Contact with Columbia Lost!

[Ming]

Maybe now NASA and the Government will get down to business on the new Space Plane...

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/ft_spaceplane_budget_021223.html

[Zylka]

The Buran hasn't even done a manned mission yet? Huh, nice way to spend 15b



Well, it looks spiffier. I know which one I'd choose if I was playing a video game!

[Dinner]

The Buran got canceled a long time ago or at least I thought. As I recall there was a mini version the Soviets had tested in space in the 1980's which the Russians sold off on e-bay a year or two ago. A full sized version capable of holding a crew was never built and after the SU broke up the Russians didn't have the cash for such a program.

[Zero]

apparently my sister told me one of the member was a huge weezer fan and she saw him on the weezer forum.

one of the personal item he borught up happened to be the blue album. That's kinda cool~

[Zylka]

Of the shuttle?

[Panag]

Originally posted by Ming
Maybe now NASA and the Government will get down to business on the new Space Plane...

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...et_021223.html

hi ,

, well the top left pic from gruman looks like the european "hermes" , ....

well what is needed is something large , payload is very important (!)


the full scale x-33 looks like a prime candidtate , ...

but as mentioned before , the usaf felt left out , so thanks to some work of them the project never whenrt true , ...


we gona need something anyway , it going to have to be bigger , faster , safer , larger , etc , .....

and why not have a second craft only for people like the hermes , .....

have a nice day

[Dinner]

The cool thing about the X-38 is it no longer needs those expensive detachable booster rockets and spare tank. It can get into space with a full payload just by using it's main engines. That's a first in space history.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Dissident

I'm guilty. Call me a nationalist, call me what you will. I fully admit I'm more affected by these 7 deaths than the 7 deaths in Canada yesterday. I can't fully explain why, but I'm just being honest. Although I don't think I'm that nationalistic. I feel for the Israli and The Indian/american. It doesn't matter they werent american- well the Indian chick was a citizen. It's just that astonauts represent some of the bravest best people around.

It's not nationalism, except so for the fact that the US is in the forefront in space explorations. These people are spreading the boundaries for all mankind. They're the pioneers in our first steps towards spreading ourselves out into the universe, and we all realize the risks that they're taking in being there. That makes them a cut above the rest, so it hits a little harder when something like this happens.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The Buran got canceled a long time ago or at least I thought. As I recall there was a mini version the Soviets had tested in space in the 1980's which the Russians sold off on e-bay a year or two ago. A full sized version capable of holding a crew was never built and after the SU broke up the Russians didn't have the cash for such a program.

hi ,

yes its build , its in plastic in storage now , with the entire launch pad and about 27 booster rockets , ....

in was put in storage in 93 because they did not had the money and some tech for manned missions , it has flown ones in space for 3.5 hours and several flights in the earths atmosphere , ....

have a nice day

[Zero]

I dunno, when a soldier dies you may argue that there is more respectable attitude and reverence than say a bunch of kids being avalanched, but certainly there isnt more shock or grief. Actually its more expected because of their occupation isnt it?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

They found a misson patch completly intact in Texas.

[Panag]

hi ,

here is what makes it different , .....

sorry guys , the pics from the storage site taken in 1999 are some where in the basement in a box , .....

have a nice day

[Zylka]

Oh I see it's made of LEGO!

[Panag]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
They found a misson patch completly intact in Texas.

hi ,

two so far and one hoax , they also found the large two foot patch from the inside , nothing on it (!)

a t-shirt , a polo shirt , socks , shaving gear , and some human remains , ....

and an helmet

have a nice day

[Panag]

Moscow ARMEYSKIY SBORNIK,
May 96 No 5, (Signed to press 25 Apr 96) pp 66-71
[Article by Colonel General Viktor Ivanovich Yesin, chief of Strategic Missile Troops Main Staff, candidate of military sciences]

