back to article Do svidaniya Roscosmos. By the way, any idea where that 92 BEEELLION rubles went?

Following the announcement that the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, managed to "lose" 92 billion rubles ($1.8bn) last year, it is set to be replaced by a state corporation during the second half of 2015. CNN Money reports that Tatyana Golikova, head of the Account Chamber of Russia (the national audit office) told the Russian …

  1. Turtle

    Intent.

    "Vladimir Putin has already announced he will personally oversee the facility's development."

    Evidently he is intent on insuring that the money goes into no pockets other than his own.

  2. Elmer Phud

    Well,

    someone had to pay for the winter Olympics . . .

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Meh

      Re: Well,

      That would be the Sochi Olympics, where Vlad, just so happened to have a very expensive holiday home pretending to be a goverment department?

  3. Alan Brown Silver badge

    So it will go from being a govt department with a corruption problem to a corrupt corporation under direct control of a kleptocrat.

    I can't see this ending well

    1. Robert Helpmann??
      Childcatcher

      I can't see this ending well

      I can't see it ending at all. The most important function of a position of power is maintaining that position.

    2. phuzz Silver badge
      Stop

      No, it's going full circle.

      I started as a state run industry, then became a 'private' company, and now they want to make it back into a state run corporation.

      You're probably right about the corruption though, at a guess, this whole palava is probably just because whoever was in charge is now on the outs politically.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The wonder of it all

    It's a wonder they can get anything out to space.

    1. Edwin

      Re: The wonder of it all

      Bit of a testament to their engineers, innit?

    2. Chris G

      Re: The wonder of it all

      To date the yanks have lost 24 astronauts in the space programs compared to 8 Russians, the russians still have a more or less working launch vehicle the Yanks own launches are mostly carried out with Russian motors.

      I dare say there is as much graft in the American system as in the Russian system. It just goes to show how good NASA is that it can carry on and deliver as well as it does.

      1. Turtle

        Re: The wonder of it all

        "To date the yanks have lost 24 astronauts in the space programs compared to 8 Russians, the russians still have a more or less working launch vehicle the Yanks own launches are mostly carried out with Russian motors. I dare say there is as much graft in the American system as in the Russian system. It just goes to show how good NASA is that it can carry on and deliver as well as it does."

        That's a very ignorant post.

        To start with, 14 of those US fatalities were on the two Space Shuttle disasters. The Russians have never had an operational equivalent to the Space Shuttle and the 135 missions which they flew. This alone makes comparisons between total Soviet fatalities and US casualties specious at best.

        Recall that the Challenger was lost due to middle managers ignoring the warnings of engineers advising against the launch that proved fatal. This was not the result of an engineering failure, and not the result of graft, but the result of an "administrator failure". (You might want to play the first Half-Life game for an easy-to-understand example of this.)

        Here's another example of "administrator failure":

        On February 1, 2003, Columbia disintegrated during re-entry, killing its crew of seven, because of damage to the carbon-carbon leading edge of the wing caused during launch. Ground control engineers had made three separate requests for high-resolution images taken by the Department of Defense that would have provided an understanding of the extent of the damage, while NASA's chief thermal protection system (TPS) engineer requested that astronauts on board Columbia be allowed to leave the vehicle to inspect the damage. NASA managers intervened to stop the Department of Defense's assistance and refused the request for the spacewalk,and thus the feasibility of scenarios for astronaut repair or rescue by Atlantis were not considered by NASA management at the time. No graft here either, it appears. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle#Shuttle_disasters

        Two of those US fatalities you include in your total were incurred in the loss of the Scaled Composites / Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise. What this has to do with NASA (or graft) as mentioned in your second paragraph, is not altogether clear.

        We further have US astronaut fatalities while flying jets dues to bird strikes (Theodore Freeman), crashes in bad weather (See and Bassett), a T-38 jet crash due to an aileron control mechanical failure (Williams), a death in an F-104 while practicing a series of high speed, quick descent landings (Lawrence). There have been Russian losses for similar reasons. Please note that losses from bird strikes and bad weather, or while practicing dangerous maneuvers, can NOT be attributed to graft.

