http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/01/17/shuttle.astronaut.reut/index.html

1/17/2006 5:47:43 PM

i read part of the article and have no idea what you are talking about by saying Russians

1/17/2006 5:50:57 PM

It goes back to an earlier thread here where some idiot (Grumpy?) was trying to explain to me that all Russian success in space is due to their disregard of human life and hence willingness to cut corners.

1/17/2006 5:53:22 PM

so make another thread about it instead of finding the original thread you are referring to!!!1

1/17/2006 6:05:19 PM

Man, if people didn't create new threads to talk about old topics, nobody would post here at all.

1/17/2006 7:55:19 PM

a lot of dead horses would go unbeaten

1/17/2006 8:26:38 PM

We can't let the horses off the hook! Think of the children!

1/17/2006 9:07:37 PM

Quote :

"Further humiliations lay ahead, like the time Mullane tried on a NASA-issued condom -- used for urine collection in weightlessness -- and watched the too-large sheath drop off and fall to the floor."

1/17/2006 10:18:40 PM

Quote :

"It goes back to an earlier thread here where some idiot (Grumpy?) was trying to explain to me that all Russian success in space is due to their disregard of human life and hence willingness to cut corners."

Funny considering the Russians have a better safety record than us. We go fancy, but they build reliability. (I think an engineer once pointed out that with regards to space and weapons systems, the United States made slick, complex, and cutting edge systems and were satisified with 80% reliability while the Russian stuff, though less sexy, worked 99%).

1/17/2006 10:28:39 PM

in soviet russia, horse beats you!

1/17/2006 10:53:34 PM

the russian shit always looked like total ass though. i mean it looked like a fucking rusty tin can with a few bottle rockets glued to the back.

1/17/2006 11:00:26 PM

The American shit often looked like a bunch of burned corpses. But I guess to each his own.

1/17/2006 11:03:39 PM

^ I expected more from you.

Nevermind, I forgot who you were.

1/17/2006 11:17:34 PM

You expecting anything of me would be an insult to me.

1/17/2006 11:34:01 PM

Quote :

"Funny considering the Russians have a better safety record than us. We go fancy, but they build reliability."

Oh really?

//// Begin Quoting:
Soyuz 11 was launched and docked with Salyut 1 and completed a successful 24 day mission. But it was with the undocking from Salyut 1 to return to earth that an air pressure valve, normally activated after reentry, accidentally opened in orbit depressurizing Soyuz 11 and killing the whole crew. This was due in part to the crew not wearing any pressure suits. Russia had its second set of space casualties with burial in the Kremlin Wall.

At the Baikonur Space Center in Central Asia (now part of Kazakhstan), in an incident referred to as the Nedelin Catastrophe, the second stage on an experimental R-16 ICBM accidentally ignited on the launch pad. Basically, this was the equivalent of pointing a fifty-foot blowtorch right at the fuel tank of the first stage, and the entire rocket detonated. Because of the decades-long cover-up of this incident by the Soviet government, not brought to light until the 1990s, the precise number of casualties remains unknown to this day. Sources quote figures ranging from 54 to over 200.

Some tragedies in space the Soviets could not cover up. The first public casualty of the cosmonaut program was V.M. Komarov, who died in 1967 after the parachute on his Soyuz 1 spacecraft failed to deploy during final descent.

On March 18, 1980, 48 technicians died at Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome when a Vostok booster exploded while being fueled. An investigation later revealed that the substitution of lead-based for tin-based solder in hydrogen peroxide filters had resulted in the breakdown of the hydrogen peroxide and the resulting explosion. The incident was reported to the general public only in 1989, almost ten years later, in the era of glasnost'.

In 1983, in an angry response to Reagan's SDI initiatives, Premier Andropov ordered the Terra-3 laser complex at Sary Shagan to fire a "warning shot" at the orbiting Challenger Space Shuttle. The facility tracked Challenger with a laser on 10 October 1984. This beam has been called "low-powered," but it still had enough oomph to reach up over 200 miles through the atmosphere into space. It caused no physical damage to the spacecraft, but its intensity caused malfunctions in on-board optical equipment and temporarily dazzled some of the crew's vision. The US protested, but the Soviets were unrepentant.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040503/shadows.shtml

1/18/2006 12:32:57 AM

Quote :

"It goes back to an earlier thread here where some idiot (Grumpy?) was trying to explain to me that all Russian success in space is due to their disregard of human life and hence willingness to cut corners."

I cannot recall ever having said any such thing.

1/18/2006 2:17:14 AM

http://astronautix.com/

Russian Launch Vehicles:

Soyuz 11A511U - Launches: 714. Failures: 19. Success Rate: 97.34% pct.
Soyuz 11A511U2 - Launches: 92. Failures: 2. Success Rate: 97.83% pct.


Not too shabby. Combine the reliability of a proven launch vehicle, used almost unchanged for 35 years now, with the Soyuz spacecraft's all-aspect abort capability, and you have a much safer program than NASA does with the shuttle.

To be fair though, many of Russia's unmanned rockets don'tt seem to be any more reliable than the equivalent American boosters. The Protons, in specific, seem to blow up almost as much as the Titans do.

1/18/2006 4:50:10 AM

Quote :

"The American shit often looked like a bunch of burned corpses. But I guess to each his own."

awww, did i hurt your pride? did my statement hurt the pride of the rodina? please give me a fucking break.

the point was that the russian stuff always looked so unsafe that people got the idea it WAS unsafe, regardless. our stuff looked polished and appeared very safe, so even when accidents occurred people still had the idea we had it safer.

that being said, if i was given the chance to go into space, even if it was in a chinese space shuttle copy that was built for $13,000, i'd still be strapping in and raring to go.

