Outdated in Outer Space: Russia's Soyuz Program Crashes and Burns By Benjamin Bidder in Moscow As I said before, without any schadenfreude (= злорадства, the Russian space technology works but it hopelessly outdated. I was laughed of the forum by some Russian and American members. Maybe Europeans and Russians should work together on developing a new set of rockets and manned space-craft? Maybe even a spacelift!
And yet the Russians are the only ones left with any means of going up there... Let them fly brooms for all I care, they are the space champions of today. Thanks, Obama for losing space race for us
Uhm, it is Mr. Bush Jr. that decided to phase-out the Space Shuttle program. That is a fact. The problem with the Soyuz-program is that it is hopelessly outdated. The strength of the Russian program is that it is cheap as hell, it's the most cost-effective way of putting x amount of kg into outer space.
This is all correct. The Space Shuttle had to go. It was a giant money sink that served very little practical purpose now that the heavy lifting and assembling of ISS is complete. Personally, I'd rather robots with American flags stenciled on their sides floating out to every inch of our solar system and looking for minerals, precious metals and other geological structures and exploitable natural resources. Who knows? Maybe some rare and exotic space element is waiting to be discovered that could advance our metallurgical processing by leaps and bounds? That is what we should be looking for. let the Russians and other 3rd world countries play in the LEO wading pool while we advance far far beyond.
It happened on Obama's watch, therefore it is his fault. However outdated Russian rockets are, they are the only ones that are flying. Thanks, Obama...
Eleborate, please. Why to change pretty reliable and cheap missile and spaceship? What is the point of building "advanced", expencive and dangerous to people inside shuttles?
