Russia Falls Behind In Annual Space Launches For First Time Ever (themoscowtimes.com) 93
From a report on the Moscow Times: This year, for the first time in history, Russia has fallen behind the United States and China as the world's leading launcher of space rockets. Russia will finish 2016 with just 18 launches, according to open source data, compared to China's 19 and America's 20 launches. Alexander Ivanov, deputy chief of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, said on Nov. 29 that the launch rate has decreased because Moscow's space strategy has changed. Currently, it's top priority is reviving existing and aging satellite groupings. But there are other reasons Russia's launch rate may be falling behind. Since the 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world's first satellite, Russia has been the undisputed leader in annual launch rates -- a figure that spoke to the general health of its space program and aerospace industry. At the peak of the Soviet space program, Russia often launched around 100 rockets a year. Since 1957, Russia has launched over 3,000 rockets -- roughly twice as many as the U.S. But with the Russian economy in crisis, space budgets have plummeted. Funding for the next decade of Russian space activity stands at just 1.4 trillion rubles ($21.5 billion), a figure that was only finalized after three rounds of cuts to proposed funding, which began at 3.4 trillion rubles ($52.3 billion). The U.S. space agency, NASA, received a budget of $19.3 billion in 2016 alone. To make matters worse, Russian rockets are becoming uncharacteristically undependable.
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There may be a bit of truth to that. Trump may relax sanctions on Russia in exchange for a Syrian draw-down or concessions. (Obama appeared to reject such a deal, taking sanction reduction off the Syria table.)
That kind of deal would boost Russia's economy, and give them more tax money for their space program.
Anti-Russian space program propoganda (Score:2, Insightful)
If I had a nickel for every piece of "NASA's story represents the entirety of the space race/USSR-Russia sucks/Let's pretend that NASA is the only space program" propaganda piece in journalism and pop culture that has come out since 1957, I could fund my own space program that would be better than anybody's.
Yeah, I get it, butthurt Americans are mad that they can no longer send men into space. So they feel the need to come up with any metric to show that NASA is somehow still superior to the Russians, even
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What the hell are you on about? This entire summary was about the accomplishments of the Russian space program. It starts off with sputnik and then goes on and covers how they've launched more rockets, as much as double the US. The only area that they said NASA is doing better is in funding. Hell, the entire thing is about what a shock it is that Russia isn't number 1 for the first time ever. How the hell is that pro-US? Seriously, what are you smoking? You may want to lay off it for a while.
Not worried (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I get it, butthurt Americans are mad that they can no longer send men into space.
Umm, actually most of us aren't all that worried about it. Those of us who care know we've got programs in the works to revive our ability to put humans into space and we knew there would be a bit of a gap. It will get resolved soon enough in all likelihood. The rest simply don't care at all. Maybe a few folks get bent about it but they're a tiny minority.
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It's very telling of the American popular mindset that not a single mainstream movie out of Hollywood has ever shown a non-American space program accomplishing anything of any importance in their science fiction (or even their documentaries, for that matter). In the rare cases where non-Americans are even shown, they're usually just used as some sort of comic relief (the laughable Russian stereotype cosmonaut in Armageddon being one of the most offensive examples).
Name one popular American film (documentary
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The USSR's space program was mentioned VERY briefly in the The Right Stuff (IIRC it was literally for a matter of seconds), and functioned purely as the incentive for NASA to create the GREATEST SPACE PROGRAM EVAR!!! And I believe the sole mention of non-Americans in The Martian was a brief scene near the end where some anonymous Chinese were very briefly shown helping the heroic-American stars rescue their fellow heroic-American Matt Damon. Both were the cinematic equivalent of South Park episode where the
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Yes, 2010 was about as close as it gets, but even in that one many of the Russians were played for comic relief and Roy Scheider was the clear protagonist. Only the Russian captain stood out as a serious character, and her scenes were pretty brief.
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It's very telling of the American popular mindset that not a single mainstream movie out of Hollywood has ever shown a non-American space program accomplishing anything of any importance in their science fiction (or even their documentaries, for that matter)
Why should American movie companies give a crap about non-American space programs? You folks in the rest of the world sure do like to deride the US but then mooch off our tech and entertainment and then complain that it's not all about you... and then you call Americans arrogant and lazy and stupid.
