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Space Science

ISS Crew Returns in Soyuz Capsule 189

Posted by michael from the safe-as-houses dept.
physicsnerd writes "According to CNN the Soyuz capsule from the International Space Station has landed in Kazakhstan. This is the first time US Astronauts have ever landed outside of the US."
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ISS Crew Returns in Soyuz Capsule More

ISS Crew Returns in Soyuz Capsule

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  • Always Landed in US? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kmeson ( 165278 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @06:42AM (#5873736)
    Before the shuttle program, as I recall, they always landed outside the US.

  • Junk the Shuttle -- and ISS while you're at it. (Score:2, Troll)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm sure many will disagree, but the cost of the shuttle program is horrendous, and NASA's insistence on using it has led to some cataclysmically stupid decisions. One example: the ISS (which is an utter joke compared to Skylab or Mir) was placed into a rapidly-decaying orbit not because that was a good idea (it isn't) but because the shuttle could get there.

    Most of the satellites that are "launched" by the shuttle suffer from the design constraint that they have to fit into the friggin' bay AND have room

    • Warning: matrix spoiler (Score:4, Informative)

      by dustmite ( 667870 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @09:08AM (#5874121)
      Above post = troll (matrix spoiler in 2nd last paragraph)

    • the cost of the shuttle program is horrendous...

      If I remember correctly, the whole budget for NASA is something like 20B a year and about 1/2 of that is space related, where the other half is for aeronautics. A comparison budget is the "war on drugs" has a budget for 20B. Which would you rather fund?

    • Re:Junk the Shuttle -- and ISS while you're at it. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @10:43AM (#5874559)
      This troll has elements of a reasonable idea, but tries to support them with mistakes and misinterpretations:

      >> the ISS (which is an utter joke compared to Skylab or Mir) was placed into a rapidly-decaying orbit...

      "Utter joke"? It's reasonable to ask what ISS can do that Skylab or Mir couldn't, but making unbuttressed assertions isn't reasonable.

      ISS is not in a "rapidly-decaying orbit". As a satellite in low-Earth-orbit, ISS requires occasional use of onboard thrusters to maintain the correct orbit. This is common.

      >> Most of the satellites that are "launched" by the shuttle suffer from the design constraint that they have to fit into the friggin' bay AND have room for the accompanying boosters that will put them into their real orbit once the shuttle lets them out. Again, the shuttle can't go high enough for real deployment.

      Height has nothing to do with it. Orbit is achieved by virtue of velocity. While it can be argued that some satellites didn't need to be launched via the shuttle, it is silly to argue that satellites have been compromised by being ddiesinged to fit in the shuttle's cargo bay. All satellites must be designed to fit in the craft that launches them, whether a shuttle or an expendable booster.

      >> The safety record sucks.

      It is naive to expect spacce travel to have a safety record that even approaches that of commercial air travel. This is risky and experimental work, and we should accept that. A safety record that approximates that of the X-series of manned experimental aircraft would be more than acceptable.

      >> Scrap the silly "space-plane"...

      The purpose of putting wings on a spacecraft is recovery and reuse. Otherwise, they're more trouble than they are worth.

      The real problem with the U.S. space effort is that it has lacked a clearly defined mission since the Nixon administration told NASA it had to cut its funding, following the initial lunar missions, from about 3% to 1% of GDP. That played havoc with NASA'a scheduled remaining lunar missions, with its plans to return to the moon for long durations and possible permanent basing, and for logical and incremental increase of low-Earth-orbit and trans-lunar infrastrcture. Hence, the space station and the shuttle, and none of the rest happened.

      Here's what we need:

      1. A clearly defined mission -- the President needs to direct NASA and the nation to reach a specific target within a specific timeframe. E.g, permanent manned Lunar presence, manned asteroid flyby and return, a manned Mars mission. The target is less important than the fact that it exists, thereby providing reason to build and use the infrastructure needed to get there.

