Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome • Hacker News Board

Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome

#101

Post by drzaiusapelord » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

clarkmoody wrote: post #86

Osmium wrote: post #11

I think being able to walk away from a project like this is actually quite commendable, in a way. Not that it's always the right call, but to be able to avoid the 'sunk cost fallacy'[1] on this scale is something that large governments/companies seem rarely capable of. That said, in this case, maybe they just didn't have a choice and ran out of money... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment

Robert Gates killed a couple of large-budget defense projects while Secretary of Defense. The airborne laser which had "16 years of development and a cost of over $5 billion"[1] was cancelled in 2010 under his watch. Quoting from Wikipedia, sorry: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1

Sounds like it wouldn't have done anything useful, especially compared to other missile defense strategies like SM-3 deployments.

"If the ABL had achieved its design goals, it could have destroyed liquid-fueled ICBMs up to 600 km away. Tougher solid-fueled ICBM destruction range would likely have been limited to 300 km, too short to be useful in many scenarios, according to a 2003 report by the American Physical Society on National Missile Defense."

Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome

#102

Post by tdy721 » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 5:54 PM UTC

agounaris wrote: post #22

For the geeks... Buran had prolog code in its brain and could land on its own...in the 80s!!!

This is cool, but if you compare the landing footage from STS-1 and Buran, the Buran landing looks decidedly squirrelly, I'm not sure I would want to be on that ride. On the other hand, John Young waxed the first STS landing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnnTFJ1BcHw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPexsehcMhw

They do say there was a bad crosswind, but really I think a spaceplane should be able to avoid bad weather.

Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome

#103

Post by tdy721 » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 6:04 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #41

Great photos. Does anyone have details why soviets thought a carbon copy of the botched shuttle design was a good idea in the first place? Where the economics of the vehicle not so obvious back then?

This might be in the same vein as "New Coke" was a genius marketing idea, but what if the "botched system" did exactly what is was supposed to, and helped economically bleed the USSR out of existence?

Well then I guess we would have stopped flying last century.

Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome

#104

Post by pvg » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 6:05 PM UTC

Yetanfou wrote: post #89

briandear wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lysenkoism was certainly a highlight of the Soviet sciences. Mendelian inheritance was considered a capitalist fabrication.

What Lysenkoism was to the Soviet Union, is Creationism to the United States of America. Both 'doctrines' are completely nonsensical, but supported by strong religious currents in their respective environments. It just so happened the state religion in the Soviet Union had mortal gods versus the man-on-the-cloud of the born-again evangelical religion entertained by some recent US leaders.

You'd have to find a period in which the NIH or NSF or, hell, DARPA were handing out grants to creationists to the detriment of everyone else and research universities were hiring creationist professors and firing evolutionary biologists. After which the biologists got arrested.

The comparison is close to nonsensical.

Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome

#105

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 6:17 PM UTC

Hey Russia, seeing as your Burans are, like, sitting there literally rotting away... can I have one? I'll take good care of it, promise.

Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome

#106

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 6:21 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #88

rdtsc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they did keep their Soyuz and other space programs. I think even the wasteful Socialist bureaucrats realized this is not a project worth pursuing.

It was built, most likely, to replicate the American capability of launching, stealing a satellite and returning within a single orbit (hence the cargo bay the size of a Hubble/Keyhole and the enormous wings). Since the Energia was a stand-alone heavy launcher (that didn't rely on shuttle engines), that they had a whole fleet of lighter launchers and the Soyuz/Progress were excellent for carrying astronauts and cargo…

There was also the appeal of having a reusable spacecraft. The Buran's similarities to the Space Shuttle are no coincidence; the Soviets weren't about to let the United States have the coolest spaceship ever, so they had to build one that was cooler.

And by God was the Buran cooler.

Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome

#107

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 6:25 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #74

Fun fact: Buran was the first fully automated space shuttle. It did a complete flight cycle without human intervention. I believe our space shuttle could that that too eventually but not at the time. Even funner fact: There is a remnant of software that powered that shuttle still around. In the form of a visual programming language DRAKON ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAKON )

I approve of DRAKON's sample lunch-eating algorithm. [0] Now, if someone catches me at the local burger joint slamming down dozens of burgers, I can just say that my programming allows for it.

[0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Lunch_DR...

Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome

#108

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 6:35 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #96

rdtsc wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The STS was doing all these things and more. Ok but if Buran failed didn't STS fail too, just took more money and killed more people? No current space vehicles are based on it. It was too big. Too expensive. Too failure prone (it killed a lot more astronauts than Soyuz even though Soyuz is older). Once the concept was proven, after a few space walks, maybe fixing Hubble, it was time to realize it was a bad idea scr…

>it killed a lot more astronauts than Soyuz even though Soyuz is older) The Soviet space program killed 200+ people. I think you USSR die-hards need to stop making excuses and accept history. Safety is not one of your strong suites. "Nedelin pressured Yangel and the rest of the R-16 team to accelerate their timetable. They did this primarily by ignoring all of the quite sensible safety measures in effect at the time.…

Um what? If you look at the actual fatality lists [0], more than three times as many astronauts died than cosmonauts during actual missions (that ratio is much higher if test/training deaths - like that of the Apollo 1 crew - are included). In neither case is the number anywhere near the hundreds.

I don't know the details on ground crew deaths (if that's what you're actually referring to), in which case Soviet recklessness wouldn't be exactly surprising, and you're probably entirely right. I don't think that's what the parent commenter's talking about, though.

Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome

#109

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #92

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The STS was purposely designed not to do that due to political reasons, pilots didnt want to feel like they were passangers, emergency restrictions, etc. Eventually those restrictions were lifted and was fully autonomous at a certain point, I don't remember which models have the full autonomy suite, but the capabilities varied as these things were built out. Considering the Buran has never put a person into space, it…

> The STS was doing all these things and more. Ok but if Buran failed didn't STS fail too, just took more money and killed more people? No current space vehicles are based on it. It was too big. Too expensive. Too failure prone (it killed a lot more astronauts than Soyuz even though Soyuz is older). Once the concept was proven, after a few space walks, maybe fixing Hubble, it was time to realize it was a bad idea scr…

> it killed a lot more astronauts than Soyuz even though Soyuz is older

That's only because Soyuz has a smaller crew capacity. Both Soyuz and STS have had the same number of catastrophic failures (Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 on the Soyuz side; Challenger and Columbia on the STS side).

Neat fun fact: Soyuz 11 also has the distinction of being the cause of the only in-space human fatalities (all other spaceflight-related fatalities occurred either during launch or during reentry).

Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome

#110

Post by drzaiusapelord » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 6:43 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #108

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it killed a lot more astronauts than Soyuz even though Soyuz is older) The Soviet space program killed 200+ people. I think you USSR die-hards need to stop making excuses and accept history. Safety is not one of your strong suites. "Nedelin pressured Yangel and the rest of the R-16 team to accelerate their timetable. They did this primarily by ignoring all of the quite sensible safety measures in effect at the time.…

Um what? If you look at the actual fatality lists [0], more than three times as many astronauts died than cosmonauts during actual missions (that ratio is much higher if test/training deaths - like that of the Apollo 1 crew - are included). In neither case is the number anywhere near the hundreds. I don't know the details on ground crew deaths (if that's what you're actually referring to), in which case Soviet reckle…

Yes, I consider ground crew just as valid human beings as those who go into space. The Soviet program was a dangerous mess that killed a lot of people through purposeful mismanagement. If someone wants to argue safety or mortality rates then ground crews must be part of that argument. A lot of people died in the Nedelin catastrophe, which the USSR covered up until 1989, and now we must acknowledged their sacrifices and place blame on Russian leadership.