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Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

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121–130 of 185 posts

Re: Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By September Putin would have been able to see the writing on the wall. Germany was not caving on sanctions and they were clearly expediting a post Russia energy future. Also, are you deliberately changing what Biden said about ending (specifically) Nordstream 2 to “the Nordstreams” to make it seem more believable that he was referring to physical destruction rather than stopping the non-operational Nordstream from p…

> expediting a post Russia energy future. Meaning what exactly? Very expensive gas, and in turn heat, and local factories closing down? Politicians can shit around all day, factories need cheap gas to work, people need jobs in those factories to be able to eat and heat their homes and heat is more expensive than ever.

People first need safety, and only after that working factories, and there's tremendous suspicion in Europe that here we have a replay of sad events some 80 years ago. Politicians can shit all day, and people can be gullible as worms, yet sometime they add two with two and figure out that spending more today and changing the energy sources for tomorrow may save them from having to spend all and above to maintain the defense after the previous guy separating them from problems will fail.

Talking about jobs and factories one shouldn't forget about safety.

Re: Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

#122
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true, why blow up your own infrastructure when you can just cut the supply?

First, there’s no “if”, it’s a fact that can be easily verified. Second, I don’t pretend to know for a fact it was Russia. One of several reasons that I think it’s most likely is that Russia is the country involved here where one man’s irrational decisions would turn into action with virtually no checks.

The volume has certainly been going down for a while, I'm not sure who's responsible for that. Like I would actually need to research that part. Russia can stop the pump while Europe can suspend payments. Both actions have the same effect on volume sold.

Re: Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

#123

Are we at the point we should start suspecting sabotage? Or is this just usual Russian incompetence? This maybe news cycle bias, but since the Ukraine war, and threat of Russian pulling out of ISS program, these malfunctions have been more visible. Is anyone tracking these and similar incidents publicly?

As the resolver for a Manifold prediction market, I've been following this story closely for the last couple months. [0]

Back in December, HN user JanSolo wondered if the three astronauts assigned to the leaking Soyuz MS-22 might be evacuated via the Dragon Capsule. [1] Since the default evacuation plan was to send the next Soyuz MS-23 up early and unmanned, Dragon seemed unlikely...unless, of course, the coolant leak was due to a design or manufacturing defect affecting other Roscocosmos craft.

This latest Progress MS-21 news makes the defect hypothesis much more likely, in my view. A joint NASA-Roscocosmos investigation found that the original MS-22 coolant leak was caused by a micrometeroid about 1mm in diameter. I don't expect them to walk that back, so perhaps the defect makes these coolant lines more susceptible to puncture than before?

[0] https://manifold.markets/alangrow/will-the-three-iss-astrona...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33995082

Re: Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia could just stop the flow of gas without blowing the pipeline up. They had Zero reasons to blow it up and very good reasons to keep it alive if and when the Germans wanted that gas again. The only beneficiary of the pipeline going bust are the USA.

Russia had zero logical reasons to blow it up. I don’t have any trouble believing that Putin’s devotion to rational decision making is less than complete at this point—particularly when it comes to doling out retribution to the west. The idea that the US would risk making itself a pariah amongst its NATO allies, particularly right now does not seem believable to me.

>"The idea that the US would risk making itself a pariah amongst its NATO allies"

NATOS biggest financial backer, strongest military that is actually capable of something and projects force all over the world, financial power that can tell to Swiss banks how high to jump or else and tell other countries what they can sell and to whom.

Without the US NATO is irrelevant. I think your "US would risk making itself a pariah" statement is pure fantasy. There is zero risk for the US.

Re: Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

#125
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t want to be under sanctions? Don’t invade other countries murder innocents, kill babies. Want to be trusted? Follow the treaties you signed. Don’t want to be accused of breaking g your obligations? Read the UN charter.

Are you talking about the US?

Nope, but keep up trying on the whataboutisms.