[Edited on January 18, 2006 at 8:49 AM. Reason : *]

1/18/2006 8:48:46 AM

Quote :

"awww, did i hurt your pride? did my statement hurt the pride of the rodina? please give me a fucking break."

You stupid prick, I don't take pride in any of Russian accomplishments in space. I wasn't even born when all of that happened. I'm not some stupid patriot who thinks being born in a particular place makes you eligible for glory earned by others.

However, facts are facts. American space ships are pieces of shit, which is why American spacecrews travel by Russian ships.

Quote :

"the point was that the russian stuff always looked so unsafe that people got the idea it WAS unsafe, regardless. our stuff looked polished and appeared very safe, so even when accidents occurred people still had the idea we had it safer."

God, are you a moron. You thought Russian stuff was unsafe because you were a sheep and brainwashed to think that way. And you thought American stuff was safe for the same reason people before you thought hiding under chair during a nuclear attack was safe. They were morons and had little regard for facts, which were available even at that time.

[Edited on January 18, 2006 at 9:48 AM. Reason : . ]

1/18/2006 9:45:30 AM

Quote :

"You thought Russian stuff was unsafe"

funny, i keep reading that and reading that and can't find an I in there. wierd.

i guess when you're a hairlip whose first language isn't english, you can insert whatever you want.

[Edited on January 18, 2006 at 9:51 AM. Reason : *]

1/18/2006 9:51:02 AM

Quote :

"I cannot recall ever having said any such thing."

Don't you know by now it doesn't matter if someone actually said it or not. If he wants to argue and make a complete ass out of himself, gosh darn it, he's going to.

1/18/2006 9:57:06 AM

Unsafe, fine. hell. How many Americans have died in our space program?
How many Russians? Hell, how many Russians that we know about is a better question because the Russians were able to cover up most of their disasters.

To my memory, the US has lost 3 in a fire in an apollo capsul, 14 in space shuttles, 1 died in a simulator accident, and I don't know how many on the ground (someone tell me). This adds up to 18 people.

Just using the low figures from my web-search for Russian Casualties, 3 from Soyuz 11, 54 from Baikonur, 1 from Soyuz 1, 48 from Plesetsk Cosmodrome. This adds up to 106.

18 vs 106. Not that it matters, we probably just got lucky. But this information exists, why is this discussion even taking place? The russian stuff was not any safer, it was the successful coverups that made it look safe.

1/18/2006 10:10:47 AM

Well you have to take into account that our astronauts were a hell of a lot smarter than their cosmonauts.

1/18/2006 10:21:22 AM

I wish I was from a country that never did anything wrong

man that would rock

1/18/2006 11:05:37 AM

Dude, we went over this. Baikonur and Plesetsk had NOTHING to do with Russian space program. So you were the moron in question. My apologies to Grumpy. There's just too many of you here.

The total number was 5. Nothing was covered up.

P.S. 30thAnn: Are you heavily drinking now and having memory lapses? "People got the idea it was unsafe". Who wrote that, you moron?

[Edited on January 18, 2006 at 11:15 AM. Reason : .]

1/18/2006 11:12:26 AM

DID I SAY "I GOT THAT IDEA"?

YOU SAID "You thought Russian stuff was unsafe"

NOW WHERE IS THE PART WHERE YOU AREN'T A FUCKING IDIOT?

1/18/2006 11:17:03 AM

"You" meant "you americans". You personally weren't even fucking alive at the time. But what a nice cop out for a third grader.

1/18/2006 11:19:30 AM

i am older than you are, dickface.

1/18/2006 11:21:32 AM

mathfreak = pwned?

I can't believe it!

1/18/2006 11:51:51 AM

Yes, an old fart behaves like a third grader, and MathFreak is pwnt. Whatever floats your boat...

1/18/2006 11:54:14 AM

oh how my boat is floaten

1/18/2006 11:55:45 AM

mathfreak "pwns" himself by being an arrogant douche

1/18/2006 12:04:48 PM

And we still pay Russia to haul our boys to space because our own shit is broken.

Half of you are fucking retarded.

1/18/2006 12:27:12 PM

^ Yes, the space shuttle was a stupid idea and still is. So what? I was not arguing that America was better, simply that we had killed fewer people.

Quote :

"Baikonur and Plesetsk had NOTHING to do with Russian space program."

Then what did they have to do with? Since when are we only counting the deaths of astronauts?

Quote :

"The total number was 5. Nothing was covered up."

Eh? Then why did the Russian's, in 1991, say they covered-up said disasters if, in fact, they never occured or were never covered up?

All things equal, I'd admit the Russian space program was better. Yes, it may have killed more technicians, but it was far more financially effective (always a good thing when it comes to government programs). Ultimately, neither space program should have taken place, but I digress.

[Edited on January 18, 2006 at 12:49 PM. Reason : .,.]

1/18/2006 12:48:47 PM

Quote :

"I'm not some stupid patriot who thinks being born in a particular place makes you eligible for glory earned by others."

Quote :

"You thought Russian stuff was unsafe because you were a sheep and brainwashed to think that way. And you thought American stuff was safe for the same reason people before you thought hiding under chair during a nuclear attack was safe. They were morons and had little regard for facts, which were available even at that time."

But I guess it doesn't make you eligible to sit on a high horse and look down on everyone born in a different place.

1/18/2006 1:26:39 PM

It does if "everyone born in a different place" are patriots, i.e. think that their babies are fundamentally better than other babies.

And "a different place" here is really irrelevant. If you think I think any better of Russian patriots, you're mistaken.

1/18/2006 1:35:18 PM

In Soviet Russia, human life disregards you.




THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE FIRST REPLIES. PICK IT UP, SOAP BOX.

1/18/2006 1:41:32 PM

i blame cheese

1/18/2006 3:54:07 PM