
Bring incense!
Im am invoking the Ghost of Korolev!
Astronauts on the International Space Station will cross their fingers and toes that Friday's resupply mission doesn't suffer a similar fate to the last three attempts. On Friday at 05:55 UTC, a Progress 60 capsule filled with supplies is expected to blast off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Russia-built Soyuz …
Note that this is not using the newer Soyuz 2-1A launcher, which proved a little incompatible with Progress. This is using an older version of the booster.
I'm kind of concerned at the Russian's handwavy "nothing to see here, comrade!" supposed fix to the 2-1A problem. There is something fishy with the "absolutely no details" story. I guess if it's good 'nuf for NASA, though..
Someone please tell me why NASA suddenly retired the Space Shuttle fleet with no proven replacement in sight! Did I mention dependable?
On a lighter note, the current astronauts may still have plenty of food left, but when the toilet paper runs out it's going to get very interesting.
and once they worked out what the shuttle was really like, the ONLY thing it was allowed to be used for was to take up huge ISS sections that couldn't be taken up any other way (and one Hubble servicing mission). It was absolutely FORBIDDEN to use the shuttle for crew rotation or supply missions because it was by then it was known just how dangerous it was.
Why did they replace the Space Shuttle? Way too expensive & not safe enough about covers it.
...with no proven replacement in sight? That's the state of American politics for you. NASA made it clear that the Shuttle couldn't keep going so the Senate/Congress knew that if they forced it, and the Shuttle had an oopsie, then they'd be the ones getting the blame so they allowed NASA to retire it and...
Immediately defaulted to their usual operating mode of "Let's get lots of money coming to my district for space stuff (for very undefined values of 'space stuff') and what happened? The Ares project, and the Altair lunar lander, which was also known as 'Apollo on Steroids' which would have been very expensive while achieving nothing. Not that politicians objected to that, as long as no-one could hold them accountable for it, but Obama wasn't interested in continuing a boondoggle that was started under Dubya.
So bye-bye Ares (and Altair) and hello, SLS! Another heavy-lift launcher that's really expensive with no defined program to serve or mission to perform but hey, no worries! After all, the money is still flowing to the same old companies/States/Congressional Districts so who cares if it's too expensive to actually use?
And proof for this? Congress is actually trying to cut funding for the Commercial Crew Program because it's a little behind schedule (apparently paying less for something makes it better and quicker to enter service, who knew?) while helpfully (!) pointing out that SLS can, if called upon, deliver crew to ISS. Using SLS for this is like buying something on EBay and finding that whatever it was, was shipped as the SOLE CARGO on an otherwise completely empty container ship because, well, we had a container ship and we had to use it for something. And, oh, you don't mind paying the shipping fee, do you?
The short circuit in the rear seat panel which killed Commander Powell continues to be faulty. Uh...Storage Area 9... And because he's sitting next to it, it continues to bother Pinback. Storage Area 9 self-destructed last week, destroying entire ship's supply of toilet paper. That's all.
My tin foil hat was blown off by a particular gust of wind around the time of the SpaceX launch and I picked up some garbled broadcast over my fillings.
After a lot of indistinct chatter I clearly heard the phrase "k'ch b'rar!" at around the time the Space X launch failed which, if you know anything about these things, translates from High Galactic as 'Fire!'.
Clearly, after finally landing on Mars and landing a probe on a comet, the Intergalactic Council of Peace' has decided that we're making too much progress in exploring our system again. These recent failures are no accident and there is obviously an ICP Warden ship cloaked in orbit somewhere who are trying to frustrate our progress and set us back another few decades until our nation's leaders grow up a bit more.
As I put two and two together, to make 2 squared, I could only sigh and hope that one day everyone else would realise that we are being held back by short-sighted government elites from taking our place alongside our extra-terrestrial brothers, sisters and gurags.