Re: Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

#126
post #71

What has been happening to the Russian space agency is a travesty. From 2018 to 2022 the Director General of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, was an actual Sieg Heiling neo-Nazi. He was also a co-founder of the ultra-nationalist party Rodina that wants to ban Jewish organizations and buildings in Russia: https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/16057071016402984... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Rogozin Imagine let…

It's easy to imagine because the US did just that with NASA, except with an OG-Nazi instead of a neo-Nazi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

Re: Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US did blow the pipeline I would be impressed and fully supportive of the decision. I just think Biden lacks the courage to authorize such an action. It’s possible that it was done behind his back, since I very much doubt Biden himself is in control of things to any real extent.

"If the US did blow the pipeline I would be impressed and fully supportive of the decision." Then you are also fully supportive of starting (more like escalating, at this point) a WWIII. I hope you never find about the true cost of such a decision, and of war in general. But seeing how you support this act of war, don't be surprised when one day it comes knocking at your door.

Russia isn't capable of waging a WWIII. It's been almost a year and they haven't even reached the Dnieper.

Re: Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

#128
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISS is the reason SpaceX exists, for example. Without it, the government funded “commercial space” efforts and development help wouldn’t have happened and the other things spacex is doing and going to do wouldn’t have happened.

I have no idea whether the Crew Dragon contract rescued SpaceX financially or not, I'll take your word for it. However, I'm unsure why you're framing this as a counterpoint to my argument?

> I also don't necessarily have any problems with that, unless it's siphoning away funds that could have been used to build up an actual orbital infrastructure

ISS is/was being used as a first step in building “actual” orbital infrastructure. SpaceX was awarded $400M for the developmental of falcon 9 + dragon, phase two was paying for the actual subsequent launches which is ongoing.

“Rescued spacex” would be an odd way of putting it, developing then launching crew and cargo to iss is a huge part of their revenue which enables them to pursue other things like starlink and starship, etc. $2B in 2022 from NASA isn’t a rescue, it’s their business.

ISS isn’t an impressive end, it’s a necessary stepping stone which is enabling next steps like commercial space developing technology and companies, testing things in a relatively safe space relatively cheaply.

Re: Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

#129
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia could just stop the flow of gas without blowing the pipeline up. They had Zero reasons to blow it up and very good reasons to keep it alive if and when the Germans wanted that gas again. The only beneficiary of the pipeline going bust are the USA.

No longer supplying means that they get geopolitical flack for 'using hydrocarbons as a weapon'. And will get dragged before the courts for not honoring their long term contracts. So blowing the pipeline up is the better alternative.

Note to those trying to explain to me I am wrong: note that I did not say who blew the pipeline up.

Just that Russia did have credible motives, and that for Russia, blowing up the line anonymously is better than just saying "no more gas for Europe".

But given the stakes, they are not the only ones that have motives. And I never said otherwise.

Re: Another Russian spacecraft at ISS has a coolant leak

#130
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both countries also heavily invested in Nordstream-2, and there were good economical reasons for that. Current sanctions are temporary, as well as this war, and if it haven’t been blown up, it would start working again in no time.

Once the dust settles, it will take less time to fix the pipeline than to repair Russia's international standing. That's true even if the pipeline is unsalvageable, because Russia certainly is. The sanctions aren't going away until Putin is replaced by someone sane. I don't expect that to happen anytime soon, do you?

I can easily imagine both a) countries restoring relationship with Russia with Putin and b) Putin by various reasons being replaced by another server of national capital, with some shifts in money, giving excuse to EU to reestablish relationship.

EU was buying gas and oil from Russia for the last 40+ years, they were okay with pumping Russia with billions of euros even after Crimea annexation (and they still pump some moneys during 2022), also funding Russian military industrial complex, that is now blowing up Ukraine. So I’m pretty sure that when dusts settles, Russia will come back as part of international community, maybe with a slightly different leadership.

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