FROM HIS BIOGRAPHY
Colonel General Viktor Ivanovich Yesin was born on 14 March 1937. He has been in the Missile Troops since 1959 and successively performed duties as section chief, assistant chief of engineer service of a missile battalion, and assistant chief of engineer service of a missile regiment. He participated in Operation Anadyr. After returning from Cuba, he continued service in missile units. He was assistant and senior assistant chief of missile weapons service of a missile division, deputy chief of combat readiness and combat training section of a missile division, and deputy chief of operations section of a missile division. Then he was officer, senior officer, and deputy chief of an axis of the Strategic Missile Troops Main Staff Operations Directorate, and department chief and deputy chief of the Strategic Missile Troops Main Staff Operations Directorate. In 1989 he became chief of Operations Directorate and deputy chief of Strategic Missile Troops Main Staff. In 1994 he became chief of Strategic Missile Troops Main Staff and first deputy CINC Strategic Missile Troops.
The United States was first to create an atomic bomb in 1945. In September of that same year it demonstrated its devastating power to the entire world by carrying out the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Having mastered the secret of nuclear weapons, the U.S. leadership of that time set the winning of world supremacy as its goal. The USSR stood in the path of its attainment. In order to crush it, just 51 days after the end of World War II, in which the United States and USSR were allies, the U.S. Joint Intelligence Committee submitted to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff a plan of war against the USSR which envisaged destruction of the 20 largest cities by a preventive nuclear strike.

Having realized the imminent threat, the USSR leadership attempted to achieve a ban on and destruction of nuclear weapons by submitting the draft of a corresponding convention to the United Nations in 1946, but this USSR initiative found no support and was rejected. The Soviet Union, which had emerged from World War II with a devastated economy, thereby was doomed to create its own nuclear weapons and their delivery systems in order to ensure military parity.

The USSR government took vigorous steps both to eliminate the U.S. atomic monopoly as well as to create means which would permit delivering nuclear weapons to targets on U.S. territory. Decree No 1017-419 "Questions of Rocket-Propelled Weapons,1" which served as the basis for a comprehensive program for creating a new sector of domestic industry, rocket building [raketostroyeniye], came out on 13 May 1946. This decree established the supreme agency for directing the development of missile weapons in our country, the Special Committee for Rocket Engineering1 under the USSR Council of Ministers, specified head ministries for developing and producing missile weapons1 and approved a plan of experimental work in missile engineering1 for 1946-1950. A network of scientific research institutes, design bureaus, experimental plants and ranges was created to implement this plan. Initially the goal was set for them to achieve reproduction of V-2 rockets using domestic materials and prepare a scientific-technical backlog for the creation of domestic missiles with higher specifications and performance characteristics in range, accuracy and power of combat arming.

To attain this goal it was necessary to solve problems of organizing the development, tests, production and mastery of methods of combat employment of missile equipment models. For this the very same USSR Government decree formed the Directorate of Rocket-Propelled Weapons as part of the Armed Forces Main Artillery Directorate (4th Directorate of GAU [Main Artillery Directorate]); the GAU Rocket Scientific Research Institute [SRI]; the State Central Range of Rocket Engineering; and a special artillery unit for mastering, preparing and launching V-2 rockets. These were the first missile establishments and units, whose half-century jubilee is celebrated by strategic missilemen this year.

The GAU 4th Directorate was headed up by Major General Andrey Illarionovich Sokolov. In the Armed Forces structure this directorate was assigned to direct all work to develop missile weapons. Subsequently, in connection with the growth in volume of work and the need for creating missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the Directorate of the Deputy Commander of Artillery for Special Equipment (UZKA) was formed on its basis in April 1953. All other GAU directorates which also engaged in problems of developing missile complexes to one extent or another were removed from GAU and included in UZKA.

Another reorganization caused by urgent needs occurred in March 1955, and the staff of the chief of rocket- propelled weapons (NRV) was created based on UZKA with subordination to Deputy USSR Minister of Defense for Special Armaments and Rocket Engineering Marshal of Artillery Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin. Major General Anatoliy Ivanovich Semenov, who stood at the source of formation of the Directorate of Rocket-Propelled Weapons in the GAU structure, was appointed chief of rocket-propelled weapons. Generals and officers of the staff of the chief of rocket-propelled weapons performed enormous work in compressed time periods to develop tactical and technical specifications for designing missile complexes and placing orders in industry for fabricating prototypes and experimental and series lots of rocket-propelled weapons. They observed the production and field trials of series models and skillfully directed military acceptance work in scientific research institutes, design bureaus, plants and ranges.

