budthespud
07-28-2005, 12:09 PM
Published July 27, 2005
It's time to thank the Russians.
Thank them for keeping the international space station afloat while the shuttle has been in Mr. Goodwrench's shop.
For more than two years they have ferried astronauts, delivered the Tang and taken out the garbage.
Without them, our choices would have been to aim the space station at the Pacific or slap duct tape on the external fuel tank and hope for the best.
And to think NASA officials once wanted to jettison the Russians from the space station.
They complained the Russians were broke and causing delays. They were a bumbling bunch of low-tech Ivans. They bolted together sewer pipes, filled them with kerosene, put a couple of astronauts on top and sent them to that orbiting bucket of bolts known as Mir.
But Bill Clinton kept the Russians on board.
Smart guy, that Bill.
The Russians are running a safer, more reliable space program than we are. Since Columbia burned up in the atmosphere, the Russians have sent five manned missions to the space station.
The genius of the Russians is that they keep it simple.
Their Soyuz capsule first flew in 1967. The parachute failed and a cosmonaut died. Three more cosmonauts died in 1971 when the capsule lost pressure upon re-entry.
Nobody has died in a manned Soviet/Russian spaceflight since.
Meanwhile, 14 astronauts have died on the shuttle. The Challenger and Columbia accidents shut down the American space program for more than five years at a cost of billions of dollars.
The Russians, meanwhile, just keep on flying.
They found a basic design that worked and stuck to it.
The Americans came up with a much more complicated design and almost 25 years later, they still don't understand it.
To get their capsules into orbit, Russians use the 1960s-era Soyuz rocket. It is the workhorse of their space program, lifting off more than 1,000 times with everything from military satellites to space tourist Dennis Tito on board.
It is what space engineers refer to as a "Big Dumb Booster."
Think of a rusty, 1967 Chevy pickup that has 245,000 miles and cranks every time.
The Russian rockets are like a rock.
When you've been flying the same system for decades, you get a handle on the glitches. You tend not to be blindsided by burned O-rings and falling foam. And when things go wrong, you can figure out the problem and fix it.
After an unmanned Soyuz blew up during a 2002 liftoff, the Russians quickly ruled out a design flaw and safely launched astronauts less than a month later. Compare that to the delays following an American launch mishap.
The Russians have spent decades minimizing what can go wrong with spaceflight while we have been going in the opposite direction.
I'd sooner strap my fanny to a Soyuz than a shuttle.
I'd trust Ivan with his pipe wrench more than a Cal Tech Ph.D. with his computer.
I'm not alone. Those masters of copyright infringement, the Chinese, did not bootleg a shuttle to start their manned space program. They cloned Soyuz.
The shuttle program faces retirement in 2010. A planned high-tech replacement called the X-33 was so high tech it was deemed impracticable, and canceled after $1.3 billion was spent on it. Now we have something called the Crew Exploration Vehicle scheduled for launch in 2014 at a cost of $15 billion. It will introduce a whole new generation of glitches into our space program.
The Soyuz was flying almost 15 years before the first shuttle flight and will be flying after the last shuttle comes in for a landing at the Smithsonian. Unlike the shuttle, Soyuz is not broken.
I would not be the least bit surprised if we have to rely on it to also bail out the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
Thank goodness we have those bumbling Russians and their antiquated space program.
Mike Thomas can be reached at 407-420-5525 or mthomas@orlandosentinel.com <mailto:mthomas@orlandosentinel .com>.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom/space/orl-asecdiscthomas27072705jul27,0, 1224685.column?coll=orl-news-headlines-space
It's time to thank the Russians.
Thank them for keeping the international space station afloat while the shuttle has been in Mr. Goodwrench's shop.
For more than two years they have ferried astronauts, delivered the Tang and taken out the garbage.
Without them, our choices would have been to aim the space station at the Pacific or slap duct tape on the external fuel tank and hope for the best.
And to think NASA officials once wanted to jettison the Russians from the space station.
They complained the Russians were broke and causing delays. They were a bumbling bunch of low-tech Ivans. They bolted together sewer pipes, filled them with kerosene, put a couple of astronauts on top and sent them to that orbiting bucket of bolts known as Mir.
But Bill Clinton kept the Russians on board.
Smart guy, that Bill.
The Russians are running a safer, more reliable space program than we are. Since Columbia burned up in the atmosphere, the Russians have sent five manned missions to the space station.
The genius of the Russians is that they keep it simple.
Their Soyuz capsule first flew in 1967. The parachute failed and a cosmonaut died. Three more cosmonauts died in 1971 when the capsule lost pressure upon re-entry.
Nobody has died in a manned Soviet/Russian spaceflight since.
Meanwhile, 14 astronauts have died on the shuttle. The Challenger and Columbia accidents shut down the American space program for more than five years at a cost of billions of dollars.
The Russians, meanwhile, just keep on flying.
They found a basic design that worked and stuck to it.
The Americans came up with a much more complicated design and almost 25 years later, they still don't understand it.
To get their capsules into orbit, Russians use the 1960s-era Soyuz rocket. It is the workhorse of their space program, lifting off more than 1,000 times with everything from military satellites to space tourist Dennis Tito on board.
It is what space engineers refer to as a "Big Dumb Booster."
Think of a rusty, 1967 Chevy pickup that has 245,000 miles and cranks every time.
The Russian rockets are like a rock.
When you've been flying the same system for decades, you get a handle on the glitches. You tend not to be blindsided by burned O-rings and falling foam. And when things go wrong, you can figure out the problem and fix it.
After an unmanned Soyuz blew up during a 2002 liftoff, the Russians quickly ruled out a design flaw and safely launched astronauts less than a month later. Compare that to the delays following an American launch mishap.
The Russians have spent decades minimizing what can go wrong with spaceflight while we have been going in the opposite direction.
I'd sooner strap my fanny to a Soyuz than a shuttle.
I'd trust Ivan with his pipe wrench more than a Cal Tech Ph.D. with his computer.
I'm not alone. Those masters of copyright infringement, the Chinese, did not bootleg a shuttle to start their manned space program. They cloned Soyuz.
The shuttle program faces retirement in 2010. A planned high-tech replacement called the X-33 was so high tech it was deemed impracticable, and canceled after $1.3 billion was spent on it. Now we have something called the Crew Exploration Vehicle scheduled for launch in 2014 at a cost of $15 billion. It will introduce a whole new generation of glitches into our space program.
The Soyuz was flying almost 15 years before the first shuttle flight and will be flying after the last shuttle comes in for a landing at the Smithsonian. Unlike the shuttle, Soyuz is not broken.
I would not be the least bit surprised if we have to rely on it to also bail out the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
Thank goodness we have those bumbling Russians and their antiquated space program.
Mike Thomas can be reached at 407-420-5525 or mthomas@orlandosentinel.com <mailto:mthomas@orlandosentinel .com>.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom/space/orl-asecdiscthomas27072705jul27,0, 1224685.column?coll=orl-news-headlines-space