Soyuz TMA-20 landing in Kazakhstan.
Those crazy Soviets. They design a rocket, based on an ICBM back in the ’60s and then keep using it. They design a spacecraft to ride atop that rocket to put a man on the moon, but they don’t do that and instead still use it. They call the whole thing Soyuz and rather than land on the water like the capitalist pigs, they drop it on the steppes of Kazakhstan with lots of parachutes.
They do this for almost 50 years, developing the most reliable manned rocket system, and one of the most used rocket systems of all time. They do this enough that the ISS uses a Soyuz capsule as the escape capsule. They do this enough that they outlast the Americans manned space program, and sell seats in the 3-person capsule to the Americans, Europeans and Asians.
[Image Credit: NASA]
So Soyuz is the AK-47 of space exploration. Cheap, crude, easy to make, not that accurate, but very reliable, and still in service.
Pretty much. What amazes me is that the weather conditions have to be just right for NASA to launch the space shuttle. The Soyuz is launched in pretty much any weather condition short of tornadoes, it seems. If you ever get the chance to watch the IMAX Space Station movie you'll see what I mean. The crew, dignitaries, their families, etc. all go right up to the rocket and it's gray, cloudy and rainy when they launch. No big deal. Just another launch.
Damn you beat me to it. I was heading in here to say the same thing.
Bloody Russian show offs! Always trying to spoil the beauty of us spending 100 times more per launch than them for about a 10th as many launches as them. USA! USA!
My favorite example of the differences between their space program and ours was the "space pen" that was developed at a supposed high cost while they used a pencil.Fact or myth?
Broken lead,of course,it could cause any number of problems in orbit.
not the ants!
Kind of a tortoise and the hare parallel eh? The US went faster and got to the moon first, but now has no maned spacecraft capabilities. The Soviets/Russians *lost* the space race but are still able to put people into orbit. Whodathunkit! If only someone could present a challenge to the US space agency…
[youtube ouRbkBAOGEw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouRbkBAOGEw youtube]
Well, don't blame him; blame that jackass Nixon! He's the one that
started this "what have you done for me lately?" mentality. Hell, we
coulda had a station in orbit by '90 if we'd just gone with the plan to
haul the tank into orbit instead of dropping it. Left-over fuel for station-
keeping and tugs, lotsa space. And it was already paid for…..
'Course, there was nothing wrong with the Sat 5 as a heavy lift vehicle.
Already developed, would have gotten cheaper if we'd bought in bulk, easy
to mod & retrofit. I digress & ramble. Once again, lack of leadership & will
brings us to this sorry state.
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I think Nibbles got the first iteration of this:
Well, don't blame him; blame that jackass Nixon! He's the one that
started this "what have you done for me lately?" mentality. Hell, we
coulda had a station in orbit by '90 if we'd just gone with the plan to
haul the tank into orbit instead of dropping it. Left-over fuel for station-
keeping and tugs, lotsa space. And it was already paid for…..
'Course, there was nothing wrong with the Sat 5 as a heavy lift vehicle.
Already developed, would have gotten cheaper if we'd bought in bulk, easy
to mod & retrofit. I digress & ramble. Once again, lack of leadership & will
brings us to this sorry state.
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