Anyone else think that maybe the Russians aren't the best country to be sending stuff into space?

http://news.yahoo.com/russias-mars-probe-crash-earth-january-112402928.html

Because the U.S. has had an unblemished safety record when it comes to space travel right..?

There has always been a price to pay to explore space, both the US and Russia have found this out
the hard way. Its always a gamble, can only hope for the best.

Exploring Space is always a uncertain task regardless the country involved IMO

Well Beach, I can't remember having radioactive stuff possibly raining down on my house because of a failed orbit of an unmanned craft. Wasn't the Russians take on the declining orbit of the space station "Just let it fall to the earth, it's 75% water, everything will be fine". But don't worry, the Russians say the highly radioactive material on the craft isn't harmful to people.

It's not that we didn't have accidents in our program, we just are a little more honest about it. The Russians have always underplayed everything that might make them look bad. This is a country that told their people we didn't land on the moon. I'm saying when it comes to informing the public or the world for that matter, they don't have the best track record.

I'm actually half Russian, this is not racially motivated in case anyone was going to go there.

watched the right stuff when i was a kid, our space program required a death wish at one point.

I love most programs and movies on our space program. It's tragic, sad and uplifting all at the same time. From the Earth to the Moon was a great series IMO.

No, it didn't.

The "Right Stuff" is a movie and as such it played up the danger greater than it was. Yes the US blew up a lot of boosters etc learning to fly rockets, I imagine the Russians did too they just didn't do so on live TV. Ever hear of the "Nedelin disaster"? The official death toll according to the Russians is 78, but it was likely much higher. If you want to talk about a doomed from the start death wish mission just look up Soyuz 1.

The main reason Gagarin beat Shepard into space was due to the overly cautious nature of the US manned spaceflight program. Shepard was ready to go before Gagarin, but due to a minor glitch on a prior unmanned flight (that would not have effected a manned flight at all) the managers decided to postpone Shepard's flight until one more unmanned flight to could be flown. Meanwhile Gagarin flew and the rest is history.

As for Mars exploration, Russia has had a much worse record than the US. Russia/USSR has launched 19 mission to Mars, of those only 6 have been at best partial successes and all the rest have been absolute failures.

The US has also launched 19 missions to Mars (not counting the latest in process) and has had 5 failures.

Quote from the article:

"The failed mission was the latest in a series of recent Russian launch failures that have raised concerns about the condition of the country's space industries. Officials have blamed the failures on obsolete equipment and an aging workforce."

I'm a huge fan of space travel and exploration, but I have my own serious doubts about the state of the Russian space program. In this particular instance, however, it seems that Russian probes bound for Mars are simply jinxed. They have had a really hard time getting anything to Mars, and if it gets there it either disappears as it's about to go into orbit or shortly after.

As for the U.S. raining radioactive material back down on Earth from space...remember Skylab? That's only one example. There have been others. Space flight is inherently risky. It's not a matter of if there will be a failure, but when, mo matter who built the equipment.

Granted. But don't you think with "obsolete equipment and an aging workforce" your are drastically increasing the odds of failure and maybe shouldn't be shooting stuff into space? Skylab had a rough start but was a success and spent 6 years in orbit.

No it's not. it's a calculated risk. Very different.





What Dogsbd said.

No, it's not.

Skylab carried no radioactive material. The only radioactivity it returned to earth was the very low radioactivity induced into the materials by the space environment it was subjected to for several years.

The Apollo 13 lunar module however did have aboard a SNAP RTG containing about 3 kg of plutonium that was intended to be left on the moon. However given that the LM was used as a lifeboat in returning the Apollo 13 crew to earth after the accident the LM was intentionally aimed such that it would land in the 30,000 plus deep Tonga Trench in the Pacific. The RTG was designed to withstand a re-entry accident and there has never been any radioactivity detected in the area where Aquarius impacted the Pacific.

If you get hit by a 50 pound chunk of space debris - does it matter if it is radioactive or not?

Those devious Russians will probably say it landed in Chernobyl or Fukushima anyway...just to cover their bases..

No.

But if you inhale microscopic reentry debris, it does matter.

Well, to make up for it, they haven't plastered depleted uranium all over their tanks and ammunition.

It's easy to get enraged over a few kilos or grams of that stuff when Russia deploys it, but remember you guys threw around tons of it in Iraq and elsewhere. In which case the Russians have Chernobyl to trump you again. But then IIRC the nuclear tests conducted by many nations in the 60ies had a much greater impact than even that. And didn't Japan dump some nuclear-enriched water into the pacific?

Nothing like yet another space exploration thread to get the flame war juices flowing on SimHQ.

Except of course for the fact that yes they have.

Right, but that's very typical of any senior manager's comments after a failure...that way they can deflect the blame away from them and their people, and instead turn it all around as a pitch for more funding...whether it's private business, public business, or a govt agency or contract!

