Posted on 01/26/2004 2:32:41 PM PST by ambrose
Last Update: Tuesday, January 27, 2004. 1:03am (AEDT)
Russia, US can collaborate in Mars exploration: Putin
Russia and the United States can collaborate in exploring Mars, Russian President Vladimir Putin told US Secretary of State Colin Powell in talks on Monday.
Congratulating the envoy on the US mission that has seen two probes land on the surface of the Red Planet in the past three weeks, Mr Putin said that Russia "has noted with interest President Bush's ambitious plans for the conquest of Mars," the Interfax news agency reported.
"I believe that in this area there are things we can do together," Mr Putin said.
Mr Powell for his part said that he was "pleased with the developments that are on the horizon with respect to continued cooperation in space."
Mr Bush earlier this month said his administration planned to send American astronauts back to the Moon as early as 2015, perhaps to set up a base to provide a springboard for a manned mission to Mars, and invited other space powers to join in the initiative.
The initial response from Moscow was cool however.
Russian space officials hinted that Moscow was capable of launching its own Mars mission at considerably lower cost than the US proposal, but Deputy Prime Minister Boris Alyoshin said last week that "the time is not right" for such a mission.
The US probe Opportunity landed on the Mars surface on Saturday with a similar exploratory mission to Spirit, which landed on Mars on January 3 but broke down last week.
Opportunity began transmitting pictures back to Earth that US space officials described as a "scientific jackpot."
Who cares? What does a top ten list of astronauts flight times have to do with a space program safety record?
Why did the Russian's attempt to build a reusable space shuttle, by copying the US model fail?
I suppoe it's all relative. We've had many more missions than the Russians.
Our equiptment is better made than the Russians. You don't see Air Force One being grounded for an important meeting as their's was. You don't see any of our critical control systems blink in a moment of need like the Meer space station.
Despite NASA's rush to launch and PCness that have caused the last failures, US made space vehicles are better tested and safer. They need to repair their management. Russia needs to refine product quality.
Don't you think at least the footprints around Tranquility Base should not be trampled over?
You don't think keeping someone in space for 437 days CONTINOUSLY (a year and almost 3 months - Polyakov) is a little bit more risky than sending someone up for 15 minutes (Shepard)?
Lack of money.
Why has NASA failed to place a lander on Venus?
So maybe the Russians decided that fewer people per spacecraft is a safer method.
More stats:
Russians (two fatal accidents):
1 vehicle destroyed - crew of one dead
1 vehicle returned intact - crew of three deadAmericans (two fatal accidents):
2 vehicles destroyed - two crews of 14 dead
The first American was launched into space since the Columbia shuttle disaster on Saturday, aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.
U.S. astronaut Dr Edward Lu and Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazkahstan to the International Space Station (ISS), with Russian space craft now the only link with the ISS after the shuttle program was grounded.
NASA is conducting a lengthy investigation into the February 1 accident that killed seven crew as their shuttle disintegrated on re-entry and does not expect to resume flights for a year. NASA concedes that Soyuz is uniquely safe.
"It's the most reliable spacecraft in the world in terms of its safety record. They've been flying Soyuz vehicles for 36 years but they've only had two accidents," NASA spokesman Mr Rob Navias told AFP.
"They've used the same technology for decades, and it works," he added.
On April 24, 1967, the first manned Soyuz to be launched on a test flight exploded on its return to Earth, killing the cosmonaut on board. Then on June 30, 1971, three Russian astronauts died as their Soyuz vessel re-entered the atmosphere. Since then, there have been no accidents involving manned craft.
The disappearance of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia came 17 years after space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after launch on January 28, 1986, killing six crew and one passenger-observer.
Leonid Mordasov, a top official from the TsNIIMASH space research institute, says current Russian space technology dates back to the 1960s. The Shuttle program began in the 1970s. But the relative lack of money, compared to the United States, forced designers to devote much greater attention to safety mechanisms, he said.
"Our rockets and launchers were made a long time ago, with modest resources but with a triple margin of safety," he told AFP. "We did not count on 'absolute' reliability, but on having the option to save the crew at all times. For every stage of the flight, there is a special safety mechanism..
The Americans, in contrast, spent huge funds on developing top-of-the-range technology to make the shuttle as safe as possible, but did not foresee the need to make adjustments in an emergency.
"The U.S. shuttle flight is extremely expensive and they had to give up additional security measures and rely on the quality of their components," said Mordasov.
At the tip of the Soyuz rocket is an engine that can be activated instantaneously to eject the module in which the astronauts are located. This was used twice, in 1975, when two Russian astronauts landed safely after bailing out when their Soyuz hit trouble a few minutes into the flight, and in 1983 when another two-man crew ejected after the rocket burst into flames at the launch-pad.
For US shuttles, in contrast, it takes several minutes to evacuate at launch as the crew have to get out of their seats and climb out of the hatch to escape. Inflight, parachuting out is only possible for a small part of the trajectory.
Valery Ryumin from space construction firm Energiya, believes another factor is the long years of experience in the Russian space industry, which employs 800,000 people. "Despite the break-up of the Soviet Union, we managed to keep the backbone of our experts, that's the most important," he said.
"People work for us for decades, while in the United States they hire a new group for every new project. There are few books, manuals in our sector. People learn from experience, and this human experience is irreplaceable," added Ryumin.
That is exactly what I originally said. U.S. fatalities - 14, Russian - 4. I did not include Apollo 1 deaths. Only when goaded into comparing equal vehicles did I include them because Apollo 1 as a vehicle killed 3 people. The Apollo program itself has no actual space fatalities.
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