Europe Heads for the Moon in July 755
Orlando writes "The BBC are reporting that Arianespace are all set for sending Smart1 to the Moon in July. The mission's primary objectives are testing planetary exploration technologies. This is particularly good news after the recent Arianne rocket explosion." China's also planning a moon mission. The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch.
BTDT (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, America's already Been There, Done That.
Here's what we discovered. [rathergood.com]
Re:BTDT (Score:2)
Re:BTDT (Score:2)
Really? Wow, I must have missed it when America did this:
"Smart 1's primary objective is to test new technologies that can advance future planetary exploration. The craft is using an innovative form of propulsion - an ion thruster - that will take it on a 15-month spiral to the Moon. "
I totally forgot about all those cool ion drive Apollo missions.
------
Re:BTDT (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:BTDT (Score:5, Interesting)
It's hard to pin the "down on space" tail on Bush. Especially when he's talking about building [space.com] nuclear powered interplanetary exploration craft that will use ion impulse engines and magnetic shielding for ultra-high energy transfer flights to Mars taking weeks rather than months.
I did some testing, and found that if we are successful in building a ship that can sustain 1 g of acceleration over six days (Prometheus calls for constant thrust to keep astronauts under 1 g of gravity to maintain bone and muscle mass, so it could go a hell of a lot faster), I can send a manned mission to Neptune that will take 40 days to get there. This trip would take 14 years on a Hohmann transfer.
Re:BTDT (Score:5, Funny)
Then what are you still doing here?
Re:BTDT (Score:3, Funny)
Astronaut : "Ok, Mission Control, all mission objectives have been completed, we are ready for the Neptunian / Earth transfer orbital calculations. (Peep!)"
Mission Control : "Er, hang on a tic, I haven't done the numbers yet. Er, lessee here... 2 tons of nuclear fuel remaining... 1g acceleration....er... (Peep!)"
Mission Control : "hmm,no,that's not it...(Peep!)"
Mission Control : "maybe if we...(Peep!)"
Mission Control : "Ahah - hey, did I ever tell you guys about the time I decided to drive down to Texas and ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere? (Peep!)"
Re:BTDT (Score:4, Informative)
The research was being done before over in Califonia. It got increased and moved to Texas. The problem is that the next admin will most likely shoot it down as "pie in the sky". Sadly, it is a very good use of nukes.
The real problem, though, is that Bush killed the X-33 nearly as soon as he got into office. It was already doing the testing on engines, which proved successful. The shuttle must be replaced and as Columbia has shown, sooner rather than later. The X-33 was supposedly parted out, which never made sense. Personally, I suspect that it was moved to DOD. Better there then being dismantled.
The last US president with a vision was probably Kennedy. This is sad.
Re:BTDT (Score:4, Interesting)
the biggest bitch was of course the massive costs, but if you look at the other truley great space/aerospace inovations they all cost a fricking boatload.. B2 and F117 stealths, going to the moon(it is estimated that it would cost in the trillions to replicate that effort today)..it was truly sad when the x-33 went away..
Re:BTDT (Score:5, Interesting)
Rough numbers: An ion engine with an exhaust velocity of 30km/sec [cornell.edu] would have to use up 327g of propellant per second to push a 1000kg vehicle at 1g. At 100% efficiency, this engine would require about 147MW of input power.
To push this vehicle for 1 hour at 1g, it would need an initial propellant load of 2245kg, and an initial power input of 477MW. For 2 hours, it would need 9531kg of propellant and 1.54GW initial input power. The initial propellant load goes up exponentially with the amount of time you want to accelerate at 1g.
Disclaimer: These numbers might be wrong; I'm a bit rusty on my differential equations. And, of course, all these calculations go out the window if someone (other than sci-fi writers) comes up with propellantless propulsion. But I'm not holding my breath for that one.
Re:BTDT (Score:5, Informative)
Ion Thruster Used to Propel the Deep Space 1 Spacecraft to Comet Encounters [nasa.gov]
Re:BTDT (Score:2)
Re:BTDT (Score:5, Funny)
Not only is the moon landing a hoax, but I've just been informed the moon itself is a hoax. [reptiles.org]
Best quote from the site: But don't all qualified scientists and astronomers agree that there is a moon? Indeed, but shouldn't one be suspicious of such unanimity, when universities are supposed to be forums for open debate of controversial issues. Sweet.
push me down the stairs. (Score:3, Funny)
They will really be bummed because: (Score:2)
2. They will read slashdot and find out that European life is in doubt anyway!
Good, that settles it then... (Score:4, Funny)
I hope they figure out who owns what before it touches down, too, or we'll end up with frivolous lawsuits [everything2.com] aplenty over lunar property rights.
Profit? (Score:3, Funny)
King of the Hill! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:King of the Hill! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:King of the Hill! (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, no this is not the case. Unlike the USA, the number of stars on the EU flag does not represent the number of members. According to the official EU site [eu.int] "The number of stars is fixed, twelve being the symbol of perfection and unity."
