Soyuz Lifts Off Again, Delivers Globalstar Satellites 40
First time accepted submitter ZoCool writes "No doubt to the deep relief of the Russian and Arianespace engineers, and the investors buying their services, Anatoly Zac's RussianSpaceWeb reports that on Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2011, at 21:09 Moscow Time (17:09 GMT) a Soyuz-2-1a launch vehicle carrying the third tranche of the 2nd Generation Globalstar network, in the form of 6 satellites, was delivered successfully to orbit. This launch from Baikonur's Site 31, pad 6, has broken the recent unusual string of malfunctions that has bugged this usually rock solid workhorse. I imagine that the troops in the space station might be breathing a little more easily too, as the Soyuz is the backbone of the world's space missions these days, when it comes to medium lift."
Space X (Score:2, Interesting)
Less than 40days to the final COTS demo flight for Dragon. Let's hope the February 7, 2012 launch and docking to ISS goes smoothly!
Re:Space X (Score:4, Interesting)
But considering that launch is fairly routine, it makes sense for NASA to leave it to private space.
Instead, if we can have multiple companies such as SpaceX, StratoLaunch, ULA with Dream Chaser/CST-100, and Blue Origin, along with Bigelow and/or IDC Dover for doing space stations, it leaves NASA free to focus on going to Mars and other locations.
And no doubt private space will be all over the moon assuming that CONgress does block them from moving forward.
Re:Space X (Score:0, Interesting)
the fact is all the acheivements of NASA are now in the loop for privatisation. This trend, not only in space, but on the ground is counterproductive to the interests of the taxpayer, where, if viewed correctly, spectral analysis can prove that the US Post Office CANNOT function properly if its goal is the interests of profit. Likewise with National achievements and space assets, tech, etc, it simply does not make sense. Mind you the Federal Reserve and their minions at the Treasury Department are not acting in the interests of the taxpayer or the Nation either.
At the end of the day, the Space-X-Men are banking on SouthAfrikan(Oppenheimer) Israeli launch vehicles (JerichoII+III), in combination with what they can plunder from loose-lipped/databased NASA peripherals. It booggles the mind to think that even Brin and Page got in with those thieves when the 30million google X prize was won by some isreallys.
Those "piggies" need to have a gastric bandwidth lock, failing that a short march down to the abattoir.
Maybe AIPAC should be disbanded or START hyping pork futures.
UNfortunatly for those special interest munching piggies, the advent of the internet will throw the proverbial wrench in the works for all those faux-security tech operations which consume most of the misdirected budget, as the people will not stand for the bullshit anymore. Any net user can find NANO-THERMITE and false-flag documentaries online, thus the excuse for defense spending is dwindling. Coupling that with the UN treaty against militarisation of space, and having LibreCAD available for anyone online, real homegrown tech within Nation States is going to take off.
Launch vehicle tech is not that expensive, and if you wanna check misappropriations, ask how the Isreallys have build and stockpiled nuclear missiles since 1959, most of it paid for with amerkan taxpayer money. They are creating costs and justifications for stripping National assets. Look at what Goldman Sachs did to Libyas formerly NATIONAL Central Bank. And now Persias National oil industry, was the price of gas at the pump in Tehran or Tripoly a threat to homeland security? And how many more TRILLIONS are those pesky isreallys going to fleece off the NW European and Amerikan taxpayers. Maybe they need NASA to be cut up and shipped off to further occupy the middle east, and what the heck, they might as well ship fort knox as well, cause they might need a few trillion more to stop all those Libs and Iranians from making cheap molotovs. Perhaps a half a million amerikan lives and a cool trill for a war with Iran to get them to recall Persian HIV infected terrorist chimpanzees from orbit?
If AIPAC and the pigfeeders cannot afford to give the refugees of Palestine a chance at development and a standard of living, perhaps the Amerikans should stop paying taxes, or start filling the FEMA camps with Bernanke, Madoff, Kissinger, sub-prime traders, fed officials and other Sheisters of their ilk.