      2. Recognize that the purpose of getting to orbit is to buld and construct equiment to accomplish the assigned mission. (Yes, you can do scientific research there, but that is only incidentakl to the primary purpose. Trying to justify manned presence in Earth orbit as "reasearch" is tantamount to justifying the 747 as an airborne laboratory.

      3. Build boosters than get the most stuff to orbit at the least cost. Don't fixate on reuse. If that's cheaper, fine, but don't build over-complex hardware simply to ahere to the mantra of reuse. If that means building contemporay versions of the Saturn and Nova booster, so be it.

      4. Ditto for hauling people to low-Earth orbit. Once you're there, how you got there is not important. Use big, cheap capsules.
      • You missed a point. The Hubble program was designed with the idea of being upgraded periodicaly with the aid of the shuttle. This was to allow advances in technology to be incorporated every 3 or so years. In fact, the optics correction was done on a regualar maintainence mission that was planned befor the Hubble was launced. All in all the poster you were responding to needs to grow up, and realizes that there are other people in the world that know what they are doing, and some of those work for NASA. It
      • Good solid post, but I would like to make one little point (that doesn't change your argument):

        Height has nothing to do with it. Orbit is achieved by virtue of velocity. While it can be argued that some satellites didn't need to be launched via the shuttle, it is silly to argue that satellites have been compromised by being ddiesinged to fit in the shuttle's cargo bay. All satellites must be designed to fit in the craft that launches them, whether a shuttle or an expendable booster.

        For some scientific

      • The purpose of putting wings on a spacecraft is recovery and reuse. Otherwise, they're more trouble than they are worth.

        I agreed with just about everything you said except this part.

        I think we've seen better reliability with the Soyuz capsule than we have with the shuttles, and with a fairly simple recovery plan given the better safety margin.

        I'm also beginning to be of the opinion that there are only two valid camps for reuse - either most of the parts can be used more than once (preferably without som

        • Re:Junk the Shuttle -- and ISS while you're at it. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Monday May 05, 2003 @10:37AM (#5882239)
          The Orbiter has wings so it can land and fly again. Sounds great re: reuse, but getting it ready to fly again takes months of effort and millions of dollars. The external tank burns up on re-entry and is a comlete loss. The solid fuel strapons are recoverable, after bobbing around in the Atlantic.

          In other words, the Shuttle is "reused" only in the broadest meaning of that word, and only after significant, expensive and timeconsuming work is done on the Orbiter.

          The shuttle achieves its limited degree of reuse only by virture of a complexity that drives up cost. Vehicles that repeatedly can make the trip to low-Earth orbit and return do not necessarily need wings. What's wrong with using large, 'dumb" capsules? As early as the mid-sixties, designs were afoot to build an expanded Gemini vehicle to carry several passengers, or equivalent cargo capacity, to orbit. The craft returned to land at Edwards AFB on skids. Similiar proposals were made vis-a-vis Apollo. Absent the heat shield (which would need replacement), is there a technological reason why -- 40 years later -- we can design and build fully recoverable and reusable versions of these proposed capsules?
          • Exactly the point I was trying (and apparently failing ;-) to make: it's barely reusable to the point of liability, and we get no real benefit from it. If it needs maintenance between each flight (check), or is incredibly expensive (check), it's not helping any. I wouldn't mind it being incredibly expensive if it could achieve space just twice without any external assistance - then we could land on a planet and get it back up in space. That's a worthy goal of reuse, and something I wouldn't expect the A
            • " That's a worthy goal of reuse, and something I wouldn't expect the Apollo/Soyuz model to beable to do."

              Apollo is partially capable of such a feat... Of course, the planet or other body needs much lower gravity than Earth. But remember that Apollo landed on the Moon and then took off again. (Admittedly part of it was left behind, but not all.)
              • Excellent point. I doubt it would be feasible to make such an attempt on Earth, given our gravity, but it may be possible to do so on Mars. I'd even be okay if it was 2 elements landing, and one going back up again, such as: the fuel and launching apparatus in one trip; and the reusable capsule, ground transport (for the capsule), and crew in the other.

