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> There is already much discussion about the current state of Russian industry and its ability to maintain the standards of yesteryear. Whatever the outcome of
by AdverseAffect 8y ago
> There is already much discussion about the current state of Russian industry and its ability to maintain the standards of yesteryear. Whatever the outcome of the inquiry, this event will only heighten those concerns and will underline to the US in particular the need to bring online new rocket systems. These vehicles, produced by the Boeing and SpaceX companies, are set to make their debut next year.
Is it just me, or is this unnecessarily hostile writing? This is literally rocket science, and the escape mechanisms seem to have worked perfectly. And at least the Russians do have (had) a working way to get stuff to iss, so I don't think these (uncited!) accusations are called for
- erazor42 8y agoBBC article, UK is not exactly best friend with Russia. (cf. Skripal stuff)
- sschueller 8y agoI agree, the writing seems quite hostile. Everything get politicized immediately nowadays which is quite sad.
- gameswithgo 8y agoSir, there was nothing political about the quoted paragraph assuming that it is accurate that the industry have been discussing russian space reliability. In fact it would be you who has politicized it now.
- ryanwaggoner 8y agoMa’am, something being accurate doesn’t preclude it being political.
- AdverseAffect 8y agoI'm not following news about space, and was just going from what I read. he article did not provide any context or sources for these claims. Now that HN has filled in thw gaps, it does sound like Russia might have a problem with their tech. But imo BBC should have quoted either other articles or experts on the matter when making statements like this
- standerman 8y agoInteresting comment considering you've submitted several articles that were quite negative about Elon Musk.
- hef19898 8y agoAnd that is not necessarily politicizing, at least not in a narrow sense.
- sschueller 8y agoYes, Elon, not SpaceX.
- ItsMe000001 8y agoI'm not sure how I feel about that argument, did we really just find a place where public attacks on a person are better? I would think at most people actually involved in something that relies on the person may have a valid argument for such a thing, if it sticks to a concrete subject they actually have reason to care about. Other than that, I don't see the general public getting involved in discussions of a person (as such, in general) as a good thing.
- sschueller 8y agoIf I am trying to determine if I should buy or sell TSLA because the CEO just called another man a "Pedo" or claiming "funds secured" I think discussing what this man has said is justified.
- vasili111 8y agoThis is what cold war looks like and it has not begun several years ago. Cold war just has not ended yet.
- jaypeg25 8y agoMight be a little hostile but none of it is inaccurate. American space experts have bemoaned the fact that we have had to rely on Russia to send people to Space since retiring the Shuttle, and have discussed its impact on national security, the economy, and just our plain old scientific knowledge.
- AdverseAffect 8y agoThanks. After reading up on it more, I agree. But Since BBC did not offer any follow up links, context, quotes or other sources for their claims, it sounded like unfounded accusations (to my uninformed ears)
- Entalpi 8y agoEveryone is not a rocket scientist nor an avid reader of space industry magazines and thus it kind of makes sense to gove the reader a bit of insigh in the general direction of the industry.
- danielvf 8y agoI agree, credit to Russia for having one of only two man rated rockets in the world. But Russia’s increasing failure rates have been an industry topic for a few years now though - it’s a valid concern. Here’s an article from two and a half years ago, “What’s the matter with Russia’s rockets?” after a string of similar failures with unmanned rockets. http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2016/20161201-whats-the-matter-russias-rockets.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2016/20161201-wha...
- smittywerben 8y agoSeems reminiscent to media sentiment left after the Cold-War era. [0] But I'm not knowledgeable in this area. I'm glad the safety worked as intended. I think space travel is necessary but expensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#Media_coverage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...
- tzfld 8y agoThe Russians had too many issues with their launchers in the past years, so this seems to be part of a trend, and not an isolated case. As you said, this is rocket science. High corruption level and incompetent officials can be very destructive in domains like space exploration.
- solarkraft 8y agoUnfortunately that's not a great argument for moving more of the work to the US :-)
- craftyguy 8y agoMaybe a case of "the corruption you might stand a chance to expose, vs. the corruption you don't"?
- adventured 8y agoThe US doesn't suffer from a very high level of corruption. So yes, it's a reasonable argument for moving more of the work to the US. Transparency International ranks the US with Belgium and just behind Australia and Iceland on corruption. Russia is #135, below Ukraine and Myanmar.
- adrianN 8y agoEh, launch failures are probably approximately Poisson distributed. It's not unlikely for them to appear in clumps.
- vasili111 8y agoJust too many problems with the Russian space program recently. It is systematic problem and not an exception.