The dawn of US space age

Gather up folks, two birds down, one to go.

Next up after the failed Icaruses ... Orbital and White Knight comes SpaceX CRS-5 at Dec 9, 2014. What surprises await?

Will Musk's downed karma be redeemed after him laying off 400 people without notice?

Hey CNN had the Proton launches covered frontline on the news, so let's gather all eyes on the downing of US space age.

Here:

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ambitions you see, are not above people. And safety of every man and woman on this planet depends on mutual cooperation. Only through mutual cooperation, only through unity, will we reach space. US needs to learn that lesson, cooperation with other nations. Otherwise **** like this will happen and all of the space ambitions go to hell.

Remember MIR? The first space station? It stands for "Peace" and that gave birth to the beginning of space age. So banning Russian rocket engines just because they are Russian and halting space industry just because Russia had involvement in it...well that backfires on the nation of USA that got its supremacy in the way of its humanity.

So I ask Elon Musk,

"Are your ambitions, above your humanity?"

 

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Not surprisingly you have a rather selective memory of history. I don’t suppose you recall all those lunar landings? Two, you apparently are clueless with respect to the strategic change well underway in the US space program. The US space program is moving into the commercial realm which will open up funding and inspire innovation. With this strategic change, government will not be alone in developing technology and outer space will become more commercially available to virtually everyone. That is a big move.

Three, SpaceX (i.e. Musk) laid of those 400 workers 3 months ago. Four, those pictures are pictures of Virgin Galatic’s space ship and not Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. Virgin Galactic isn’t owned by or controlled by Elon Musk. You are blaming the wrong guy. It is owned by British billionaire and Peer of the Realm Sir Richard Branson…oops. A British billionaire entrepreneur is developing his space ship in The United States. That seems cooperative to me. So you need to get your facts straight.

Your talk of “mutual cooperation and unity” is nice but misdirected. You need to be teaching your idol, Mr. Putin, about cooperation and mutual cooperation. What Putin did in Georgia, Estonia, and Ukraine wasn’t mutual and it wasn’t cooperative.

One final point, mutual cooperation and unity are not incompatible with ambition. If there were an American business hall of fame, it would be filled with businessmen and women who were both ambitious but also cooperative and all around good folks.

 

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Excellent post Joe: you made several of the points that occurred to me. However, one small correction: Branson, being only a knight, is not a peer of the realm. To be considered that he would need to be elevated to at least a baron.

 

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And because they fail and blow the launch vehicle to bits.

 

Yeah look at statistics who flies the most and which rocket is the most reliable, before you say anything bad.

 

Great! So here's an opportunity for Russia to cooperate with the US - upgrade those engines.

Skylab - launched 1973.
Mir - launched 1986.

 

Salyut 1 - launched 1971 . So what?

You don't get USA did upgrade the Russian Engines, and these upgraded engines BLEW UP thanks to Aerojet supplied to Orbital's Antares.

 

Yes, I remember that. Everyone on that station died, as I recall. Fortunately both Skylab and the ISS have somewhat better safety records.

 

Ok than, ISS has few fatalities thanks to INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, not just US asserting its glory.

But here are the death statistics of all astronauts and cosmonauts in spaceflight and in training:

RUSSIA/USSR: 1 in 1961 (Valetin B.) 1 in 1967 (Soyuz 1), 1 in 1968 (Soyuz 3), 3 in 1971 (Soyuz 11), 1 in 1993 (Sergey V.)

USA: 1 in 1964 (Theodore F.), 2 in 1966 (Elliot See and Charles B), 3 in 1967 (Apollo 1), 1 in 1967 (Clifton C.C.), 1 in 1967 (Robert L.), 7 in 1986 (STS-51-L), 7 in 2003 (STS-107)

TOTAL DEATHS COUNT:

RUSSIA/USSR: 7
USA: 22

 

Sounds about right. And we've sent three times as many Americans into space as Russia has sent Russians - so the death rates are about the same.

 

total/dead

USA: 334/22 =15.18 so about every 15th person from USA will die.
USSR/RUSSIA: 117/7 = 16.7 so about every 17th person from Russia will die.

Which flight you want to take if you are the 15th person in line?

Also do realize that Russia has more cosmonauts than 117, that is counting the Soviet Bloc cosmonauts.

 

I can't believe you are so nationalistic that you are arguing over the difference between a 1:15 and a 1:17 death rate! What is wrong with you?

 

Actual numbers:
US: 343/22=15.59
Russia: 114/7=16.28
(source: http://www.worldspaceflight.com/bios/stats1.php)

So by your standards, about one fatality for every 16 people from both places.

Like I said, about the same. If you want to take a few tenths as proof that you're better - while celebrating the deaths of US astronauts - feel free. (Sort of a scummy thing to do IMO, but that's your thing I guess.)

I'd take either.

 

Well, your numbers are not very appropriate. The important metric here is number of incidents, not number of deaths. Because the US sends up larger craft with more people aboard. The US also uses new technology. Russia is still using the Proton missile system developed back in 1965 with some modifications. When you look at the number of space flight accidents resulting in fatalities, it is two for two. And then you have to considered, the old Soviet Union was very secretive about their failures. So we really don't know if we know the veracity and completeness of the Soviet data. And given that the US isn't using the same thing over and over again (e.g. space shuttle) and Russia is, that gives the trophy to the Americans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents

 

elliot see and charles bassit died in a t-38 crash and had nothing to do with space flight or training.

related:
who is theodore f., clifton c.c., and robert l.?
i don't remember reading anything about the above 3 and how they died.

 

Yea, Hear Ye: The SPCA wants the USSR's deaths to count poor monkey Ham - intentionally not returned to earth!

 

Like I said I have included the spaceflight training accidents as well.

Theodore Freeman

Clifton "C.C." Williams

Robert Lawrence

there are all training spaceflight jet crashes

 

see and bassit did not die in a training flight.
they were on their way to view some NASA related stuff when their jet crashed into the building they were going to be in.

the only "training flight" jet crashes would be crashes of the vomit comet.

the apollo 1 tragedy wasn't a training flight, it was a demonstration test of the "all up" concept.
apollo 1 never flew, nor was it intended to.

the only US astronauts lost in flight were the challenger and columbia crews. (14 people total)

 

Their deaths were a direct consequence of their roles as astronauts. All astronaut pilots, as routine in the 60s at least, regularly flew these trainers, ostensibly to maintain their skill sets that would be beneficial in spaceflight.

To exclude the Apollo 1 deaths is taking pedantry to a new level.

 

yes, they (bassit and see) were astronauts at the time of their deaths, but they weren't performing any type of "training exercise".

again correct, but these astronauts were killed on the ground, not in flight.

without having much else to do, i've consulted an astronaut "factbook" dated april 2013.
it lists 52 former US astronauts that are now dead.
a breakdown by cause:
challenger, apollo 1, and columbia 17
no cause listed 7
t-38 crash 4
at home (old age) 1
illness 14
accidents 9