                What I'm not sure about is if the Apollo/Soyuz capsules can be used more than once, especially in this manner. If they can, then that's what I hope to se
    • the ISS ....was placed into a rapidly-decaying orbit not because that was a good idea (it isn't) but because the shuttle could get there

      It was necessary. The Earth's magnetic field is what holds radiation (energetic ion) levels down to tolerable levels. The magnetic field gets weaker and the radiation levels get higher as one moves further from the planet (radiation belts make the story a little more complicated beyond 1.5 Earth radii).

    • You sound just like B. Gentry Lee when, as a science brat at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, when some of us had the chance to take him hiking up the Columbia Gorge the day after he'd given a talk at the museum.

      He was the project manager of Galileo at the time, if my memory serves. If not, then whichever of the various exploratory vehicles that was first designed to go up on an conventional booster, then redesigned per NASA dictum to fit in the shuttle, then redesigned again after the Challeng

  • First to land outside the US? (Score:4, Informative)

    by inaeldi ( 623679 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @06:46AM (#5873746)
    From the article:

    The astronauts were not the first Americans to land on foreign soil after a trip in space because U.S. tycoon Dennis Tito beat them to that distinction.

    • Re:First to land outside the US? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 04, 2003 @06:47AM (#5873751)
      Tito was just cargo.

    • Re:First to land outside the US? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      However, Tito was not an astronaut, he was a tourist.

    • Why is everyone so hung up on this 1st to land outside the US thing? Does it really matter? It's just CNN's way of saying "Hey guys! Look! This story is special and out of the ordinary you should go read it RIGHT NOW!"

      It's a gimmick -- a ploy. That's all.

      Please note: I'm not calling the landing itself a ploy or gimmick nor am I deriding the accomplishments of the astronauts. I'm just saying that you see that line repeated over and over again because it's CNN's way of hyping the story.

  • Your dirty communist seats are not good enough (Score:5, Funny)

    by brejc8 ( 223089 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @06:47AM (#5873749) Homepage Journal
    Because landing in a Soyuz is generally bumpier than in a shuttle, Ken Bowersox, Don Pettit and cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin were seated in the Soyuz on custom-built recliners designed to fit their bodies, NASA said.

    This is fantastic. I bet the astronauts were complaining about everything.
    My chair is too hard, The in flight meal is too dry, Nikolai kept kicking my seat. You wouldn't get this kind of service on a good old Shuttle.

    • Re:Your dirty communist seats are not good enough (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You wouldn't get this kind of service on a good old Shuttle.

      Disintegrate in comfort and style.
    • Nikolai kept kicking my seat

      Not to mention all those awful 'In Soviet Russia' jokes he kept telling... I mean what was up with that?

    • Custom-built recliners? I wonder how they compare to the La-Z-Boy I had growing up.

    • Re:Your dirty communist seats are not good enough (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kz ( 4332 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @09:31AM (#5874222) Homepage
      Since Soyus is so bumpy, they always have custom-built recliners.

      It wasn't a case of 'These are whiny americans, let's give 'em special seats'

      have you seen the seats in a soyuz? really smart, they let your body wistand far greater g-forces than the 'lay on your back' american chairs, and fit in almost half the space. that's part of why they were able to land on dry ground with just a few parachutes on the capsule, instead of a big plane-like ship, or dropping the thing to the sea.

      Unfortunately, they're so thight, i think would be very uncomfortable if not custom-built for every cosmonaut. There have one-size-fits-all models for emergency lifeboats too, but i wouldn't be surprised if there was a risk of minor damage to leg arteries or muscles.
      • since this set of ISS crewmen went up in the shuttle...

        and since when they went up they assumed that they were going back down in the shuttle...

        and since there was a different set up people in that soyuz capsule when it was launched...

        and since that soyuz capsule was originally going to be the return trip for the people who brought up the *next* soyuz...

        how did this trio get custom-built seats?

        jf

        • Re:how did they get custom-built seats in advance? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Vulch ( 221502 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @11:29AM (#5874777)