Say what you like about 12 being the symbol of perfection and unity, but there is (and will only be) 12 stars.
no mention (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, with US short a shuttle, I'd think there should be more of europe stepping up to support the ISS; you know, the *international* space station? of which they are also a part of?
Granted, it'd be the day when you see muslim (like, say, from Saudi) or chinese (as in, from Beijing) flying to the ISS on a regular basis, so maybe it's not that international...
Re:no mention (Score:3, Insightful)
Good grief.
Re:no mention (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to know what parts of the ISS the US has assigned to other nations, you can find it on Google (e.g., this [spacekids.com] and this [nasa.gov]). Ariane rocket launches also are used for a lot of components, although US media don't seem to have much interest in reporting this (e.g., here [astronews.com]).
The main reason for NASA to favor international involvement in something like the ISS is because it makes it harder for Congress to cancel the project; otherwise, it looks like they'd just as soon go it alone.
Re:no mention (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure you would see that - the US would even put them up there. All NASA needs is a qualified Muslim or Chinese to step up to the plate. From what I understand, it takes many years for the training, so don't expect it to happen tomorrow, unless these people are already waiting in the wings.
In a gratuitous effort to keep their oil pusher friendly, the US sent Prince Sultan Abdul Aziz Al-Saud into orbit aboard STS 51-G, Discovery, on 17 June 1985. The official excuse was that Saudi Arabia was having a satellite launched by this mission, and the prince went up as a 'payload specialist'.
spacer.com (Score:5, Informative)
i. China to shoot for the moon after sending man into orbit - http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030302075956.spawz
ii. China may launch unmanned moon mission in 2005 - http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030303030843.54odg
iii. Shenzhou's Changing Face - http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-03j.html [spacedaily.com]
Suhit
What? (Score:2, Insightful)
When do we go to L4 and L5 (Score:5, Interesting)
(For those that don't know, L4 and L5 are the stable Lagrange points, where the gravity of the Earth and Moon are equal. Can be said for any other set of orbiting bodies too, but I am talking about the moon)
Whoever controls L4 and L5 would have the capability to control all travel to Mars,Venus, etc. Not like we will have a manned visit to Venus any time soon
ha ha (Score:2)
I think it is good that the US government is finally seeing it the way the average joe sees it. them them do it this time...
xao
Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
The US did the moon before many Slashdotters were born. Would there be some point for it to go back there again now, given the substantial costs involved? (I know some people ate to invoke those real world considerations). Of course it could go back on an unmanned basis for much less--but again, to what meaningful end?
The US needs a space program; it doesn't need to rehash what it did almost 35 years ago. Time to move upward and onward.
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
So, er, a manned mission to mars perhaps?
Re:Good news (Score:2)
Probably not sit around... (Score:4, Funny)
Just what the US needs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just what the US needs. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does space travel have to be as safe as going down to the CVS to pick up teeth whitener? I mean, it's dangerous stuff. We should respect the hell out of the men and women who keep going up and back (and bless the ones who didn't make it back).
Engineers... Yeh, they're better than politicians, but I don't think they are as in touch with the visceral spirit of exploration that drove the early space program. I'm not knocking engineers... Good lord, if you had test pilots in charge of everything, we'd just duct tape an F-15 until it was airtight, attach a few rockets under the wings, and see if the thing would fly in space. ("RCS? What the hay-ull do we need that fer?")
Engineers, test pilots... we could put NASA under the command of a bunch of trained chinchillas for all I care. Just bring back the spirit. Bring it back to us out in the mundane world. Get us fired up.
And for God's sake, give us more to feed on than the tragedies. Even if NASA needs to scare up some fluff (read: marketing) missions, give us SOMETHING to get excited about...
And I'm not talkin' space rovers and asteroid piggy-backers, though for space-interested folks like me, that stuff is AMAZING. No, I'm talking cheap one-person missions out to farther and farther orbital points. "Test pilot Bucky Bergstrom today orbited the earth farther than any human ever has!" So, there's no scientific value, but it gets positive coverage.
*sigh*
This wasn't supposed to be a rant.
american moon missions (Score:4, Informative)
A bulleted history of US missions to the Moon:
1998 - Lunar Prospector
1994 - Clementine
1972 - Apollo 16,17
1971 - Apollo 14,15
1970 - Apollo 13
1969 - Apollo 10,11,12
1968 - Apollo 8, Surveyor 7
1967 - Lunar Orbiter 3,4,5, Surveyor 3,4,5,6
1966 - Lunar Orbiter 1,2, Surveyor 1,2
1965 - Ranger 8, 9
1964 - Ranger 7
Re:american moon missions (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that anyone should continue to believe any of that trash considering the huge amount of evidence that we did land on the moon.
I see nothing wrong with human progress, even if it's not my own country. I suppose we should have flying cars right now because those darned Chinese are starting to get more and more of them.