The staff of rocket units was established based on the staff of the chief of rocket-propelled weapons in June 1955 and subordinated to the deputy USSR minister of defense for special armaments and rocket engineering, which became the foundation for subsequent formation of the Main Staff of the Strategic Missile Troops.

With the formation of the Strategic Missile Troops--a new branch of the USSR Armed Forces--in December 1959, the staff of the chief of rocket-propelled weapons was reorganized as the Main Directorate of Missile Weapons (GURVO), which acquired the status of general client for RDT&E and also for missile weapons being manufactured in series.

In connection with a reduction in the central staff of the Strategic Missile Troops, GURVO was reorganized in 1995 as the Directorate for Missile Weapon Orders and Deliveries. At the present time, under difficult economic conditions with the chronic shortage of financial and material resources, this directorate's generals and officers on the whole are successfully performing difficult, multiple- aspect missions, one of the main ones of which is creation of the Topol-M modernized missile complex. Together with industry, the flight-design test stage for this missile complex, which is the nucleus of the prospective Strategic Missile Troops grouping, managed to be concluded in 1995 and the transition was made to joint flight tests, completion of which is planned in 1997.

The GAU Rocket SRI that was created (presently the Russian Federation [RF] Ministry of Defense 4th Central SRI) was located in Moscow Oblast. Several barracks, one training building and two residences became the base of production facilities and housing of the Institute, intended for performing research in the area of guided ballistic missile development.

Great credit in forming and establishing the Institute as a military scientific research organization goes to its first chief, Lieutenant General of Artillery Aleksey Ivanovich Nesterenko. A general who had seen action and who had a good knowledge of rocket artillery and methods of its employment, he applied much effort to bring the Institute up to strength in personnel, outfit it with necessary equipment, organize the scientific research process and create conditions for associates' labor, living and everyday routine. His deputies, colonels Yakov (Iosif) Borisovich Shor and Georgiy Aleksandrovich Tyulin, also made a major contribution to organizing Institute activity in the first years.

The Institute's first table of organization structure included 23 scientific and 20 auxiliary departments and 16 laboratories with an overall strength of 3,318 persons, which indicates that the Institute was created as a major scientific research organization.

Main scientific efforts in the initial period of work were concentrated on research and development both of operational-tactical and strategic missiles as well as of surface-to-air guided missiles. In the mid-1950's the Institute's primary mission was to solve problems of creating intercontinental ballistic missiles, space boosters and artificial Earth satellites. The Institute always was the most authoritative organization in the country in questions of flight theory, ballistics, launch data preparation, and missile and satellite dynamics. The names of remarkable scientist-ballisticians G. Tyulin, G. Narimanov, P. Elyasberg and others are well known in the scientific world.

In 1956 the Institute became the head organization for creating the space command, control and telemetry complex for controlling satellite flights. The technical directors of this work were Institute Deputy Chiefs Georgiy Aleksandrovich Tyulin and Yuriy Aleksandrovich Mozzhorin, who subsequently became lieutenant generals. The increased amount of space research in 1968 required formation of a branch of the Institute, based on which the USSR Ministry of Defense Central SRI of Space Equipment was formed in 1972.

At present the authority of the 4th Central SRI in the RF Ministry of Defense is especially high among industrial organizations and Russian Academy of Sciences institutes. It is one of the leading research organizations, in which 29 doctors and 438 candidates of science work. This ensures a high level of scientific study of timely problems facing the Strategic Missile Troops and Armed Forces as a whole. Suffice it to note that just in recent years the RF Ministry of Defense 4th Central SRI has made a serious contribution to developing the Concept of Strategic Missile Troops Organizational Development Under New Conditions, the system for battle management of the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, and scientific accompaniment of the modernization and recycling of missile complexes; and to preparing proposals for the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms, conversion of the defense complex and adoption of "dual" technologies.