There is a LOT of "obsolete equipment" that is perfectly functional, in just about all industries of the world. But that's 'code' for "give us more money dammit!", and the public reading this yells "give them more money dammit!".

As for an "aging workforce", that's true: every day the workforce ages...another day! And perhaps they don't have enough young people qualified to replace them. So then that means a bigger budget, so that they can have some young n00bs apprentice under them at the Cosmodrome or whatever. If they don't have that extra money/budget, then the young engineer is going to avoid where the money isn't, and instead choose to get a job at Sukhoi, or Tata in India, or Intel!




Right, but if you look at the Apollo program where Skylab tech all began, and look at the close calls and the fatal fire, you'll see that the American space program, despite all it's tech, all it's safety precautions, still had a REALLY high probability of some sort of fatal failure.

Case in point:



Think about that: they lost just about all their electricity, just after launch. They had to restart their power system. Reboot their computer, while accelerating into space under 8g's of acceleration, millions of pounds of thrust, thousands of pounds being burned a second...unguided!!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_12

All I'm saying, is that spaceflight is risky for any nation at this point, and was riskier in the past. There has been a lot more luck in having close calls instead of disasters IMO.

And America decided to take the risk in 1997 with the launch of spacecraft Cassini: 33 kilograms (72 pounds) of plutonium-238

Yep, and at the time it made all the headlines for a week before...people freaking out about the radioactivity raining down on everyone if it blew up during launch, or went out of control.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens

China had a huge rocket go out of control back two decades ago...landed on a town and killed many hundreds of the occupants.

I keep reading that they and China prefer tungsten over DU, if they've switched to DU in considerable amounts by now then you may ignore that point.

I just don't remember anyone saying the Japanese shouldn't have nuclear reactors.
Or that the US shouldn't have nuclear reactors since Three Mile Island etc.
Or that noone should have nuclear bombs after they already killed thousands of people, possibly millions if you include late casualties from tests etc.

But when Russia drops a satellite with some radioactive material, then they should stop all their space activities immediately?

So yeah, as PanzerMayer probably wanted to say, why are people only flaming Russia?

I think that people will highlight Russia, because all facts and figures and disaster numbers of the U.S. aside, Russia is inherently bad with safety and technology. It's technology that will ultimately get us to Mars and Russia most certainly isn't the country to do it. It's just another space race, with Russia probably cutting corners (even for them) to try and beat the U.S. to Mars.

I mean, looking at the grass roots level of flight, Russia aren't even honest about the capabilities of its own military aircraft, and with production numbers being so little and being combat-proven so scarce, even Russian fanboys can surely see that they're not the best even on an Earth level.

Did you all miss that episode of Top Gear? Russia is the country that made a car out of leather for heaven's sake!

I think the original poster's comments and concerns are very valid, and in situations such as these which are globally viewed and reported on, it's not necessary to shower everyone with the facts and figures of other nation's space exploration failures, it's what's happening right now that is relevant and what the public perceive to be important and the truth - even if it turns out to be wrong in the grand scheme of things.

Only recently have I been thinking that it's funny how two or more countries strive to achieve the same goals, at their own rates of technological evolution, with their own native technology and their own budgets. Surely in the supposed current chaotic economic climate, wouldn't it be cheaper, safer and better for global relations if we all just forgot competition, come together as one and achieve our goals quicker, cheaper, safer and friendlier? Why re-invent the wheel 3 or 4 times at the cost of billions of dollars and thousands of man-hours, and still only ever achieve the same end product? Because that's all we're doing. No wonder the world's economies are like they are.

In Soviet Russia, Mars probes you!

Someone had to say it...

I do concede the fact that Russia/former USSR does indeed have a significantly worse safety track record than the US and the pervasive culture of hiding such mistakes is disturbing.

I agree with your entire post, until this.

Would F1 / NASCAR develop better, faster race-cars if all the teams just stopped competing and worked together to build one fast car?

Would we have better airliners today if in say 1950 all the aircraft manufacturers of the world had stopped competing with one another and just came together and design one aircraft or one line of aircraft?

Would we have better cars on the highways today if Ford, Chevy, BMW, Jaguar, Audi, Honda, Toyota etc. all combined into one giant global auto company that instead of competing with one another for sales just worked together to build a single line of automobiles?

Would man have reached the North or South poles sooner without competition to do so?

I don't think so. Competition is what drives improvement. Competition is the only reason we reached the moon in 1969.

As for the money involved, several points:

First of all it is pennies compared to other government experiences. The US spends more on medicare in half a year than the entire Space Shuttle program cost over 30 years.

Secondly if you really want/need to pool resources, limit the size of the pool. Only team up with like minded partners, not geopolitical rivals for other political purposes. For example the US should team with countries like Japan or Canada, not Russia or China.

Third, consider the monetary gains to be had from the development of the technology. It has been calculated that for every dollar the US spent in reaching the moon that 3 were returned to the US economy through the developments made in computer science, materials science etc.