If anything, competition encourages increased effort into projects.
Re:american moon missions (Score:5, Funny)
What do you mean by "another country"? You're making that up. There are no other countries, and any "moon" missions that they accomplish are as made up as they are.
"those darned Chinese"? There you go again...
Re:american moon missions (Score:2)
Re:american moon missions (Score:2)
Re:american moon missions (Score:2)
Re:american moon missions (Score:2)
What's your point? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny to see how cold war thinking still infects US minds. The "space race" was only a "race" because the US desparately wanted to prove that US society was superior; in part, this was because right after WWII, the Soviet model actually seemed to be working pretty well in terms of economics and science, and it looked for a while as if the Soviets were going to take over pretty much the rest of the world. In contrast, after WWII, Europeans didn't really care about anybody proving superiority to anyone anymore, they just wanted to live in peace and prosperity. Big guns, big rockets, or big words stopped impressing Europeans. This is perhaps also why Bush finds it so hard to get much support for his current adventures.
The moon isn't going anywhere. Missions to it (as all space exploration) should be driven by available technology, resources, and scientific goals, not by some horse race mentality.
Re:What's your point? (Score:5, Interesting)
behind the u.s shield.
What does that have to do with anything? Does one need to prove one's societal superiority with flashy megaprojects in order to defend oneself?
sometimes i think a lot of slashdot'ers would have liked to live under Soviet rule.
Any US/Soviet conflict in Europe would have meant the death and destruction of large parts of Europe. If it had come to a conflict, faced with certain death, many Europeans might well have preferred to live under Soviet rule and work for peaceful change from within (which is how the East Block finally did fall apart). But the US pretty much had made a commitment to "live free or die" on behalf of the Europeans.
Ask yourself this: given the choice between death or moving to Hungary or Poland in the 1970's, which would you personally have picked?
Re:american moon missions (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, honestly, this is starting to get on my nerves.
Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think that Russia had:
- The first rocket in space
- The first animal in space
- The first man in space
- The first woman in space
- The first probe on the moon
And probably some other stuff I can't rememberand
Then a US president decided that having a man on the moon was important... So the US won an arbitary race they contrived.
I have often heard that Americans won the Space Race. It was not the "Space Race", the Russians won that. It was not the "Moon Race", the Russians won that too. It was the "Man on the Moon Race". So well done, have a gold star.
It reminds me of the claim that Americans built the first computer... It depends on what properties are necessary for a device to be classed as a computer: That it's electronic? That it has Randomly Acessable Memory? That it operates on a stored program? (This last one seems most plausible to me.) I am tempted to suggest that one of the requirements implicit in some people's lists is that it was built in America.
Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
2. To potentially use it as a platform to goto Mars or Europa.
3. There is NO number 3! 4. To set up a base before everyone else does.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Oh, goody, let's hear about those "science" experiments. Is that something like zero-g ant farms?
To potentially use it as a platform to goto Mars or Europa.
This has the same problem as the space station. The cost of setting up the facilities necessary for this to be useful is inifinitely higher than the cost of acheiving escape velocity from Earth. Besides, who says there's enough raw material on the Moon for building rockets? Where are you going to find the fuel? Besides, if they're testing the new tech on this flight, they're already working around the gravity problem.
Anyway, if we stick to unmanned travel, like we should, there's even less need for a non-Earth launching platform.
To set up a base before everyone else does.
Which is basically just another waste of time and money for the sake of national pride. Woohoo. We could have set up a base years ago.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm biting, though I know it's stupid.
Why not Read The Fucking Article. It's all in there, you know. They're testing their Ion Thrusters, and then will be sending back an X-ray map of the moon (which should indicate the absolute adundances of key elements). There will also be an infrared spectrometer and a high resolution camera on board.
There is no mention anywhere of setting up any bases, although it IS said that this is a trial run for equipment which will be heading for Mercury at the end of the decade.
Misinformed Editor Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to what??? They haven't even put together the Columbia pieces in a hangar and you're griping that the U.S. will miss out on the moon race, besides being the only nation to land men on the moon, multiple times...a generation ago.
For all the bickering and NASA criticism (some of it well deserved), the U.S. is still the biggest player in space, and still is on the cutting edge of the technologies needed to explore space. Many of the developments lauded here for other nations are old hat to NASA. Gee, what next, Japan planning a reusable orbiting shuttle?
Re:Misinformed Editor Troll (Score:2)
Moon is soo 40 years ago (Score:2)
sounds like flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure how to act when the original article sounds like flamebait. Yes, the US isn't going to the moon. We go to Mars, Venus, Jupiter, comets, out of the solar system and occasionally crash one into a planet, including our own. Oh yea, we DID do the moon thing in the late 60s, early 70s. A few times. Oh yea, no one else has ever landed a person on the moon. EVER. We even brought back a half exploded capsule (Apollo 13) against all odds.
