Posted on 12/11/2024 9:56:42 AM PST by Miami Rebel
(By the way, Jalopnik focuses on cars, as its name implies, but it also presents articles on other forms of transport. It's part of my daily morning ritual, indulging in reading it back-to-back with bringatrailer.com, an auto auction site where I can fantasize about buying a Shelby Cobra or an Alfa-Romeo Giulia.
It looks like stolen technology they couldn’t quite get to work
The shuttle was a political driven project and a lemon. The entire weight of the shuttle could have been payload to orbit. We should have used heavy lift rockets to orbit, not the shuttle. It should be noted that the vast percentage of the international space station was lifted to orbit by multiple heavy lift rockets. With heavy lift rockets we would not have lost two shuttles and subsequent death of astronauts.
The shuttle was a marvel of engineering at great cost. Heavy lift rockets was the way to go. Just ask Elon Musk. He knows.
“It’s amazing to see how far today’s Russia has plunged from when the Soviet Union was at its technological and military peak.”
I’m sure many foreigners can say something similar about the USA.
The Soviet Union back then was what China is today: the land of smoke and mirrors. They did have some worthwhile technological successes. The Russian people are genuinely some smart people. But a lot of the technologies were accomplished with a lot of human death and suffering. If OSHA could see the way the Soviets did their testing they’d have an aneurysm. And sometimes when things didn’t work, they faked it or just straight up lied to their own people. There were successes. But it was in spite of the Soviet system, not because of it.
CC
The first shuttle disaster probably caused the Russians to switch path.
We were heavily dependent on them to get about nauts to the space station after the ending of our space shuttle program.
“On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-51-L) broke apart just 73 seconds into its flight from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, resulting in the tragic loss of all seven crew members on board.”
I think the second disaster stopped that effort. We had to rely on Soviet transport after that.
“ The second space shuttle disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven crew members on board. This tragedy marked a devastating setback for the US space program, following the Challenger disaster in 1986.”
I’d say the Hubble fix mission was about the most important thing it did.
But the costs associated with the Shuttle could have allowed a number of Hubble replacements, so that too was a wash.
If your boss wants to sit next to you to the rocket ship to prove that the technology is safe… that fine. Just don’t listen to him when he orders you to sit there too !
This disaster killed the entire engineering team for this fuel system. That ended this program.
“On October 24, 1960, the Nedelin catastrophe, also known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome disaster, occurred at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Soviet Kazakhstan. It is the deadliest disaster in space exploration history, with more than 54 recognized casualties.
The tragedy occurred when a prototype R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile, being prepared for a test flight, experienced an electrical malfunction, causing the second stage engine to ignite prematurely. This led to a massive explosion, killing an unknown number of military and technical personnel working on the preparations. Chief Marshal of Artillery Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin, the head of the R-16 development program, was among those who perished.”
“The shuttle was a political driven project”
It was also designed to meet certain military missions.
I can’t imagine any foreigner saying that. With all our problems, our military dwarfs any other, and with every year that passes our technology surpasses that of the rest of the world’s by a greater degree.
The Russian public was unaware of many of these disasters until after the fall of communism.
CC
It was completely political anyway; the Kremlin told the Russian rocket scientists, "The Americans are building this 'Space Shuttle' thing; we need to build one too."
It reminds me of the Soviets ripping off Packards to make Zils. (Although at least the Russians got working cars out of it.)
British YouTuber, Bald and Bankrupt, visited it a couple of years ago…. https://youtu.be/0fZ-r5Qe3tM?si=hVrsL4Wf8hnHMH9x
IIRC he got arrested there.
So, it’s a hulking piece of space junk. But, how does it ‘rust’ in space where there is no oxygen? Other corrosions?
I think I got this info from the TV program: NASA: The Unexplained Files but I thought it was overgrown with fungus and bacteria.
Old news...Bald & Bankrupt vlog infiltrated the facility over two years ago. It got him permanently expelled from Russia, after he was arrested for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fZ-r5Qe3tM
His vlog is outstanding, must-see TV.
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