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you would hesitate to download and install a Russian app, yet it seems ok to attach a Russian module to ISS :) Supposedly because Russian module for ISS passed

by trhway 5y ago

you would hesitate to download and install a Russian app, yet it seems ok to attach a Russian module to ISS :) Supposedly because Russian module for ISS passed stricter checks. According to whom? Russian team has just participated in Olympics without state flag and symbols because of doping testing scandal. The sport and space are among the main pillars of the Russian state self-glorification, and everything goes when it comes to face-saving there. In the second half of the 199x i had an acquaintance who was director of a department building some electronic systems for Russian space. He told me a lot of backstories of how the Russian space sausage was being made. From sourcing parts for the Mir station at the local flea market ("Avtovo" who still remembers) to "what do you want, the whole year the salaries weren't paid and nobody was working, and a month before the launch they pay the salaries and the satellite is hastily built, no testing to speak of, and launched, of course it quickly failed". These days the situation with salaries is a bit better while the rest is pretty much the same, and the surfacing story with Nauka sounds just like one of those backstories. And that is on top of that hole in a Russian module sometime ago - one can see the progression from the hole affecting ISS's air to the badly behaving Nauka affecting ISS's position to ...

diskzero 5y ago
It is hard to comprehend how many of the space-related feats of engineering were accomplished by the Soviet Union. On a trip to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, I was stunned by the size of the test stand for the Energia rocket. It is massive, with numerous support buildings, lighting, pipelines and support vehicles. The amount of poured concrete is mind boggling. This stand was only used once. The actual launch stand for Energia is similar in scope and it was only used twice. Of course, during the first Energia-Polyus launch, Polyus seperated from Energia, did a 360 degress rotation and burned up in the atmosphere. It is difficult to reconcile this mixture of competence and incompetence.
LeoPanthera 5y ago
The "I" in "ISS" stands for International. It is a collaboration between the USA, Russia, Japan, Europe, and Canada, with the USA and Russia being responsible for most of its initial construction. It is one of the crowning achievements of humanity so far and helps to prove that we don't all suffer from the same petty xenophobia that your comment demonstrates.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  It is a scheme to keep Russian engineers from working for Iran and North Korea. Same as the foolish plan to build US rockets with Russian engines.
- PhantomGremlin 5y ago
  petty xenophobia Was it facts? How does stating the facts of how things were done in the late stages of the USSR space program and are done in the current Russian space program translate to petty xenophobia? If you want xenophobia, didn't the Russians accuse us of drilling holes in their space station module? Or was that just domestic propaganda?
  - pinewurst 5y ago
    Don’t forget their blaming sinister US radars for the failure of their last Mars launch too.
    - hnbad 5y ago
      Just to make sure we're all aware that the US also engages in absurdist finger-pointing (even post-war), let's remember the time the US embassy in Cuba claimed that it was being attacked with scientifically impossible sonic weapons or even microwave radiation.
      - janto 5y ago
        uhm, this one? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome because it doesn't look absurd at all.
      - pinewurst 5y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal
  - iaml 5y ago
    Not sure why you are downvoted, this whole situation was making rounds in media and resurfaced recently, seemingly connected with this whole Nauka module drama. They've been insinuating[0][1][2] pretty hard through the government controlled media that "someone" drilled a hole in russian module so that they would send them to Earth because they are depressed? Pretty wild if you ask me, especially considering they checked the hole from outside and it turns out it was covered with some material afterwards and probably was there at the point of launch. [0] https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/6115d42b9a794727d1266340 https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/6115d42b9a794727d1266340 [1] https://www.gazeta.ru/science/news/2018/09/04/n_11990893.shtml https://www.gazeta.ru/science/news/2018/09/04/n_11990893.sht... [2] https://www.gazeta.ru/science/news/2018/09/03/n_11988091.shtml https://www.gazeta.ru/science/news/2018/09/03/n_11988091.sht...
m0zg 5y ago
Up until May of last year the United States didn't even have human launch capability. Not a hell of a lot you can do with an orbital station if you can't send people up there. > From sourcing parts for the Mir station at the local flea market They use mil-spec parts for that, and you can't buy them at a "flea market". > the whole year the salaries weren't paid and nobody was working This, on the other hand, is plausible. 90s were a shitshow, hence Putin and "order".
- relativ575 5y ago
  > Up until May of last year the United States didn't even have human launch capability NASA could have kept the Shuttle after 2011 if there were no other options. They figured they could rely on Soyuz for a few years until Starliner and Crew Dragon were ready. It's worth noting that during this time Roscosmos, like a true capitalist, jacked up Soyuz seat price to $90 million from the low of $21.3 million - [0] [0] - https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/10/13/nasa-uses-final-purchased-soyuz-seat-for-wednesday-flight-to-station/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/10/13/nasa-uses-final-purcha...
  - m0zg 5y ago
    Coulda, woulda. They didn't. And Shuttle cost $1B per launch. That is nuts even by US government standards. That's also why the USSR abandoned theirs, even though theirs was much cheaper - no need for three dozen subcontractors to each make a hefty profit.
- trhway 5y ago
  >They use mil-spec parts for that, and you can't buy them at a "flea market". you probably just don't know what you're talking about. I've used mil-spec parts in my teenage hobby electronic projects in 198x. The parts in the Mir story were already not available from manufacturer, nor there were any spare parts stores as most of the stuff was already stolen like many things back then in Russia (and many of those things ended on flea markets or sold for scrap). Fortunately, they were able to find those parts on that large flea market ("na razvalah" of old electronics, back then Avtovo was the place https://sudonull.com/post/160488-St-Petersburg-radio-market-Juno https://sudonull.com/post/160488-St-Petersburg-radio-market-...) in particular because the parts were already outdated for consumer use by that time.