So if China COULD do it in 10 years, (unlikely) thats only 44 years after we did it. Congrats to them, I wish them well, but I won't be popping any champagne corks over it.
I guess we all need some T-shirts that say "My country sent a bunch of men to the moon, and all I got were these stupid rocks"
The truth hurts (Score:5, Insightful)
My country sent a bunch of men to the moon... and then stopped and did nothing.
Personally, I'd rather not have my country sit on its ass while the rest of humanity passes us by, moving on to outer-space, but, hey -- I'm not liking much of what my country is doing lately. Oh, and China will go to the moon in a decade or so. What we do during the same time is another matter.
no, the truth is beautiful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Factmonster Slace Accidents [factmonster.com]
To sum up:
United States: 17 deaths
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: 54 deaths
So, over 36 years, the US has had 17 people in space-related accidents. Only seven of these deaths have been attributable to bureaucratic ignoring of technical people (pending, of course, the results of the destruction of the Columbia). As tragic as each incident has been, we have not had anyone die while in space. We had a pre-liftoff problem. Once. We had a during-liftoff problem. Once. We had a re-entry problem. Once. Suffice it to say, We had somewhere around 100 shuttle missions, and two have been unsuccessful.
NASA does take things slow when it comes to new missions that require new technology. Because of this, we have had missions like Voyager 1 and 2, Pioneer 10, Galileo, Cassini, NEAR Shoemaker, and a whole host of other expensive, yet highly successful missions. When NASA half-asses a project, a'la Mars Observer, Mars Surveyor '98, and Mars Polar Lander, we don't have success. So, we do missions when we can. If we can't do them right, we shouldn't do them at all.
A friend of mine was at JPL, waiting for data from Pathfinder. Needless to say, what he had expected to occupy him for a couple of years at least was gone in a matter of minutes, and it was heartbreaking for him.
But back to my original point, though, if we lost seventeen, and the USSR lost at least 54, what are nations like China going to do? I don't feel bad about doubting their program, for the ambition might be great, but what will the outcome be? I hope that they actually are successful, but if they aren't, what price are they going to pay in terms of missions failed and people lost?
I hope that when the US next decides to take on something, it'll be big. It'll be ambitious. It'll be risky. It'll also probably be successful.
Re:no, the truth is beautiful. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure if you compared the actual number of man hours spent in space then the Soviet/Russian total would dwarf the US one by a massive margin, perhaps even by a 10:1 ratio. Yes, the Soviets/Russians have had more fatalities during their space programme but they've had far more missions, far more successes and have gained far more experience along the way too.
In fact, one of the primary reasons for involving them in the ISS was to "buy" their experience in building/maintaining space stations. Laugh (and troll) all you want about Mir, but the fact is the damn thing was far more successful than was ever imagined, achieved more scientifically than NASA's entire shuttle programme, far outlived its designed shelf-life and was only crippled by the penny-pinching of accountants looking to save money.
I've heard NASA engineers/scientists say that Mir was 20 years ahead of anything that they had, and that's why they had to bring the guys that designed it on board.
Try to bare some of this in mind next time you beat your chest about how superior the US space programme is or troll about how bad the Soviet/Russian track record is.
Re:no, the truth is beautiful. (Score:4, Informative)
Far more so than that, I imagine. The Russians have clocked up an enormous amount of space experience.
Furthermore, the Russian space casualty list is overwhelmingly due to a single catastrophe [russianspaceweb.com], when a rocket exploded on the pad and took out a huge number of ground crew. In flight, they've lost a total of four to my knowledge. Americans have lost fourteen in flight, but only three on the ground AFAIK.
Re:no, the truth is beautiful. (Score:4, Insightful)
The world is a different place now vs 40ish years ago. China, though backwards on the whole, compared to the West technologically, are not THAT backwards. They have had the benefit of Western technology to grow from, and the benefit of Russian, European, and US space experience to guide from. They wont be patching it all together from scratch.
What the Soviets did with their crude technology was impressive. Period. Kudos, despite the higher death/failure rate overall. I seriously doubt that China will duplicate the problems the USSR had, though they MAY match the US in its low death rate. I wouldn't be so sanguine about their ability to get a person to the moon (I wouldn't be suprised in the least if they ENSURED that one of the first Chinese to do so was a woman). They will be going to the moon with the benefit of many years of lunar research, both our old manned plodding around, and the robotic exploration. They will be sitting pretty nicely to be able to specifically seek out water/ice, for instance, and will likely go with an eye for mineral available for future mining ops. Pretty much the way WE would be if we (the USA) were going back.
The previous comment about space launching being a subterfuge for developing ICBM tech is ridiculous. Yes, in the PAST era it worked both ways but guess what? The Chinese ALREADY HAVE ICBMs. They suck, but they have them and they do NOT need manned space missions and the like to improve them. They could do that easily and cheaply sans a manned space program.