          The custom bit of the seats is a padded liner that fits into the framework of the seat, the actual frames are all the same size. The station crew bring their custom seat liners up with them on the shuttle, then swap them with the ones for the old crew. Same happens when they swap out a Soyuz, the delivery crew move their seat liners from the new Soyuz to the old one, and the station crew move theirs from the old to the new

          Anthony

        • All astronauts and cosmonauts have plaster casts of their buttocks made during training, so that (a) seats can be designed for them if necessary, and (b) bronze butt sculptures can still be erected in the halls of NASA should they meet an unexpected demise.

          pants
    • Don Petit said just the opposite in an interview, that the custom-fitted recliners were far more comfortable than the shuttle seats, which he described as being about as comfortable as a commercial airliner's seat (more room, though.)

  • outside the US ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EpsCylonB ( 307640 ) <.moc.bnolycspe. .ta. .spe.> on Sunday May 04, 2003 @06:48AM (#5873754) Homepage
    This is the first time US Astronauts have ever landed outside of the US.

    I thought the moon people landed in the middle of the atlantic, does the US own that now ?.

  • First outside the US ? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The Famous Druid ( 89404 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @06:50AM (#5873760)
    Um, I think you'll find that most of the Pacific Ocean is outside the USA, and that's where most of the early US astronauts came down.

  • New name for space station? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    With the increasing trend of corporate sponsorships for space travel, i wouldn't be surprised to see the ISS be remamed the "IIS".

  • Poor people! (Score:2, Funny)

    by IroNick ( 668714 )
    What? Are US Astronauts not allowed outside the country?

  • Hey, schweet! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mac Degger ( 576336 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @07:29AM (#5873842) Journal
    Maybe they can report that there's a whole world outside of the US!

  • Wecome to econom-class trip programs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by axxackall ( 579006 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @07:31AM (#5873846) Homepage Journal
    NASA should realize that time for business-class trips did not come yet. At least not with current very sub-optimal (and yet not safe!) budget planning in NASA.

    And Russians, with their space tourism program, proved that econom-class is ok not only for semi-military educated cosmonauts, but even also for space tourists (including US citizens!).

    I hope Europians and Japaneese will cooperate with Russians more, heliping to keep their space program. I doubt NASA will keep cooperating with Russians as in US everything is related to politics and Russians joined to Germany and France club, it means US decline trade operations and cooperation with them after they denied to help with Iraq occupation.

  • CNN article prewritten (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FTL ( 112112 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMneil.fraser.name> on Sunday May 04, 2003 @07:33AM (#5873853) Homepage
    The article on CNN was obvioulsy written before the event, then tweaked slightly (but not enough) before release. They mention at the top of the article that it took two hours to locate the capsule since it missed the landing zone. But further down it says:
    Within minutes of landing, Russian officials took the crew to a portable medical tent, where the men will spend about two hours adapting to gravity in reclining chairs.
    Not too bad, all things considered. Certainly a lot better than ABC News which posed this article [go.com] about Columbia's successful landing in February. Prewriting articles is a good way to save time. But if one prepublishes (like ABC did) or doesn't reread it in its entirety (like CNN did) you end up losing credibility.
    • Certainly a lot better than ABC News which posed this article [go.com] about Columbia's successful landing in February.

      The headline says Columbia Streaks Toward Florida Landing. Nowhere in the article does it say that they landed successfully.

      • betwen this:
        "With security tighter than usual, space shuttle Columbia streaked toward a Florida touchdown Saturday to end a successful 16-day scientific research mission that included the first Israeli astronaut."
        and:
        "The next time Columbia flies will be in November,"
        I think we can safly say it was implied.

        oh wait, you were trying to be funny?

  • Another victory for simplicity... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @07:44AM (#5873879) Journal

    The Russian soyuz [astronautix.com] spacecraft has been the longest-lived, most adaptable, and most successful manned spacecraft design. In production for forty years, more than 230 have been built and flown on a wide range of missions.

