AstroBoy

Comment Threads

• Ben the Space Brit commented on China's Mir?
  IMHO, history will record Sergei Korolev (and Valentin Glushko to a lesser degree), not Werner von Braun, as the father of human space travel in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Soyuz and Soyuz heritage LVs and spacecraft will probably be around until the 2030s at the very least....

• eep commented on China's Mir?
  Frank: why should the Soyuz be called the "greatest manned spacecraft ever designed and evolved" - because the design was in operation the longest? In terms of manned spacecraft, it stands apart from others only by virtue of having flown for so long with little incident. In terms of capacity and capabilities, I'd say the Shuttle Orbiter is the "greatest." Those features of come with their own set of problems, but the Shuttle aspires to be (and is) more than a simple people-mover; that's something that Soyuz will never be able to accomplish. I would say that one reason that...

• Mark commented on China's Mir?
  "I really wouldn't read too much into this. China, for all the propaganda they trumpet about their space program, isn't very interested in spending too much money on its space program" Can we sell them ISS at a bargain rate? Lease it?...

• Ed Griffith commented on China's Mir?
  This would be an excellent opportunity to face small budgets for NASA, stop pretending as we have for almost half a century that budgets will increase at some unspecified future time, and to push for international cooperation. The ISS was a success as far as international cooperation. Other countries get that they do not have unlimited funds for space exploration. We should also and lead for international space exploration. Power point presentations did not get us into space in the first place and will not help us in the future. I would rather see a realistic limited plan that has...

• Frank Sietzen commented on China's Mir?
  eep, because the thing just keeps going and going-bailing out the Americans so we can still access "our" space station, and giving rise to both Chinese and Indian manned spacecraft. The Shuttle orbiters, in hindsight, will be seen as a novel experiment in extraordinary technology, but ultimately one that was unaffordable and fragile. The Space Shuttle did not evolve into anything-except perhaps a heavy lift booster-nor was it the model other nations copied successfully (anyone remember Hermes? Another unaffordable spaceplane project). As much as I wish it were not so, Soyuz and its derivitives have put us to shame....