Let's recap...China has the benefit of a lot of modern technology. They have the benefit of European, Russian, and US space progam experience, they have the will...they will do it and it will no doubt happen without fatality within 10 years. I only hope that it does spur on OUR (USA/Europe) interest in more of the same. Sorry, I just cannot get worked up about astronauts being spoinked up a mere 200 miles to orbit in a pathetic and wasteful ISS simply to do what they can to keep the whole thing running in maintenance mode while occassionally doing some high-school kids' project with ants or flowers. Pathetic, wasteful money pit diverting good money the WRONG WAY.
We need more robotic missions and the manned program should be redesigned to be a logical, step-by-step means of getting us somewhere interesting and useful. The moon counts and Mars REALLY counts. By the way, I'll bet the moment the Chinese land on the moon successfully and make some noise about their intention to place a colony there and actually extract material from the moon, it will spur (hopefully) the West and Russia into following suite. Perhaps the Chinese are required to get us moving in some direction rather than spinning our wheels doing junk science on the ISS.
Yes! We'll finally know the truth! (Score:2)
Dibs on being the first person to set foot onboard!
US's rocketry and aerospace plans... (Score:4, Funny)
The US is planning to fire off lots of rockets, but has denied they have anything to do with actually benefitting humanity as a whole, or even making a positive impact except to serve self interests.The US was also spotted picking pockets at the UN Security Council meetings. The US has declined to comment at this time.
To be expected (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to 40 years ago.
Isn't amnesia fun?
Ben
Plans for the USA (Score:5, Funny)
Nope, the US is planning sabotage. We can't have all those euro-socialist scumbags find out that we didn't really go there in the 60's. Of course not!
I hear they're planning to send Buzz Aldrin by himself to Europe to personally pummel the ESA's people.
And I hope they get it on tape again!
In New Zealand... (Score:4, Funny)
Our alternative plan is to secretly sew our flag inside another countries flag (with the outer flag being UV sensitive).
Wonder what they are doing in Soviet Russia?
We saw this coming.... (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, they never told me continental drift was that bad.
But I already did it once... (Score:3, Insightful)
why is everyone like, "well, we already did it."
sure we already did it. And I already backed the server up last week, so why do it again?
we sure didn't learn everything we could from a mere 7 landings!
Security Council (Score:3, Funny)
The history books (Score:5, Insightful)
This is basically what the history books say about the Vikings and North America--technically first, but who cares. Columbus and the English (and French, Spanish Germans, Dutch in descending order) get the recognition.
That, of course, begs the question as to what indeginous Moon people Eurasia will replace when they do colonize the Moon, but let's not go there, shall we?
The French? (Score:3, Funny)
Wow. This might be the first new land they've set foot on without surrendering!
Says a lot about americans really... (Score:3, Insightful)
The first thing that happens when some other country tries to go to the moon is that there's nooo reason to do it, it's been done... the us has already won...
and we all know that science is about winning right?
not about the pursuit of knowledge.
America won science 40 years ago...
and of course ESA is planning to test equipment on the moon for nationalistic reasons...
becuase Europe is a nation?
If this story tells us anything, it'd have to be that technology is at a point where it's economically feasible to go to the moon for scientific reasons...
of course we can do incredible things if there are political reasons to do it... but what can we do for purely scientific reasons?
In my mind a far more interesting question.
Would have thought the slashdot crowd had the same interest in science.. but I guess I was wrong.
Of course (Score:3, Funny)
I must admit the first thing that came to mind... (Score:3, Funny)
The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch. (Score:5, Funny)
We Should Be Going, But I'm Glad Someone Is (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm old enough to remember the Apollo missions; how vividly I recall that day in July 1969, when the words "Tranquility Base here: the 'Eagle' has landed." came crackling over my transistor radio. Years later, when I took my own children to see "Apollo 13", I tried to explain to them what it was like back then, when we used to fly to the Moon. They asked me why we were going any more, and I didn't have a good answer. Still don't.
So, three cheers for the Chinese and the Euros, and God speed to them.
Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo (Score:5, Informative)
And they could only mine to see whats down there to start with, to see how the moon is made up and to determine if it was part of the earth once.
Re:Is there anything worthwhile to mine on the moo (Score:5, Funny)
Which is important because after a long day of working in the mines, nothing is better than a nice cold beverage, preferably scotch on the rocks. We need that ice!!!
Re:It needs to be said......... (Score:5, Insightful)
So Europe wants to go to the moon? Good for them. They can have second place, and if it motivates us a bit, we'll see Mars, astroid mining, and the Space Hilton long before I'm visiting the Lunar Beni Hana.
I hope they go there; it'll light a fire under our ass to get back into the swing of things.
Well, with that attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dan Quayle is cheering (Score:2)
But it eventually bites them in the ass (Score:2)
Re:Difference btwn communists and America (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh.
