Space Stations: Past, Present, And Future

[pmccarthy]

You used to have to have tonsils and appendix out before going to Antarctica.

[willedoo]

Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft went splat. Not the soft landing they'd hoped for. The lander “has ceased to exist following a collision with the moon’s surface”, according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

[willedoo]

I guess we'd say it spun out of control. Roscosmos preferred to describe it as "Luna-25 switched to an off-design orbit before the collision".

[onetrack]

I wonder what the reason was behind the crash? Poor choice of electronics due to sanctions? (I've read they're ripping new washing machines apart to get the chips) - some info stolen by spies was purposely wrong, designed to stuff up their space efforts? - or the Russian problem of drunks in the system creating major issues?

[nomadpete]

Maybe they sourced some hardware from their best friends.... on alibaba.

[nomadpete]

In any case, I won't be waiting for the NTSB investigation report

[willedoo]

12 minutes ago, onetrack said:

I wonder what the reason was behind the crash? Poor choice of electronics due to sanctions? (I've read they're ripping new washing machines apart to get the chips) - some info stolen by spies was purposely wrong, designed to stuff up their space efforts? - or the Russian problem of drunks in the system creating major issues?

The 90 year old professor of astronomy who was heavily involved with the project called for an inquiry into the failure. He's in hospital; the stress of the failure must have been too great. He suspects the mathematics people stuffed the algorithms up. It doesn't look like any mechanical failure, more a software problem putting it into the wrong orbit trajectory.

 

I was reading where the new head of Roscosmos has dropped all the investigations into corruption in the organisation. It's likely parts substitution and dodgy behaviour will be a big issue for them. I bet the Yanks are happy they've now got the SpaceX option for the ISS. Travelling on the Soyuz might start to get riskier the way Russia is going about things.

[nomadpete]

But who is going volunteer to go up and investigate the wreckage?

[red750]

On tonight's news a NASA spokesman said the US is anxious to beat China to the lunar south pole "If China get there first, they'll say THIS IS OURS, EVERYONE ELSE NICK OFF." They hope to find ice or water which future astronauts can use.

[onetrack]

I was thinking that putting a 90 yr old in charge of your space programme is likely to be a recipe for disaster.

 

"Now where did I put that solar panel?? Oh, there it is! Inside the fuel tank! Silly me!!" 

 

Edited August 21, 2023 by onetrack

[willedoo]

13 hours ago, onetrack said:

I was thinking that putting a 90 yr old in charge of your space programme is likely to be a recipe for disaster.

He wasn't in charge of the show, but was a fairly major advisor. In the photo is Yury Borisov, who is now the head of Roscosmos. He doesn't look that bright, but they say he's a qualified mathematician as well as being a politician until his appointment as head of the space agency. The bloke he replaced last year was getting a bit too loopy, even for Russia, so putler sacked him. Borisov is ex deputy prime minister and he held the deputy defence minister role as well. Appoint a politician to head the space agency, who then halts all corruption investigations into the agency - what could possibly go wrong?

 

 

[willedoo]

Given the age of that professor who worked on the project, and the fact that the Russians haven't been to the moon for fifty years, I'm wondering whether he might have worked on the original Soviet Union lunar programmes.

[facthunter]

He's safe. If he was a girl, no one would take him out.  Nev

[red750]

India has soft-landed on the Lunar south pole.

[facthunter]

Only their lander. India is still where it was .   Nev

[nomadpete]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

Only their lander. India is still where it was .   Nev

True, but just think... the world would have suddenly felt a lot lighter if India did.

[facthunter]

There's a lot of them. anyhow they are celebrating a BIG achievement and it's one in the eye for Vlad.

[nomadpete]

4 hours ago, facthunter said:

There's a lot of them. anyhow they are celebrating a BIG achievement and it's one in the eye for Vlad.

Are you expecting another departmental  boss to suffer a sudden demise?

[willedoo]

The Russians have had a bit of previous trouble with landings. They were the first to land on the moon but it was what they call a hard landing, eg: a controlled crash. That one was planned. When Armstrong was on the moon, at the same time the Russian unmanned lander was crashing somewhere else on the Lunar surface. That was a planned soft landing that went wrong. The Apollo 11 mission had some rare (for the times) cooperation from the Russians toward NASA, providing location and tracking data so the two missions didn't endanger each other. I've never read the full story, but it sounds like the Soviets were trying to steal a bit of thunder from the American manned mission, and it backfired on them.

 

 

[willedoo]

And good on India; that will put putler's nose out of joint.

[spacesailor]

Congratulations! .

INDIA 

All that news worthy achievement for LESS THAN . ( $ 116 MILLION ) HALF OF AUSTRALIA'S  , $ 340 MILLION ' VOICE ' .PROPERGANDA .

spacesailor

Edited August 24, 2023 by spacesailor

[red750]

“Mushroom poisoning”: rocket scientist dies after Russia’s failed moon mission

 

A Russian rocket scientist has died as a result of mushroom poisoning. This reports the German news website fr.de with reference to the Russian newspaper MKRU.

 

Already on August 11, 77-year-old Vitaly Melnikov was hospitalized with severe poisoning. For weeks doctors tried to save his life, but without success. Melnikov had suffered from kidney failure and eventually died as a result. MKRU writes: “According to his relatives, he collected mushrooms every summer and had never been poisoned by forest food before. He always went mushroom hunting alone and enjoyed being one with nature.”

 

Melnikov worked at RSC Energia, the largest space company in Russia. There, he headed the department for rocket and space systems and took part in many scientific experiments. Among other things, he was involved in the Russian mission with the Luna 25 space probe, which was supposed to land on the moon. It hit the lunar surface on August 20 and crashed.

[onetrack]

There obviously weren't enough windows at height in his research building?

[facthunter]

It's the Mushroom Clouds I'm worried about..  Nev

[red750]

Well Said William Shatner!✨🇨🇦🚀💫🪐 🌎
“Last year, I had a life-changing experience at 90 years old. I went to space, after decades of playing an iconic science-fiction character who was exploring the universe. I thought I would experience a deep connection with the immensity around us, a deep call for endless exploration.
"I was absolutely wrong. The strongest feeling, that dominated everything else by far, was the deepest grief that I had ever experienced.
"I understood, in the clearest possible way, that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death. I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, of adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with. I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting so starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet.
"This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realized that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside. I did my share in popularizing the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. And that we have been ravaging it, relentlessly, making it uninhabitable."
-- William Shatner, actor❤️🇨🇦❤️