by trhway 5y ago

diskzero 5y ago

It is hard to comprehend how many of the space-related feats of engineering were accomplished by the Soviet Union. On a trip to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, I was stunned by the size of the test stand for the Energia rocket. It is massive, with numerous support buildings, lighting, pipelines and support vehicles. The amount of poured concrete is mind boggling. This stand was only used once. The actual launch stand for Energia is similar in scope and it was only used twice. Of course, during the first Energia-Polyus launch, Polyus seperated from Energia, did a 360 degress rotation and burned up in the atmosphere. It is difficult to reconcile this mixture of competence and incompetence.

LeoPanthera 5y ago

The "I" in "ISS" stands for International. It is a collaboration between the USA, Russia, Japan, Europe, and Canada, with the USA and Russia being responsible for most of its initial construction. It is one of the crowning achievements of humanity so far and helps to prove that we don't all suffer from the same petty xenophobia that your comment demonstrates.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
It is a scheme to keep Russian engineers from working for Iran and North Korea. Same as the foolish plan to build US rockets with Russian engines.
PhantomGremlin 5y ago
petty xenophobia Was it facts? How does stating the facts of how things were done in the late stages of the USSR space program and are done in the current Russian space program translate to petty xenophobia? If you want xenophobia, didn't the Russians accuse us of drilling holes in their space station module? Or was that just domestic propaganda?
- pinewurst 5y ago
  Don’t forget their blaming sinister US radars for the failure of their last Mars launch too.
  - hnbad 5y ago
    Just to make sure we're all aware that the US also engages in absurdist finger-pointing (even post-war), let's remember the time the US embassy in Cuba claimed that it was being attacked with scientifically impossible sonic weapons or even microwave radiation.
    - janto 5y ago
      uhm, this one? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome because it doesn't look absurd at all.
    - pinewurst 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal
- iaml 5y ago
  Not sure why you are downvoted, this whole situation was making rounds in media and resurfaced recently, seemingly connected with this whole Nauka module drama. They've been insinuating[0][1][2] pretty hard through the government controlled media that "someone" drilled a hole in russian module so that they would send them to Earth because they are depressed? Pretty wild if you ask me, especially considering they checked the hole from outside and it turns out it was covered with some material afterwards and probably was there at the point of launch. [0] https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/6115d42b9a794727d1266340 https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/6115d42b9a794727d1266340 [1] https://www.gazeta.ru/science/news/2018/09/04/n_11990893.shtml https://www.gazeta.ru/science/news/2018/09/04/n_11990893.sht... [2] https://www.gazeta.ru/science/news/2018/09/03/n_11988091.shtml https://www.gazeta.ru/science/news/2018/09/03/n_11988091.sht...

m0zg 5y ago

Up until May of last year the United States didn't even have human launch capability. Not a hell of a lot you can do with an orbital station if you can't send people up there. > From sourcing parts for the Mir station at the local flea market They use mil-spec parts for that, and you can't buy them at a "flea market". > the whole year the salaries weren't paid and nobody was working This, on the other hand, is plausible. 90s were a shitshow, hence Putin and "order".

relativ575 5y ago
> Up until May of last year the United States didn't even have human launch capability NASA could have kept the Shuttle after 2011 if there were no other options. They figured they could rely on Soyuz for a few years until Starliner and Crew Dragon were ready. It's worth noting that during this time Roscosmos, like a true capitalist, jacked up Soyuz seat price to $90 million from the low of $21.3 million - [0] [0] - https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/10/13/nasa-uses-final-purchased-soyuz-seat-for-wednesday-flight-to-station/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/10/13/nasa-uses-final-purcha...
- m0zg 5y ago
  Coulda, woulda. They didn't. And Shuttle cost $1B per launch. That is nuts even by US government standards. That's also why the USSR abandoned theirs, even though theirs was much cheaper - no need for three dozen subcontractors to each make a hefty profit.
trhway 5y ago
>They use mil-spec parts for that, and you can't buy them at a "flea market". you probably just don't know what you're talking about. I've used mil-spec parts in my teenage hobby electronic projects in 198x. The parts in the Mir story were already not available from manufacturer, nor there were any spare parts stores as most of the stuff was already stolen like many things back then in Russia (and many of those things ended on flea markets or sold for scrap). Fortunately, they were able to find those parts on that large flea market ("na razvalah" of old electronics, back then Avtovo was the place https://sudonull.com/post/160488-St-Petersburg-radio-market-Juno https://sudonull.com/post/160488-St-Petersburg-radio-market-...) in particular because the parts were already outdated for consumer use by that time.