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Brilliant. Small wonder we don't have more dead astronauts.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1080113104200770.xml

25 freaking years.

Interesting,but if there are more of those "undiscovered" failures,I'd recommend decommisioning the shuttles. Either build the existing models entirely new and re-designed,or just put the saved money into research for a new kind of shuttle. The "sattelite and other space stuff" business could be easily taken over by the Russians,the Europeans or by the normal rockets of the NASA (Deltas? Were the Deltas USAF models?). A thousand times better than risking the life of another seven men and women.

i'd say the russians have been doing an ok job for the ISS. Lets face it, their isnt a country in the world right now with a decent manned space program, they are all suffering problems, mainly to do with age, and thats what happens with an area that costs so much. If countries worked a little closer together like they have been lately for the ISS, then the problem could be solved. The US needs to take more time off and rebuild their space shuttles, even if its a couple of years, nothing out there is going anywhere soon. While they do that the russians continue with the ISS crew rotations, once the US is ready to go with their new shuttles, the russians then take theirs out of service and rebuild their old fleet. Once they are up and running, then both countries can go back to what ever wacky projects they had planned

like i said, you work out a deal with the russians. You get them to allow american astronauts onboard their shuttles, its amazing what good old money will get you with some countries. and then while the russian fleets out of commision the americans allow russian cosmonauts onboard theres, again with some cash incentive involved.
Personally i dont really care anyway. But its a thought. the person to discuss this with is richie, hes got a ton of knowledge in this area.

Ummm..... I don't think you guys understand. The Cold War and the Space Race may be over but we still take immense pride in our space programs. We dont just ask Russia to put up and take care of our GPS and spy satelites, That would be a conflict of interest for us and them.

This isn't the direction I was hoping this topic would go. I thought maybe everyone would be happy that we found this flaw and are starting in the right direction to getting the space program back on track, not "let's go screw the American space program over". :-/

What Craig is saying is quite right. The only way forwards in space travel is collaboration between all the space going nations. If countries go it alone of course their going to run into trouble. Believe it or not America is not the only country on earth capable of launching things into space and other nations who also do this may have knowledge that could greatly benifit everyone else. Just remember that keeping secrets creates distrust. Therefore if you collaborated with other nations then there would be less need for spy satellites and the such.

:-/
World peace and trust is most likely impossible, you won't ever get everyone to trust everyone else. Their will always be the evil dictrator stockpiling nukes somewhere. That is why we have things like the K.H.'s, so that we can keep tabs on them. I think the only way all would band together and have global trust is if we had to get into an intergalactic war or something that had to do with all mankind. I frankly don't belive there is anything else out there besides us, so I don't see that happening either. Ever since the Tower of Bable nations have distrusted each other, its in our blood and our psychology, whether you keep secrets or not. Especialy since the last century's wars.

Yes other countries have capable people, they don't have budgets to support it though, so the people come here to work for us or go work for the Russians.

What about just jumping over your shadow and cooperate? I personally would like to see the USA and Russia  being the best friends on earth. But nooooo,there still some cold-war whackos in both administrations who most likely want to erase each other with nukes.
But this is going to be too political now....

I Agree with silent,

theres always gonna be whackos and freaks who want the world to end.

but i have a feeling that someday we will all get along but not now. theres too much both countrys need to get over.

like iced said,

Its great that they are gonna fix the shuttles, but i think we need a little calaboration so we can find problems wrong with other countries space programs and they can find problems with ours

Personally, I think that thew problems with the space shuttle are being blown way out of proportion.

[quote]Personally, I think that thew problems with the space shuttle are being blown way out of proportion.

[quote]What about just jumping over your shadow and cooperate? I personally would like to see the USA and Russia

Iced foexrotter:
It's the Discovery, which is a prototype of a prototype.

Ritchie
Yes the soyus is old, started it's life as a 2-seater, and later got the third seat. It was recently updated with a few extra computers.

Silent:
The Delta is a US rocket... but wasn't it upgraded with russian engine technology recently?

Personally, i think NASA should have a look at the russian shuttle ideas, especially the atmospheric flight engine option which they planned to add. The thing will be a lot safer afterwards.

Ivan,could you give me the accident rate of the Soyuzs ? (From 1967 on...) I think it'll be a tad better than the one from the Shuttles...

Soyus had TWO fatal accidents, one in 1967, the other in 1971. Both total crew loss.

The 1967 one was a first test flight with only one occupant. There were huge problems with the attitude sensors, so the first landing attempt failed. The second attempt resulted in parachute failure, as the main parachute didn't deploy. The landing rockets set the ship on fire, killing the cosmonaut inside.
link

The 1971 one involved problems with the hatch of the re-entry module. The crew (3) was found dead after landing. After this accident they flew with 2 persons for a while.

There were loads of other inflight and landing emergencies, some quite serious...

For example:
Souyz will NOT float, as they discovered after a landing on a frozen lake in the south. The capsule began to fill with water, and the CO2 remover ran out of power. They had to wait half a day before the weather got better (temperature-induced fog, outside temperature -22C, while the saltwater lake was a little frozen-over) and the helicopter could pull the capsule out of the lake.