NASA cuts ties with Russia except on space station.

[phil65]

Time to get back in the game ?

Phil

[p51]

I'm not aware of NASA 'cutting ties', but they are indeed getting an Orion capsule ready for it's first test flight next year, closing off the VAB to tours due to this and a lot of work at KSC getting the building ready for the next step for NASA...

[turretguy]

Phil65 is on top of it. Details here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2 ... perations/

Nick

[tom d. friedman]

Russia has us by the nads....... it costs 71 million dollars to park every u.s. astronaut on 1 of their clunkerski rockets. I said from the end of the shuttle program that we should have at least 1 for a back up. now the u.s. is holding the the bag for the Ukrainian pain in the ass, with a politically impotent president.

[PinecastleAAF]

Russia has us by the nads....... it costs 71 million dollars to park every u.s. astronaut on 1 of their clunkerski rockets. I said from the end of the shuttle program that we should have at least 1 for a back up. now the u.s. is holding the the bag for the Ukrainian pain in the ass, with a politically impotent president.

Someone needs to look Putin in the eye and find out what his soul is really up to.

[Sabremech]

I'm looking for the Warbird tie in here, but can't seem to find it. Could this be in the wrong section again?
David

[K5DH]

There's also a faint whiff of political discussion here. The mods aren't gonna like it, Yogi...

[p51]

ANY cooperation between the two now could just be labeled as 'ISS support', almost regardless of what it is, bypassing the entire concept.

[tom d. friedman]

There's also a faint whiff of political discussion here. The mods aren't gonna like it, Yogi...

didn't mean to offend any one on this thread. I was only intimating that outer space is increasingly becoming the next warbird frontier as harsh as it sounds. this is the most serious thing to hit international diplomacy since the u.s. / Cuban / Russian missile crisis. the international space station has 1 word..... international.... who draws the line??

[JDK]

Going to be a tough crowdline to stand at for a warbird show in space.

[Dave Hadfield]

Yes, JDK, but some of the photographers I've seen at airshows seem to have lenses large enough!

Actually, they are not "clunker-ski" rockets. I've been there and watched how they do it.



Their engineering is brilliant, because they scorn complexity and actively seek out simplicity. The Soyuz has had about 1800 launches, and has never blown up with people aboard. (Two fatalities, one bad parachute deployment in 1968 during the first launch, and one pressurization leak on re-entry in 1971.)

This keeps their program viable and practical -- so much so that they were able to keep it going even when their country broke up.

They have never had a long period of no-rockets -- no Apollo-Shuttle gap, and no gap like the USA is experiencing now.

And the Soyuz is far safer than the Shuttle was -- 2 fatal accidents in 1800 launches, although in both cases the hull remained intact, versus the Shuttle disintegrating twice in 135 launches.

To be somewhat brutally honest, from what I saw, the Americans can learn a lot from the way the Russians do space things (although I wouldn't want to live there).

Also, the ESA selected Soyuz rockets to launch from their site in French Guiana. They had a choice.

Dave

[K5DH]

Dave's comments on Russia's efforts to keep things simple remind me of the old saw about how NASA spent huge sums of dollars developing a pen that would write in the anti-gravity conditions of space, and the Russians just used a pencil.

[PinecastleAAF]

There is an excellent documentary on the Russian engines we are using to launch some satellites now called "The engines that came in from the cold." Worth watching.

[Jeremy S]

Arthur Clarke predicted this in his move "2010": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyxhzFIlM9o

[maradamx3]

Yes, JDK, but some of the photographers I've seen at airshows seem to have lenses large enough!

Actually, they are not "clunker-ski" rockets. I've been there and watched how they do it.



Their engineering is brilliant, because they scorn complexity and actively seek out simplicity. The Soyuz has had about 1800 launches, and has never blown up with people aboard. (Two fatalities, one bad parachute deployment in 1968 during the first launch, and one pressurization leak on re-entry in 1971.)

This keeps their program viable and practical -- so much so that they were able to keep it going even when their country broke up.

They have never had a long period of no-rockets -- no Apollo-Shuttle gap, and no gap like the USA is experiencing now.

And the Soyuz is far safer than the Shuttle was -- 2 fatal accidents in 1800 launches, although in both cases the hull remained intact, versus the Shuttle disintegrating twice in 135 launches.

To be somewhat brutally honest, from what I saw, the Americans can learn a lot from the way the Russians do space things (although I wouldn't want to live there).

Also, the ESA selected Soyuz rockets to launch from their site in French Guiana. They had a choice.

Dave

The shuttle had only one mishap during launch, not 2. By "launches" you mean flights I presume?
Tommy