Shuttle launch to go ahead despite security concerns...

[Ecthy]

I'm talking astronauts.

The completeness of your statistics is compelling anyway

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Ecthy
He did set sail when everyone knew Earth was/is much larger than he was assuming.

If it wasn't for the Americas he'd be dead now.

He's dead now anyways.

[Ecthy]

Can't you tell irony when you see it.

[Qilue]

Originally posted by Ecthy
He did set sail when everyone knew Earth was/is much larger than he was assuming.

If it wasn't for the Americas he'd be dead now.

There was also that church sponsered factoid that the earth was flat.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Ecthy
The completeness of your statistics is compelling anyway

Sorry I didn't think it'd be necessary for public knowledge you can find with 5 seconds + Google, but anyway:

Nedelin Disaster (1960)

Upon learning the news, Khrushchev directed Leonid Brezhnev immediately head to Tyuratam with a group of experts to investigate. Sergei Khrushchev claimed in his memoirs that his father explicitly warned the investigative team members not to rush to judgment. (87)

The commission's plane landed in Tyuratam in the morning October 25. By 9 a.m. Brezhnev and his team arrived at Site 41. The missile lay on the ground with its ripped first and second stages still attached to each other. The bodies of victims, most of them burned beyond recognition, were taken to a special shelter for identification. The search team found only few remains, which could belong to Nedelin. The body of Konoplev, chief of OKB-692, was identified by its height.

Two Yangel's deputies Berlin and Kontsevoi, both chiefs of two test directorates in Tyuratam Grigoryants and Evgeniy Ostashev were all among the dead. Grigoryants was a chief of the 2nd Directorate directly responsible for the R-16 testing and his presence at the pad was natural. Yet, Ostashev, led the 1st Directorate, which was testing Korolev's R-7 missiles, and had nothing to do with the R-16 operations. As it transpired, Ostashev showed up at Site 41 to get Nedelin's signature on the paperwork confirming operational status of the brand-new Site-31 for the R-7 ICBM.

Lev Grishin, Deputy Chairman of State Committee for Defense Technology, who reportedly was going to catch up with Yangel for a cigarette break, died in hospital 11 days after the disaster.

Russian sources disagreed on the exact death toll in the R-16 accident. On October 27 and 28, Major-General G. Efimenko, who was filling the position of the range commander, signed an official list of casualties. After being delivered to Brezhnev, this document remained in the classified archive of the Central Committee of CPSU, before being released by the Yeltsin Administration.

According to the document, 74 people (57 military and 17 civilians) were killed on the launch pad, and 49 injured. With 16 more people, who later died from their injuries, the official death toll rose to 90 dead. Bodies of two soldiers were found outside of the perimeter of the Site 41 after the official list of victims had been submitted, bringing number of dead to 92 people (74 military and 18 civilians).

On a drizzling day of October, the members of the investigation commission witnessed a heartbreaking funeral of the military personnel at Site 10. Total 84 soldiers and officers were buried in the mass grave at the site known today as Soldier's Park. The bodies of some military victims as well as those of civilian engineers would be shipped to their home towns for individual burials. As the entire accident was kept under strictest secrecy, the relatives of the dead were advised to tell others that their loved ones were killed in the airplane crash.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/r16_disaster.html

Cosmos Disaster (1973)
By 1973, the launcher known today as Cosmos-3M was in use in Plesetsk for about six years. According to a post-USSR source, a routine launch was planned for 1:32 a.m. on June 26, 1973s. The preparation, however, run into trouble, when due to a sensor malfunction, the fuel tank was overfilled. The personnel drained part of the fuel and refueled the launcher. Apparently, at this point, the fuel tank developed a leak and 15 seconds before the liftoff, the launch sequence was automatically suspended. The launch was canceled and more than 40-member launch team tried to deactivate the vehicle. At 4:18 and 4:20 a.m. two crews of 13 people were dispatched to the launch pad. At 4:22 a.m. a dual explosion shook the complex, followed by the fire. Seven people were killed at the spot, 13 were injured, two of those later died in the hospital. No announcement about the tragedy was made at the time and its victims were buried in a mass grave in Mirny. A special memorial to the victims of the accident was dedicated in 1974.

Vostok Disaster (1980)
On March 18, 1980, during the fueling of the Vostok-2M launcher with the Tselina satellite, while dozens of military technicians worked on the pad, the devastating explosion incinerated the rocket, killing 50 people. The victims of the tragedy were buried within limits of the town of Mirny, by the same memorial where nine people, who died in a 1973 Cosmos explosion found their final resting place. The official investigation of the cause of the disaster essentially blamed the ground personnel for breaking fire safety rules. However, for years to come the official conclusion was doubted by people familiar with the matter. According to the post-Cold War Russian source, the results of investigation were proved wrong, when on June 23, 1981, a similar disaster was miraculously averted at the last second in Plesetsk. The new investigation pinpointed a valve, made of materials, which on contact with hydrogen peroxide could cause explosive chain reaction. Not until the end of the 1980's an outside world could learn about both accidents.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/plesetsk.html

[Ecthy]

Those are mere technicians, the world can live without them. But the USA on the other hand sacrificed many more reel astronauts than died in Soviet spaceflight.

[Kuciwalker]

Astronauts are expendable too.

[Ecthy]

But more expensive than ground staff.

[Kuciwalker]

But they don't cost anything compared to the actual spacecraft.

[Ecthy]

In Soviet Russia, spacecraft compares you.

[Winston]

Ecthy, I think it's time for you to go to bed now.

40 minutes remaining to launch.

If anyone's interested, you can view the preparations and launch at NASA-TV

[Tattila the Hun]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
(chances are like rolling a D20 and getting a 1)

Yah, but in the other case you lose a character, or fail at... conjuration or something. In the other, you, and several other people, die.

Who was the first to die in space? Laika, I'd quess... First to live in space, aswell, for a while.

[Winston]

5 minutes to go..

[Winston]

A succesful launch.

Discovery is now in its preliminary orbit.

[snoopy369]

Congrats to the spacecrew team ... Americans are not afraid to take risks to advance SCIENCE!