        Note that the Russians have had TWO fatal incidents during space flight proper (the Soyuz 1 parachute failure with 1 death, and Soyuz 11 decompression with 3 deaths) while the Americans have had NO fatal incidents in the US equivalent vehicle, Apollo. (I am not counting the Apollo fire with 3 fatalities as that was a test and neither a launch or a space flight. But if we count that, then we need to also count the death of Valentin Bondarenko, who died due the same mistake that cost Grissom, White and Chaffee their lives: having an atmosphere that was dangerously and unnecessarily oxygen-rich. Both the US and the Russians corrected this situation after their respective fatal accidents. However, as the Russians kept the Bondarenko accident a secret, NASA was not able to learn from their experience, as they at least arguably might have done.)

        So: for actual space flight, for space vehicles for which the Russian and the US each had equivalents (Soyuz and Apollo) the American record is no fatal incidents, while the Russians had two fatal incidents. The two space flights proper in which the US incurred fatalities were in vehicles for which the Russians never had an operational equivalent. (The Buran, the Soviet space shuttle equivalent, only flew once and was unmanned, I believe.) So you can decide which record is better, using something more significant and meaningful than the very misleading statistic "total deaths".

        (Note that it is possible that the numbers might change if we had "fatal incidents per launch for equivalent classes of vehicles" but I kinda doubt it.)

        (Most of the above information taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents, q.v. for additional information on non-fatal accidents and incidents.)

        1. Jerome Fryer

          Re: The wonder of it all

          The Soviet record for deaths and injuries is better.

          NASA did manage to get to the Moon and back multiple times without loss of life (and the Apollo 13 incident indicates how risky these missions were), so arguably achieved more.

        2. Chris Parsons

          Re: The wonder of it all - @Turtle

          BRILLIANT! Thank you.

        3. Chris G

          Re: The wonder of it all

          Do you really believe the exonerating circumstances you quote make three times as many deaths in the American Space Program compared to the Russian Space Program makes it alright?

          Astronauts and Cosmonauts have died horribly regardless of whether it was an administrator or anyone else involved in the programs who was at fault. Having a shuttle makes no difference or is it better to be able to have an accident in a space craft that can kill more people because it has a greater capability.

          My post was a response to the remark that it's a wonder the Russians can get anything into space, they actually did it first and have generally done it at a lower human cost, and that is not intended to take anything away from the achievements of either NASA or American astronauts all of whom are without a doubt individuals of the highest calibre. If you don't think politics and industry infighting and back room deals don't play a part in the space program you are welcome to maintain that opinion.

    3. Mark 85

      Re: The wonder of it all

      Either the rockets themselves fear Putin or they really want to get away on a nice roadtrip. Oh wait.. AI isn't that far along is it.

  5. M7S

    "Vladimir Putin has already announced he will personally oversee the facility's development."

    Moff Jerjerrod: Lord Vader, this is an unexpected pleasure. We are honored by your presence...

    Darth Vader: You may dispense with the pleasantries, Commander. I'm here to put you back on schedule.

    Moff Jerjerrod: I assure you, Lord Vader. My men are working as fast as they can.

    Darth Vader: Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them.

    Moff Jerjerrod: The Emperor's coming here?

    Darth Vader: That is correct, Commander. And, he is most displeased with your apparent lack of progress.

    Moff Jerjerrod: We shall double our efforts.

    Darth Vader: I hope so, Commander, for your sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am.

  6. AdamT

    And this sort of thing ...

    ... is why you wouldn't want to be an astronaut or cosmonaut. It's already happened in both Russia and the USA both during the Space Race and to some extent during the Shuttle era, and is probably going to happen again with the rescheduled next crew flight to ISS - a bunch of Astronauts and Cosmosnauts are going to have to stand, smile and wave at the cameras whilst repeating carefully written statements about how confident they are and how everything is going to be fine whilst privately thinking "we're all going to die but if I say anything that's the end of my career".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And this sort of thing ...

      I'd still go in a heartbeat despitevthe odds. Their problem would be getting me to come back.

      1. danbi

        Re: And this sort of thing ...

        You know, they recruit for one-way missions too...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "At first I could not believe my inspectors,"

    "At first I could not believe my boobs,"

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
      WTF?

      Re: "At first I could not believe my inspectors,"

      um, what?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy Prime Minister

    this is the jester with a recent crack-line: "tanks don't need visas, you know".

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