System version as well, because network libraries AND threading change constantly these days...
Writing a worm/virus for Unix/Linux might be most promising when you got a very specific target host. But to say writing a general one for a variety of platforms and distributions would be a nightmare is a very optimistic view at best.
LLAP & LG
Rene
Hubble might not be able to see that far into space with failed gyros; but before NASA is going to cancel Hubble because of that, they might wanna have a little chat with ESA engineers about operating their joint-venture IUE project without gyros.
To quote from the project page: The IUE is the longest-lived and one of the most productive satellites ever built. It worked non-stop (only one week of program interruption was made in 1985) until it was switched off in September 1996, 14 years later than originally planned., but the paragraphs NASA's engineers should be interested most in is:
The reliability of IUE's operation throughout its 18-year lifetime was staggering. Although the back-up cameras were faulty, the primary cameras remained fully operational. Despite the failure of four of its six gyroscopes, the pointing and slew control remained precise to the last.
When its fourth gyroscope failed in 1985, IUE continued operations thanks to an innovative reworking of its attitude control system by using the fine Sun sensor as a substitute. Targets were acquired blindly by knowledge of their positions and by careful pointing of the telescope. This redesign (the first ever in the history of space) worked well, with the loss of only a few minutes observation time per hour. Even with another gyroscope lost in its last year, IUE could still be stabilised in three axes, with only a single gyroscope, by adding star-tracker measurements.
So, in my opinion, Hubble could stick around a long time, as long as NASA accepts that it can't look into "very deep space" anymore, only into "somewhat deep space". It still can be very usefull to explore nearby stars and our own planets.
LLAP & LG
Rene
It would make more sense to add some kind of robotic arm to complex satelites and space probes and only dock rockets with spare parts. Especially on space probe Galileo a robotic arm would have been quite usefull. As you might know, the high-gain antenna failed to deploy which couldn't be fixed with on-board tools available (thermo-cycling, speed up rotation of space-craft and such). A simple pull or punch with a robotic arm might have fixed the issue in seconds...
when buying a F18, even one in prime condition. First of all, what kind of airport do you need in terms of runway and infrastructure? Do F18 fly on commercial fuel without killing their afterburner?
Would you need a special pilot license? I mean, this isn't exactly a two-seated Fokker but a supersonic jet.
And last but not least, when the constitution amendment was made that everyone could bear arms i don't think politicians had state-of-the-art jet fighters in mind. Would be like allowing everyone to drive a tank...
Well, i'm still working on the flaws in the formulas, so i'm still forced to do more field tests in the bar around the corner :-)
In Europe many cinema's ask you very politely to turn off your cell phone before the movie. If you don't, they often don't stay THAT polite if your phone rings during the show. And i've already seen cinemas using jammers (when you enter, signal strength drops to zero; and if you don't turn off your phone, so does the battery - because the phone is desperatly traing to find a net connection).
You could also formulate
L = (BSTG / BSGF) ^ (BE / DV) * (NS + 1)
Where L is the Lust you currently feel, BSTG the the Bra size of your target, BSGF is MAX_BREASTSIZE(girlfriends) you already have, BE is the number of Beers you already drank, NS is the number of months you've had no sex and DV is the number of divorces you had been through.
As you can clearly see, Beer (or other alcohololic drinks) and divorces have the highest influence. But as shown in the next formula, alcohol may also have a bad side effect:
AS = (V + 1) * L / (B + 1) ^ 3
AS is the ability to have sex, L is the lust and B is the number of Beers you had (which is very likely more than in the first formula). V is the number of Viagra's you took. You see, the more you drink, the more V you must swallow - although i'd recommend against V when you drunk B for reasons of SF (the survival factor of that night) because:
SF = (100 - AG / B ^ V) * RN
Where SF is your survival factor, AG is your age, B the Beers, V the Viagras and RN a boolean (0 or 1) to remember your spouse's name the morning after...
Therefore everyone claiming that having one-night-stands is easy isn't either
a) drinking alcohol
b) a good mathematician
c) or just plain lucky so far
Greetings from the statictical front
Rene
Forgot to add the the relevant info:
From August 1961 to January 1964 NASA launched six Ranger probes that all failed. I'd assume that if NASA had been given a bit more time, it would have a better success rate than 3 out of 9. Same goes for the Russians with their Mars program.
To give you a nice thinking about success of getting probes to their destination, i'd like to quote from the Science Briefing Webcast of the Mars Exploration Rovers in 2002 before launch:
Attempts for missions to Mars: 30
Success: 12
In Transit: 2
Landings:
Sucess: 3
Failures: 6
You can now add 2.8 sucess to the chart (Mars express orbiter did arrive, but the Beagle lander didn't)
This statistic clearly shows why national governments use space exploration for publicity in a very controlled way...
"Thanks to my American science education, I had never heard of this feat."
:-)
Well, i'm glad to be from Europe (Austria to be exact), because we were - as a neutral country - beeing subject to both western AND eastern brainwashing and so got information of both sides of the space race
Well, to get the truth to it: Science experiments of Austria have flown on both sides; we even got an astronaut (or Austronaut) to MIR, which is quite a feat for such a small country...
BTW, look at quite a nice Lunokhod picture and also see the US Ranger Program to get a better view of the real pressures in NASA's side of the space race.
The launch tower came in contact with many hazardous chemicals (including Hydrazine-Fuel from the CM and LEM and huge amounts of Kerosine from the first stage) and has been painted with a heat resiting paint that mainly consists of heavy metals. There are also many moving parts that have been oiled with quite heat resistant grease and moved by hydraulic systems. Don't forget: When they put that thing together, they where in the middle of the space race, so environmental concerns where not even raised....
i don'd think so. Not unless the viruses getting really nastie. The current viruses are in reality just trojans for the spammers.
The only thing that would probably make people starting to think would be a virus that reformates the harddrive and installs a simple (no-)boot screen saying that the user has installed a virus, lost all his files and should ask someone with *real* technical knowledge what to do now....
For my part, the mailserver throws away all mails with an attachment that could be a windows-executeable. No fear of loosing legitimate mail; i DON'T want executeables sent to me, i only accept links anyway (because of mailbox size).
All HTML-Mails are classified as spam as well with the hardcoded exception of two or three mail addresses. Seems to work quite fine and i've gotten only 1 false positive in about 5 month (which wasn't that QUITE a false positive after all because that friend of mine sent me an info about a new shop i wasn't interested in)
Just tell me one thing: What is the general principal difference between rolling the tanks or cutting of your essential supplies when you're showing your "sign of authority"?
And of course, the US doesn't roll their tanks down the street, because they use jet fighters and bombers when they disagree with some country's politics. That makes a complete difference, right?
I live in Austria near the border of Slovenia (former Yugoslavia) and i can tell you one thing: Western companies "helped" Slovenia by making the situation worse than before the fall. An example: Many exporters to Slovenia would only take German Marks (now Euros) or US-Dollars for their goods; helping Slovenias currency to fall into the dump. Nice - NOT :-(
That's what i meant in my other post. Ok, the Soviets did steal technology (if secretly paying money to weapon facturies in the West can be called "stealing"), but they were often the ones to make the stuff work. AFAIK the US recruted scientists from the "Buran"-project (the russian shuttle) to upgrade their own technology. Well, even IF Buran is based in plans for the Nasa shuttle, it is certainly much better. Only, the USSR realised that a shuttle isn't as cost-effective as your typical (and very reliable) throw-away progress launcher :-)