    The fundamental concept of the design can easily be summarised as obtaining minimum overall vehicle mass for the mission. This is accomplished by minimising the mass of the re-entry vehicle. This was achived by putting all the systems not needed for re-entry outside the re-entry vehicle in a jetisonable 'livingsection'*, and by having a re-entry vehicle with the highest possible volumetric efficency**.

    Compare this to the US capsules of the sixties (in which almost everything that went up came down, and the volumetric efficency was poor) and todays twenty year old shuttle system. Basicly, by finding a good design, keeping things simple and not fixing that which isn't broken, the soviets and later the russians has keept what is basicly the same design flying for the better part of half a century. And in a way, it's a design more optimised to building large spacestations than the shuttle are - just leave your livingmodule on the station as you detach your capsule, and you have just increased the size of the station. The only thing the shuttle has going for it when it comes to stationbuilding is the canadarm (isn't there one mounted at the ISS already?) and the fact that the shuttle could, theoreticly, bring modules down for repair.

    Oh well, anotehr victory for KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. While the shuttle has it's uses, for most everyday stuff in space a simple capsule is safer, simpler and possible cheaper.

    *) As a rule of thumb, every gram saved this way saves two grams in overall spacecraft mass, as you don't have to support it with parachutes, protected by heatshields and braked on landing.

    **) In theory this is a sphere, as the earlier vostok [astronautix.com], but as the Soyuz was originaly planned to be used on lunar missions it was required to bank a little, generate lift and 'fly' a bit to reduce the G-loads on the crew - just like the Apollo was. The optimum shape was found to be the classic headlightshape the soyuz have had for it's entire life.

    Most information in this post is taken from the linked websites, even if I've barely scraped the surface. I stronlge recomend following the links to learn more of this four decades old design.

    • Everything that rises must converge (Score:4, Informative)

      by slyborg ( 524607 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @01:11PM (#5875249)
      You should perhaps check out some these websites more closely yourself.

      The only US manned spacecraft "in which almost everything that went up came down" was the tiny one-man Mercury capsule. And unlike the first Soviet Vostoks, all US manned capsules have had some aerodynamic steering capability, even the Mercury capsule. Ironically, the steerable blunt-body design was actually originally researched and developed for use on ICBM warheads.

      The fundamental design charcteristic of ANY spacecraft launched with a chemically-fueled rocket is "minimizing the overall vehicle mass", I'd hardly say that was a great satori of the Russians. Read anything about the Apollo lunar module and you will see the immense lengths gone through to limit the mass of the lander, including having a skin so thin you could stick a pencil through it.

      Both the Gemini and Apollo spececraft had jettisonable service modules.

      Apollo:

      Command Module Total mass: 5,806 kg
      Service Module Total mass: 24,523 kg
      Lunar Module Total mass: 14,696 kg
      Reentry mass % of total orbital assembly: 13%

      Gemini:

      Reentry module Total mass: 1,982 kg (2-person)
      Retro module Total mass: 591 kg
      Equipment module Total mass: 1,278 kg
      (Total jettisoned mass prior to entry: 1,869 kg)
      Reentry mass % of total orbital assembly: 51%

      Soyuz (original design):

      Orbital Module Total mass: 1,200 kg
      Descent Module Total mass: 2,850 kg
      Service Module Total mass: 2,700 kg
      (Total jettisoned mass prior to entry: 5,550 kg)
      Reentry mass % of total orbital assembly: 18%

      The fact is that the vehicles are all optimized for different mission profiles and constraints, so it's really incorrect to generalize based on any one characteristic. The Shuttle for example, is a massive re-rentry object, but it can launch and return a crew of seven and a 14,000 kg Spacelab module. It's all based on what you want to do and how you want to do it.

      All that said, I think that the Soyuz is an excellent design, and obeys one of the most fundamental tenets of engineering - refine a basic design. The Soyuz incorporates all of those years of operational experience and the Soyuz is definitely the most proven manned space vehicle design available.