No they didn't. First the Soviets managed to kill just four cosmonauts during their manned missions. After each failure their was a long stand down whilst the ships and procedures were checked thoroughly.
The first disaster was Soyuz 1 in April 1967. Soyuz had been under development for several years, but the programme had been thrown into confusion by the death of the Chief Designer Sergei Korolev. He was replaced by Vasily Michin - a fine engineer, but not up to the job of controlling the Soviet space programme, which was in itself in crisis. There were too many competing programmes vying for attention and too little money. It was during this time that the Soviet Moon programme completely lost its way - for which Michin would eventually take the blame.
Soyuz was a highly advanced craft and needed a lot of testing. That testing was nowhere near complete. However, the manned Soyuz 1 was launched under political pressure to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The engineers complied despite the failure of three unmanned versions of the craft.
Had Yuri Gagarin lived, it was almost certain he would have flown the mission. Instead, Soyuz 1 was piloted by Vladimir Komarov it had a succession of failures whilst in orbit, including the failure of one solar panel to deploy correctly. The craft re-entered the atmosphere as planned, but with a slight rotation. The parachute lines became entangled and the craft crashed to Earth at a high speed killing Komarov.
It had been planned that Soyuz 2 would be launched one day after Soyuz 1 and they would rendezvous in orbit. The launch was cancelled. The Soyuz 2 spacecraft was dismantled and found to have identical problems to the ship that flew. Had it been launched, it would have killed its crew.
(By horrible coincidence the flight of Soyuz 1 occured just six months after the Apollo 1 fire that killed three American astronauts.)
Soyuz was grounded whilst the entire manufacturing and quality control process was reorganised. Only when that was complete did the Soviets launch five unmanned Soyuz craft as part of their Kosmos series. When these were considered successful they then launched a second Soyuz 2 completely unmanned.
Soyuz 3 was the first successful manned mission in a Soyuz which flew in October 1968 - 16 months after the disaster.
The second cosmonaut disaster was Soyuz 11, which suffered decompression during re-entry after a mission to the Salyut 1 space station. The disaster killed three men in June 1971. The craft landed automatically and the technicians were able to see that a valve had been opened during undocking.
The Soyuz 12 mission which would have used the same design of Soyuz module was cancelled. No further flights were made with this model of ship.
It was already due to be replaced by a new Soyuz design which flew eight unmanned missions before Soyuz 12 became the next Soviet manned flight in September 1973; more than two years after the loss of Soyuz 11.
Best wishes,
Mike.
More misinformed crybaby critique (Score:2)
??? Even in its crippled form NASA is doing more in space than anyone. I'm sorry the stock market is down and you lost your job at Global Crossing, but no one likes a crybaby.
We have "important" things to do, and we're too afraid of someone getting hurt. It's really pathetic.
Safety engineering is not for wimps. Its called preserving your resources...unless you think frying men, blowing up rockets, and losing development time are key aspects of a succesful space program.
Re:They should remove our flags (Score:5, Informative)
A few of the programs for the next two years:
Genesis
Launched: August 8, 2001
Jason 1
Launched: December 7, 2001
Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
Launched: Mar. 17, 2002
Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
Launched: May 4, 2002
SeaWinds on Adeos 2
Launched: December 13, 2002
Galaxy Evolution Explorer
Planned Launch: early 2003
Space Infrared Telescope Facility
Planned Launch: Spring 2003
Mars Exploration Rovers
Planned Launches: May-July 2003
Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer
Planned Launch: January 2004
Microwave Limb Sounder
Planned Launch: January 2004
CloudSat
Planned Launch: April 2004
Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer
Planned Launch: 2004
Deep Impact
Planned Launch: 2004
Re:Skewed Priorities (Score:2, Funny)
So when is the next US federal election anyway?
Re:Skewed Priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
> Israel has violated UN declarations as well, you never see
> us huff and puff about them. Probably because there is
> no significant amount of oil, if any, in Isreal.
Israel has great religious significance to the religious right, a strong faction of the republican party, and the part of it currently in the White House. Not only do we not huff and puff, we send them aid and sell them many weapons. But then we helped Iraq obtain the very biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons we now accuse them of still having.
> North Korea readily admits to developing a nuclear
> program and defying the US, and we don't care too much
> about them either (no oil).
North Korea was a major blunder on Bush's part. North and South Korea are in the process of reuniting into one Korea, which Bush didn't approve of. Bush made a bunch of warlike rhetoric, talking about taking on Iraq, "axis of evil", blah, blah, blah. N. Korea got scared, and started making nuclear noises. It isn't clear that they actually have any working nukes, but fear that they exist has thus far deterred the US from attacking. The US had their fuel oil supplies cut off, leaving them only nuclear plants to heat their homes, which they started up. Unfortunately, we did not keep our 1994 promise to build nice peaceful light water reactors, so the only ones they have to heat their homes with also make the material for nuclear weapons. And up and up it escalates. Bush has been told repeatedly by N. Korea's neighbors to sit down and talk to them, but I guess that would ruin his plans for Korean War II.
