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Post by Adkenpachi on Oct 29, 2014 3:34:20 GMT -5
Now I want to watch the men who stare at goats again -.-
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Post by Adkenpachi on Oct 29, 2014 7:23:59 GMT -5
Wow... The Antares launch to resupply the ISS, that was delayed yesterday, just failed spectacularly. The first stage of the rocket blew up 5 seconds after launch and the remaining stages crashed back down onto the pad and exploded. That happened to many of the rockets that my dad worked on when he was with NASA during the early days of the U.S. space program. I feel bad for my friends who work for Orbital Sciences. Just saw the video on bbc website, very lucky it was unmanned... That was nuts
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Post by ElegaicRequiem on Oct 29, 2014 7:32:36 GMT -5
What's nuts is that we're still screwing up launches.
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 29, 2014 10:59:57 GMT -5
What's nuts is that we're still screwing up launches. That's because we don't have Germans building our rockets anymore.
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Post by RedsandRoyals on Oct 29, 2014 11:06:11 GMT -5
What's nuts is that we're still screwing up launches. That's because we don't have Germans building our rockets anymore. Aren't the Russians the ones who gave us our current rocket engines?
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 29, 2014 14:17:25 GMT -5
That's because we don't have Germans building our rockets anymore. Aren't the Russians the ones who gave us our current rocket engines? I've heard the same thing, so this might be corroboration. I can ask my friends who work for Orbital Sciences, once they've had a chance for stink/anger lines to stop radiating off of their heads, if it's true.
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Post by RedsandRoyals on Oct 29, 2014 15:52:57 GMT -5
I only heard it in the context of Russia saying they wouldn't sell us any more as a response to our sanctions against them for invading Ukraine ('Ukraine' never sounds right to me unless 'the' is in front of it).
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 29, 2014 16:24:19 GMT -5
I only heard it in the context of Russia saying they wouldn't sell us any more as a response to our sanctions against them for invading Ukraine ('Ukraine' never sounds right to me unless 'the' is in front of it). Now that you mention it that's the same story I heard... Oh well, now that we've proved that their engines are crap, I guess we don't have to worry about angering them and can design our own engines, and crank up the sanctions for Uncle Vladdy's misbehavin' in Ukraine to epic nuts level.
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Post by RedsandRoyals on Oct 29, 2014 17:16:01 GMT -5
Considering how NASA's budget has been gutted in recent years, refusing to sell us rocket engines really proves Russia is committed to hitting us where we're already hurting ourselves way more than they ever could.
Incidentally, do we know it was the engine that went all explodey, or was it something else that caused the issue?
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 29, 2014 18:15:10 GMT -5
From what I'm hearing the flight controllers detected a problem somewhere in the first stage and sent an auto-destruct instruction which caused the first explosion, and then gravity took over resulting in more fun explode-y action.
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 29, 2014 18:24:12 GMT -5
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 30, 2014 0:51:18 GMT -5
I was, of course, referring to Dr. Werner von Braun and his team of rocket scientists that we got to build our early rockets care of Operation Paperclip.
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Post by RedsandRoyals on Oct 30, 2014 1:45:25 GMT -5
Yeah. I was just commenting that we've shifted from the Germans to the Russians to help us get in to space these days.
And of course, "Made in Russia" is synonymous with quality.
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Post by Adkenpachi on Oct 30, 2014 5:15:21 GMT -5
Imagine a taiwonese space program!
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 30, 2014 8:12:24 GMT -5
Yeah. I was just commenting that we've shifted from the Germans to the Russians to help us get in to space these days. And of course, "Made in Russia" is synonymous with quality.Da, Comrade. Russian rocket enginez iz strong. LIKE BEAR!!! And only some of the timez explodez. LIKE EXPLODING BEAR!!! You haz vodka?
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Post by ElegaicRequiem on Oct 30, 2014 8:32:08 GMT -5
My rocket very good, da? Is big.
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 30, 2014 11:16:14 GMT -5
My rocket very good, da? Is big. Is very big, and can lift many gram of payload into orbit. Much better than Kazakh space program, which is model rocket strapped to donkey.
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 30, 2014 14:57:34 GMT -5
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Post by cheminhaler on Oct 30, 2014 15:19:39 GMT -5
Amazing outfit, Trooper.
Maybe take a quarter-staff with you, just in case the bugs attack.
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Post by ElegaicRequiem on Oct 30, 2014 17:55:03 GMT -5
Today I got the date for my second interview. All I have to do is convince someone that I'm not insane, and I'm in. I also have to have my internet not fail mid-interview.
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Post by emptyhat on Oct 31, 2014 11:42:52 GMT -5
Shockingly the Russians are suggesting that it was the American company's refurbishment of the rockets that is to blame. Of course it could just be because rockets just aren't that great after 40 years. "A previous failure of an AJ-26 occurred in June, 2011 – when the fourth Antares engine caught fire on the E-1 Test Stand. The fire was caused by a kerosene fuel leak in an engine manifold, with the root cause was subsequently determined to be stress corrosion cracking of the 40-year old metal."
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Post by RedsandRoyals on Oct 31, 2014 11:51:50 GMT -5
Yeah, the age is probably the real reason they're going kaboom.
The interesting part of that article, to me, was when they talk about the damage to the launch pad "being covered by insurance". I'd hate to see what NASA pays in premiums.
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Post by Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four on Oct 31, 2014 13:46:26 GMT -5
Apparently Virgin Galactic must be using refurbished Russian rocket engines too, as Spaceship Two blew up this afternoon during a test, and the fate of its pilots is unknown (although it's strongly believed that one of them may be dead).
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Post by Julian Sharps on Oct 31, 2014 17:21:18 GMT -5
It's a red letter day for the American space industry...
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Post by Adkenpachi on Oct 31, 2014 18:35:24 GMT -5
Its mind boggling they arent using modern tech, I guess its the budget issue. Americans need to be reinvigorated.
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