      But was it a successful design? According to its original mission, it's hard to say. It never carried a Hero of Socialist Labor to the lunar surface and back because the Soviets couldn't get the N-1 to work, so it never attempted its design mission.

      • Re:Everything that rises must converge (Score:4, Insightful)

        by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @02:04PM (#5875653) Journal

        Maybe I should have worded myself clearer... but while both Gemeni [astronautix.com] and Apollo [astronautix.com] carried jetisonable servicemodules (in fact, even the spam-in-a-can approach of Mercury had a jetisonable module; the retropack), they also carried a lot of stuff down with them on reentry that wasn't really needed for reentry and which 'ought' to have been in a jetisonable livingmodule to save weight. The genius of the soyuz [astronautix.com] was that the re-entry module was nothing but a reentry module. While looking at percentages can be interesting*, it is also the matter of what you do with the weight you're carrying. To qoute the Encyclopedia Astronautica [astronautix.com]: The Apollo capsule designed by NASA had a mass of 5,000 kg and provided the crew with six cubic meters of living space. A service module, providing propulsion, electricity, radio, and other equipment would add at least 1,800 kg to this mass for the circumlunar mission. The Soyuz spacecraft for the same mission provided the same crew with 9 cubic meters of living space, an airlock, and the service module for the mass of the Apollo capsule alone!

        It is interesting to note that the General Electric Apollo Proposal [astronautix.com] was very simular to the Soyuz - so simular that some speculate if the Soviets simply copied it. Parts of the ideas of a modular aproach was also reflected in the suggestion of a lunar Gemeni [astronautix.com], where the modularity was built into the servicemodule. The most extreme suggestion, as far as weightsaving goes, in that programe was the use of a 3,284 kg bare-bones, open cockpit lunar module...

        You are right that the vehicles are optimised for different missionprofiles - but as the Soyuz and the Apollo both were designed to land a man on the moon and bring him back, they are comparable designs - and while the modular design of the Soyuz allowed it to be adapted for use as a efficent low orbit ferry, the Apollo was quickly phased out. But you ought to remember that what ultimatly determines wether a design is 'successful' or not is wether it remains in use or not. The WV Beetle wasn't a great car, but it remained in production for half a century... so it was most definetly successful. The same can be said about the Soyus.

        And I never said we didn't need the Shuttle - all I said was that it really is less suited than a simple capsule to be used as a 'commuter transport' to and from a spacestation.

        *) Your percentages for re-entry are off btw. Either you ought to take out the mass of the LEM for Apollo, leaving a massfraction of just over 19%, or you must add the weight of the sovet LK [astronautix.com] to the calculations of the Soyus.

  • Apparently they landed in the wrong place (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vlad_the_Inhaler ( 32958 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @08:12AM (#5873949)
    According to this report in German [spiegel.de], the capsule came down almost 500km (300 Miles) outside it's planned target area, and it took two hours to locate it.

    The astronauts climbed out of the capsule themselves and waved to the people looking for them when they finally turned up. That could have easily have gone very horribly wrong - imagine them coming down on the side of a steep mountain-face.

    • Re:Apparently they landed in the wrong place (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kharchenko ( 303729 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @09:01AM (#5874090)
      >That could have easily have gone very horribly wrong - imagine them coming down on the side of a steep mountain-face.

      That's why they aim for Kazakh steppe - it's about as hard to miss as the Pacific ocean.
    • "That could have easily have gone very horribly wrong"

      unlike the shuttle.
    • I'll bet they tried to punch english units into the metric equipment. LOL

      This should be a case in point about why we should be using the russian equipment. If the space shuttle were 500 KM off, the orbiter would be a pile of debris and the crew likely dead. Only a handful of landing strips exist that can accomodate it, and it comes in so fast you have only a window of a minute or two where it is safe to eject. Too soon and you are going to be torn apart by the wind. Too late, and the shuttle is falling li

  • Space programme costs (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 04, 2003 @08:13AM (#5873953)
    Russian: ~ 1 billion dollars per year.
    American: ~ 15 billion dollars per year.