And most importantly, use the private sector. Get the government out of the business of designing rockets and spacecraft. Tell the private sector what you want to do, they will come up with a way to do it and the government buys the service from the best choice or choices.

Dogsbd - I see your point but I think you are taking my last paragraph slightly out of context. Of course we have different manufacturers and teams who build and race better and faster cars, that is sport. With sport comes competition. But something so complex and real as space travel, and with the exploration of Mars arguably a must if we are ever to populate another planet, for the sake of human civilization, surely you could see where I was coming from.

How can you even compare the workings of an automobile industry or motorsport to an endeavor where even getting 100 ft off the ground can endanger so many lives and so much money, let alone several hundred thousand miles into space where they may never even return?

And as far as geopolitics goes, surely all this hysteria over Russia and China is still being blown out of proportion? The U.S. and allies have worked with Russia for years in space - seemingly regardless of any military competition or threat. Space travel might have been seen as some fun, luxurious, sport in the height of the Cold War, where it was the thing to do by 'competing' to get to the moon, but today I think the reasons are different. No longer do we need to prove to the Russians who can do it first, we've done it first, time and time again. What I'd at least hope we are doing now is fundamentally exploring other planets for the sake of saving ourselves. So surely it's in everyone's best interests to achieve this goal quickly, safely and efficiently as possible? We are all human, whether in the U.S., Europe, Russia, China or Japan. This should not be some leisure pursuit that could ultimately mean one country being left 'behind' on Earth. I say we bring the best of the best from all countries participating in space exploration, and make one viable solution that we can all benefit from. Leave the competition in sport, not the very future of human existence.

And if it's not all in the name of us, humans, but just competition to explore and say "My shuttle is bigger than your shuttle", then it's a waste of time and money.

Space travel isn't science fiction any longer. Yes, it is hard to do but there are much fewer unknown unknowns than there were in aviation in ~1920, yet aviation grew and thrived without huge government programs much less huge international government programs. Space travel is changing, private industry is moving into more and more areas where only governments once worked. The basic fundamentals of space travel are simple and relatively easy to understand, a launch vehicle is in its basic form much simpler than the simplest aircraft. The average automobile sold today is more complex in many ways than was the Apollo spacecraft. "Conquering space" is really only a matter of mass, weight. If mass were no issue we could easily fly as much food, water, shelter etc. we needed to accomplish a manned certain mission in space. It's just a matter of lifting that mass into space in an economical matter, and that problem is closer to being solved every day. Make it cheap to lift mass to orbit and all other problems are drastically reduced. You can then easily make systems more robust, carry spare parts, carry shielding etc. What has made space travel so difficult has been developing the science, engineering etc. to make everything as light as possible while also being able to perform a tough job in a tough environment. Doing all three is hard, remove any one and the job gets much easier. We are on our way to removing that one; mass.




Exponentially more people have died advancing automobile (racing or not) and aircraft technology than have died in space travel endeavors.






Listen to Putin and tell me that. Listen to Chinese President Hu Jintao tell the Chinese navy to prepare for combat and tell me that. Or how both of those nations support, arm, train, encourage and protect via the UN security Counsel rouge nations like Iran, North Korea, Syria etc. I don't want to take the discussion too far of track with this line but the world is far from being one big happy family ready to set off into space together.




Read "Star-Crossed Orbits: Inside the U.S.-Russian Space Alliance" by James Oberg. The Soviets/Russians have only worked with the US in space for what it could gain for themselves, which has been a tremendous amount of cash.





Absolutely, and competition is the best way to "achieve this goal quickly, safely and efficiently as possible".




No one is going to be "left behind" but someone does need to lead, I prefer the US be that leader.




That is all well and good if you just want to feel good about the process, if you're interested in the process itself succeeding then competition between countries, governments and private companies is the only way to achieve that in a timely efficient manner.

Well, it sounds like the problem might be the Russians aren't paying ENOUGH of a price to ensure reliability.




The Jedi Master

I read an article somewhere detailing how many tests etc. that the Russians had just decided not to do before launching this spacecraft. I'll post it if I can find it again.

That's the hard thing about Mars missions, you miss your launch window and it is another ~2 years before you can try again, so lots of pressure to launch on time.

Yeah and this mission was originally scheduled for 2009. They added 2 years to finish up and still missed the mark.

I refer to mine as Deep Impact.

And there is a little blue pill for that if one has failure with it; thankfully I haven't needed it.

Another Soyuz Failure

Russian space probe reportedly crashes into Pacific Ocean

More speculation on US interference:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/did-...xH5P_story.html

Along with what is likely the true reason.



The Jedi Master

Trying is the first step towards failure. - you say? That's not how progress goes.

Considering how much "Space Junk" is floating around. This type of occurrence will start to happen more frequently. It seems once a month these days.

Canada was hit last month with one. They can't even predict where this crap will fall. Head's Up!

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110920/space-junk-canada-110920/

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/space-j...07#.TxnmgyPD7yE