> China launches takes and uses its army to kill its own
> people, including children, it is broadcast live to our
> livingrooms, and they just get scoled by Bush Sr. "Bad
> china! Don't do that again!" (No oil).
China produces oil, about the same amount as the US itself. China is too big to swallow whole, making diplomacy the route that the US has chosen to deal with this situation. Of course, diplomacy could solve most of the stuff Bush wants to go to war over, even Iraq. In diplomacy, you have give and take. In war, you have conquer and rule. The latter is more fun, but only if you are the president of the conquering nation.
> Now when we are in a very depressing economic
> situation isn't it convenient that the Bush Administration
> is pulling Iraq out of their hat again. Nothing like
> bringing up Iraq changes the subject so well eh?
You think this is depressing, just wait. The new budget has a $300 billion deficit (mostly Homeland Security, as a lot of other stuff got cut), not counting Iraq costs. The war could be $50 to $200 billion (depending on who you talk to) without reconstruction costs. State and local governments are in deep financial trouble, with no help coming from the federal government.
What does this mean to you and me? Well, not only is the US not going to the Moon anytime soon, but between insane gas prices and badly maintained roads, we are going to have a heck of a time getting to work. Assuming we have jobs...
> Well at least Bushinomics are bringing tax cuts for the
> rich.
So the rich get richer, and the rest of us have billions more government debt, no decent government services, and all of our own problems to boot. Great system for a feudal kingdom constantly running off to the Crusades (if you don't mind an occasional Robin Hood), but very bad for a 21st century USA.
> Of course the masses are too busy being destracted by
> Bush and all of his war mongering.
Public opinion worldwide, including the US, is against this war. In every member state of the coalition of the "willing", the leaders are joining in defiance of their people's wishes, and at risk to their careers. The peace movement is huge, organized, and extremely active: whether it's getting 10+ million people to protest on the same day in 60 countries and 600 locations, or organizing a call/fax/email your US senator and president day for 400,000 people (with, oops, over 1 million actually participating)! The unions in the US have come out against the war, so I would expect a lot more people to get undistracted quite quickly.
And, yes, those against the war know what it is doing to our economy. That is one of many, many reasons to oppose the war.
"All our tomorrows, Great Sun, by the Light, are very forgotten.
The Light dies. We pray and it sleeps."
"Oh Peace Oh Light Return" (national song of mourning) from "Gojira" (Godzilla) 1954
Re:Skewed Priorities (Score:3)
Israel is located around the same neighbourhood as its Arab neighbours, and yet they are Western? Assuming this is so, is it then absolutely fine for a Western civilization to invade their non-western neighbours?
How many times has Israel attempted to conquer its neighbors?
Last I checked about half of Israel is conquered land.
How many times has it used chemical warfare against foreign or domestic parties?
How the hell would you know? I mean, seriously... While Americans keep a very close watch on Communist and Arab states, they don't give a rat's ass about what Israel are doing. They kill unarmed women, children and old folks just because they happen to live in the same neighbourhood of some wanted terrorists.
Sure the UN is not at war with Israel... the US owns the UN... the US also happens to be good friends with Israel. Israel will be free to do whatever the hell it wants as long as good old Uncle Sam is up there. But as the saying goes, every dog has its day... you just won't know when the day will come.
No.. (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, a US company (not NASA) is too (Score:3, Informative)
TransOrbital's [transorbital.net] lunar mission has actually been featured here [slashdot.org] on [slashdot.org]
slashdot [slashdot.org] a few times [slashdot.org] but nobody seems to remember private space ventures when public projects come up. Sigh...
Anyway, if you'll peruse those links to past
Re:First? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:First? (Score:5, Insightful)
[The USA attitude re: Moon exploration] it's more of a "Been there, done that" stance.
At its time, the "Moon Race" was an effective political ploy. Maybe not the best cold war strategy, but an effective one.
But to regard lunar exploration as something the USA has already accomplished is dumb. While there was some good technology fallout, and some good science, they were incidental to the thrust of the USA effort. Which was simply to establish "First Post" bragging rights on the Moon. Which gives the USA all the enduring value of "FP!" claim on slashdot.
I don't disagree with your assessment-- it does seem like most of my fellow Americans do think that way. Which I think is a pity.
Re:First? (Score:5, Insightful)
We know what's up there, we know how to get there, we know how to get back.
Well, to get snide about it, we don't know what's up there (but we do know that a golf club can be used in a space suit, and that funny wheels make an effective lunar go-cart, and we collected enough rocks that I think a strong man would have a problem lifting them all at once-- but I'm not sure). We knew how to get there, but like Goldie Hawn frequently said at the time, "I used to know all that stuff." Now we don't have a clue as to how to get back. We threw all that technology away.
