Probe launched to Mars' moon

Check out this link

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111108-mars-moon-russia-phobos-grunt-soil-launch-space-science/?source=link_tw20111108news-russia

Your views?

Unfortunately, it's not off to a much better start than its 17 failed predecessors.

http://news.yahoo.com/russian-craft-fails-head-toward-mars-moon-ifax-031951633.html

I'd love to see it succeed, but frankly, I think the money could have been better used elsewhere.

Originally posted by WoodPush
Unfortunately, it's not off to a much better start than its 17 failed predecessors.

http://news.yahoo.com/russian-craft-fails-head-toward-mars-moon-ifax-031951633.html

I'd love to see it succeed, but frankly, I think the money could have been better used elsewhere.

And we in the US are now depending on Soviet era rockets to get OUR astronauts to the ISS......

Originally posted by sonhouse
And we in the US are now depending on Soviet era rockets to get OUR astronauts to the ISS......

Not necessarily a bad thing ... why re-invent the wheel?

What is interesting is French aspirations............................

Originally posted by sonhouse
And we in the US are now depending on Soviet era rockets to get OUR astronauts to the ISS......

Soviet-era rockets at least work - at least, the ones which they ended up with do. Were I ever lucky enough to visit the ISS, I'd rather go up in a Soyuz that in a Space "Semper Explodo" Shuttle.

RIchard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Soviet-era rockets at least work - at least, the ones which they ended up with do. Were I ever lucky enough to visit the ISS, I'd rather go up in a Soyuz that in a Space "Semper Explodo" Shuttle.

RIchard

In fairness to the space shuttle the chances of exploding were only empirically about 1 in 50...

Originally posted by googlefudge
In fairness to the space shuttle the chances of exploding were only empirically about 1 in 50...

So just make sure you only take 49 trips....
For the money we spent on the space shuttle, I wonder how many soyuz rockets could we have bought? Or even flights on the Soy?

Maybe we could have even arranged a trade, 2 slightly used shuttles for 50 soyuz flights....

Originally posted by sonhouse
So just make sure you only take 49 trips....
For the money we spent on the space shuttle, I wonder how many soyuz rockets could we have bought? Or even flights on the Soy?

Maybe we could have even arranged a trade, 2 slightly used shuttles for 50 soyuz flights....

Or alternatively the space program could have been run like commercial flight is where the
moment your latest design moves to production the next design is started on.
So that they didn't get stuck in the mud for decades.

Looks like it is stuck in orbit LOL.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=skywatcher-photos-stranded-phobos-grunt

Originally posted by sonhouse
So just make sure you only take 49 trips....
For the money we spent on the space shuttle, I wonder how many soyuz rockets could we have bought? Or even flights on the Soy?

Maybe we could have even arranged a trade, 2 slightly used shuttles for 50 soyuz flights....

Brings a new meaning to Soy Source.

-m.

Originally posted by mikelom
Brings a new meaning to Soy Source.

-m.

Oh man that was so bad it was good🙂