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It's very telling of the American popular mindset that not a single mainstream movie out of Hollywood has ever shown a non-American space program accomplishing anything of any importance in their science fiction (or even their documentaries, for that matter). In the rare cases where non-Americans are even shown, they're usually just used as some sort of comic relief (the laughable Russian stereotype cosmonaut in Armageddon being one of the most offensive examples).
How about the 1969 movie Marooned [wikipedia.org], where a soviet spacecraft comes to the aid of a stranded US capsule?
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It's very telling of the American popular mindset that not a single mainstream movie out of Hollywood
Yeah, and if there's one group of people who can really understand and capture the mindset of the common American, it's Hollywood.
Also your "bit of a gap" is rapidly approaching a decade, with no end in sight.
There are a few ends in sight. One of them is called Dragon 2, another is Dream Chaser, another is Orion, another is CST-100.
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You seem to be trolling here. There hasn't been many hard science fiction films featuring any national space agency this century and very few in the last six years. Besides, a) it makes sense that Hollywood movies featuring American characters would have those characters get into space with NASA, and b) Chinese facilities (a rocket and a space station/return capsule) save the day in two of the biggest recent space films (The Martian and Gravity).
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You seem like you have a bone to pick. Don't you think stopping the shuttle was a rational decision given the fiscal constraints they had? They could have kept flying it, but that would have left a lot less money to develop anything new or fly interesting robotic missions. They knew they had a reliable partner to space in Russia, so I'm not sure why you object to the decision so strongly. NASA will (eventually) have several modern and relatively inexpensive methods to get astronauts into orbit - currently t
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I think the Space Shuttle was nothing more than a contractor boondoggle from the start. The U.S. should have continued development of the much more powerful and practical Saturn line in the 1970's instead of turning NASA into a glorified jobs program and cash funnel for bullshit-artist contractors who over-promised on the Space Shuttle from day one. If they had, maybe the manned space program wouldn't have become a PR-focused mess that never got beyond LEO again. As it is, NASA has become a money-sink joke,
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I agree that they spent too much money and time on the space shuttle, but I think they are now recovering in the best way possible: focus on their wildly successful robotic missions while letting the private sector and Russia get them to LEO, and toss a bare minimum into developing deep space manned capability to keep the inspirational bit alive. Maybe SLS is not the most efficient use of funds, but in part that's what happens when your goals get changed on you every 8 years.
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I think the Space Shuttle was nothing more than a contractor boondoggle from the start.
The Shuttle also had a problem of having to meet both military and civilian requirements. The NRO required the Shuttle payload bay to be larger than needed by civilian payloads, and they wanted the option to fly "once around" polar orbit missions which required greater flexibility for maneuvering the landing, which dramatically increased the size of the delta wing.
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The shuttle had a problem having to meet military requirements because NASA could only make the numbers work by hijacking the Air Force's launch budget. Congress should never have allowed it.
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You seem to be very concerned with your butt. Hope it's not paining you too much. Trust me, no one is the USA is particularly worried about not being able to send astronauts into low earth orbit. We're too busy checking out the latest feed from Jupiter.
Re:Not worried (Score:4, Interesting)
As long as we continue to develop these programs, I think we have a pretty good shot at having two space worthy programs within the next two years. Our private space program has been developing for some time and several companies are getting in on the action. At some point, the US might be be the go-to country for LEO travel. Right now this is dependent on the Trump Administration and their decision to move forward with the existing programs or adapting the existing programs. If they recklessly abandon them as some administrations have done in the past, we could be begging India or China for a ride in the near future.
SpaceX still has some work to do yet, but I see Boeing as also being a competitor and with the Sierra Nevada team chasing them to try and get in on the action, the potential of having at least two out of three programs getting us to ISS and possibly prolonging or building the next ISS.
NASA still has the SLS to look forward to and move us into manned deep space. Even if that only ends up putting us on the Moon, it will be a good program for research that might put us in the rightful lead of the world as far as space exploration. I feel Russia is superior in longevity and actual logged manned space travel but NASA leads in exploration overall. I would like to see the US take the manned travel crown too.