Yes, I mean that. The Apollo program was based on technology that used (get ready for it) sliderules. The total amount of computer power that was used in the entire Apollo program is dwarfed by the desktop machine that you turn off without giving it a second thought, when your done with your evening's slashdot entertainment. You couldn't muster up enough people in the workforce today who know how to use a sliderule to repeat what was then done, or even understand the notes that were written about it. The technology of the Apollo program was never carried across into computers. To remake the heavy lift Saturn rockets or reconstruct the Apollo heat sheilds, we would have to redo everything from scratch. We orphaned the whole thing as we moved on to better technology.
Terribly shortsighted, that was.
In response to another of your comments: I did not discredit what you call the "residual accomplishments". Re-read my post.
As to Christopher Columbus-- he made several repeat voyages to the New World. He stuck to his program, even though it failed in the long run. His program was designed to return spices and gold-- the keys of that age. Our space adventure had no pragmatic purpose, and so was shut down before it accomplished anything of lasting significance. It was truly just a "First Post" effort.
Re:First? (Score:5, Interesting)
that doesnt make any sense. i went to the kennedy space center and they have a saturn V just sitting there.
in fact, who cares? if we were to remake ENIAC right now it'd probably cost millions and require infrastructure to make vacuum tubes that we might not have nowadays, but nobody would say we can't match the feats of ENIAC, or that we're behind where we were in the 40s.
if we really had a reason to go to the moon (and hence a budget to do so), then we'd go. to say otherwise is ridiculous, "Now we don't have a clue as to how to get back." give me a break.
ENIAC already re-created? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:First? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:First? (Score:3, Interesting)
If there's no engineers in the US who are qualified to design spacecraft, how exactly do you propose it could be done?
Answer: contract it out to the Russians. As with most things, America, in its infinite short-sightedness, just gets other people to do all its technical work for it since native-born Americans have been discouraged by society from doing anything technical.
Re:First? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The U.S. is planning to sit around and watch. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. Or admit that the USA has passed its prime as a society and is now on the slow slide into cultural and moral decay. It is not what you did in the past, it is what have you done lately that counts.
Same lame arguments for decades.... (Score:4, Insightful)
People like you have been declaring the "death of America" for the past hundred or so years. Our slide into "cultural and moral decay" is the reason why Japan thought we wouldn't fight back after Pearl Harbor, the reason why the USSR thought we needed to be forced into Communism, the reason why everybody thought Japan was going to whip our butts in the 70s and 80s and why on September 11th a bunch of terrorists thought that they could blow up the Twin Towers without any retribution.
Heck, you can even go back to the founding of this nation when the wise Europeans didn't think we would last more than a couple years at best.
America has been underestimated for pretty much its entire existence.
NASA's "focus" for the past two decades has been to build a space station and a shuttle to get to it. After the moon landings this is a pretty logical next step.
Unfortunately we have ran into more technical and engineering challenges that we would have liked. But we tried. Now we have to move forward and figure out what to do next. However, you cannot start comparing us to the Chinese and Europeans until after they have landed on the moon and asked themselves "what's next?".
BTW, we have sent up a ton of different mission including the Hubble Telescope and the Mars Pathfinder. These have generally been "side projets" in comparison to the grand vision, but any one of these would be considered a "tremendous accomplishment" to China or Europe.
Brian Ellenberger
Re:Yay... (Score:5, Informative)
The US is seriously planning to deploy orbital weapons. One part of the current missile defense program is a space based laser system. First tests are due in 2012, so it is still a fair way off.
Take a look here for details:
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/boost
Although you will not find any mention of this at the MDA webstite, it is a fair bet that one function of such a system will be to defend US intelligence asets in space. Now that the US military is so heavily dependent on these asets, countries like China are starting to look at such asets as a potential weak link in US military power. Satelites are relatively easy to kill, and hard to replace at short notice.
Of course all talk of "peaceful exploration" in space has to be taken with a grain of salt. The technology that you need to launch to orbit and return to Earth is exactly the same technology that you need to build ICBM's. "Peaceful exploration" is a convenient way to test new missile systems without attracting bad press.
Re:Why So slow? (Score:5, Interesting)
But, since the moon is in orbit, thrust is an issue. But the question is, why waste a lot of money getting their fast when you're just sending a robot? It sounds like the ESA is going to get valuable ion engine experience out of this, and at the same time get to the moon cheap. And that's what going to the moon should be; cheap.
If going to the moon isn't cheap, how can we reasonably expect to go to Mars?
Re:Why So slow? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is valuable experience for the ESA. They also did some other pretty nifty stuff, like image transfer using an optical link
Story here [eurekalert.org]
Re:Why So slow? (Score:3, Informative)
In space, energy is cheap (solar panels), and mass is expensive (very expensive).
An ion thruster is essentially a partical accelerator pointing out to space. This accelerates a very small quantity of mass to very high velocities, using electrostatic methods.
It's the best (currently known) method for converting all that cheap solar energy into thrust, for a minimum of mass.