    Of the 1 billion dollars a year, only 20% is paid by the Russian government, the rest is commercial enterprise. That's a fantastically tax efficient space programme for Russia. Can America get even a single shuttle launch for $200million?

    Perhaps the US government should outsource the management of their space programme to the Russians. They have a better heavy lift capability more reliable launch vehicles and are many many times cheaper.

    • Yeah, except they keep going on an don about, "This is how we fix things on Russian space station" and "My uncle is very important man."

    • Re:Space programme costs (Score:3, Informative)

      by fname ( 199759 )
      That's interesting. But it's not true. The NASA budget is $15 billion/ year. This includes things that have nothing to do with the space program per se, such as ground based telescopes, outreach, educational grants, etc. The budges for the manned space program is about $4 billion, IIRC. The unmanned NASA program is probably less than $1 billion, for things like Mars Rovers, SIRTF, etc.

      However, the US space budget is much higher. The Air Force runs a very large space program, launcing a half-dozen satellite

      • Re:Space programme costs (Score:2, Informative)

        by Rxke ( 644923 )
        >the basic design is sound... NOT! Recent hearings (read all about it on spacedaily.com unearthed the quite shocking truth that administrators and presidents thru the years were aware of the flawed design. They built the big external tank in such a way that the risk of debris was always there. The leading edges of the Shuttle's wings were not built to survive impact of debris, they assumed that the ext. tank would e built in a fashion that prevented shedding of ice, insulation et.c. Also administrators
        • Oh, I've read the SpaceDaily series, and he had the most detailed look at the investigation that I've seen, and I've seen lots of them. LA Times has had really good coverage too. But the Space Daily guy has an agenda, not that he tries to hide it; he doesn't try to present opinion as fact, but one could read his opinion as fact if one is not careful. Spaceflight Now! has extensive, uninspired coverage, and Space.com seems more interested in unmanned space (SETI, Mars rovers, Hubble).

          Complex systems fail in

    • Perhaps the US government should outsource the management of their space programme to the Russians.

      Perhaps, like the Russians, the US should let private enterprise play a larger role in the space program - better yet, let private enterprise play a larger role in the exploration of space, regardless of the US space program.

      • Private enterprise does play a large role in the US space program. Iridium, DirecTV, Globalstar, Quickbird, etc are commercial satellites/ satellite constellations launched by american space program (though DirecTV may may launched abroad, not sure). Boeing and Lockheed run their own launch businesses, launching these satellites and others, including those from Eutelsat, etc.

        In short, there is plenty of private industry involved in the US space program. The government (Air Force) has helped pay for the dev
  • NASA spends almost $470 million dollars just on one launch ! Just think about what of research you could do with that money !

    NASA needs to learn how to manage their money and build a new economical reusable space craft before they start wasting ridiculous amounts of money on a floating money waster.
  • Did they have a visa? "Papers, please..."

  • Two thoughts occur to me... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hamster Lover ( 558288 ) on Sunday May 04, 2003 @01:32PM (#5875344) Journal
    from reading this and other articles about the Russian re-entry:

    1. The subtle undercurrent of U.S. space program elitism, that is, the Russians run a barebones operation and the U.S. astronauts were incredibly lucky to return alive in such a piece of junk space capsule. Numerous posts have spoken to the incredibly reliable and effective Russian space program, so I won't belabor the point.

    2. The absurd notion, much inferred, that since the space shuttle disintigrated on re-entry that a similar disaster will befall the Russian Soyuz. Somewhere out there someone was waiting to say, "Look, I told you so! Space is dangerous!", as if they had divined the second coming. Space is dangerous, expensive and in the opinion of many, not worth the effort.

    There is a benefit to mankind in exploration that often does not come without planning, foresight and much trial and error.

    Just my thoughts.
  • Budarin says that one of the americans botched the descent. "He pressed a wrong button and control systems have gone crazy" - this is a rough translation of his words. I doubt this will ever show up in "free" American press. He didn't clarify which one, though.

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