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The fact is the commercial launch industry is blossoming in the US. By 2020 we're going to have active competition between at least 3 separate companies to launch and reuse main rockets A reusable rocket should plummet launch costs and within a year or two all commercial launch contracts (non state) will be going up on American privately designed and launched rockets because it will be 10x cheaper than anything else out there. SpaceX is on target to start reusing rockets by 2022 and has a failure rate that'
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...Americans, still fighting the Cold War long after everyone else went home.
He started it.
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Yeah, The Moscow Times is a rabidly pro-NASA rag for sure.
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Indeed, this piece is pretty blatantly selective. How about showing a comparison of failed projects, how about how much projects actually cost in their respective agencies. The summary is right out of the 1960s BS "we're #1!" after winning a single race after being beating in dozens of others.
Beavis: You won every race, Butthurt! You went to the Olympics! Heh, too bad you didn't win.
Butthurt: Shut up, Beavis! Winning the Olympics wasn't my goal. I wasn't racing. I had other plans. I sent a robot to run my race for me.
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Way better than a Clintonazi whose throwback anti-Russian stance might have led to WWIII.
But oh noes!!!!! The Donald might want to start using the evil term "illegal aliens" again instead of "undocumented workers"!!!! LETS ALL CLUTCH OUR PEARLS and vote in a bellicose corporate whore instead!!!
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Huh? Jeez, all Nasa can do is reliably land rovers on Mars... something no other space power seems to be capable of. Oh, and send space probes to every planet in the solar system. Orbit the gas giants. Build enormous space observatories. But yeah, right, that's all "trumped" by not having a taxi service to low earth orbit.
Yawn.
That's ok (Score:2)
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Why?
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Really though, both Russia and the USA should be keeping an eye on the Chinese, who are getting set to outpace everyone in terms of launches soon.
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Sounds fine (Score:3, Interesting)
Russia needs to work on its economy and lower unemployment, increase wages and improving the quality of life of all their citizens. Space activities, admirable as they are, should be lower in priority
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WTF?
Launch services where/are a good source of hard currency for the Ruskys. The rest of the world has supported Russia's space program as it delivers good value. To say nothing of the chaos that would happen if the technical staff hit the world job market.
Other than that, they have oil/gas/weapons/prostitute exports. Not a diverse economy.
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...Other than that, they have oil/gas/weapons/prostitute exports. Not a diverse economy.
Ironically this list seems to meet all the needs of the 21st century barbarian...
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The rest of the world has supported Russia's space program as it delivers good value.
From TFS:
To make matters worse, Russian rockets are becoming uncharacteristically undependable.
Also, SpaceX is absolutely destroying the usual suspects on launch costs despite their recent "setbacks".
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oil/gas/weapons/prostitute exports
Update your data, it's outdated!
Food exports to reached a record $20 billion in 2015, more than the country earned from arms sales. [bloomberg.com]
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What were their food imports #s?
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Dictators don't care about that; they want toys and power. They only care about the welfare of their masses if there's a risk they'll riot and overthrow the top.
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Russia needs to work on its economy and lower unemployment, increase wages and improving the quality of life of all their citizens. Space activities, admirable as they are, should be lower in priority
Keep in mind many of those missions are paid for by the U.S. and Europe to supply the ISS. Russia gets to tag along (space cred) and maintain its space industry which wouldn't exist otherwise; Russia is a middle-income country with about 10% the GDP of the U.S. or the EU, or about half that of Germany or the U.K. and as you point out it's would be a ludicrous waste of resources for such a small economy in need of growth to first-world tier to launch that many missions.
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not sure why you mentioned it in the article at all. its still less than the russian budget by 2 billion
Funding for the next decade of Russian space activity stands at just 1.4 trillion rubles ($21.5 billion)
Emphasis added.
Yes, and no. (Score:2, Insightful)
From TFS: Russia has been the undisputed leader in annual launch rates -- a figure that spoke to the general health of its space program and aerospace industry.
It also speaks to the billions of rubles pumped into the programs by the government (not usually seen as a sign of health). It also speaks to the higher failure rate and generally shorter lifespans of the payloads launched.
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Newsflash : Space isn't a Shuttle.
Russian economy looking up (Score:1)
Who finances themoscowtimes.com (Score:2)
In Trump's America (Score:2)
Rocket launches you!!!
CCCP (Score:2)
Its odd but sometimes I miss the Soviet Union. Seems like the U.S.A. was better for having a strong rival.