Deepwater6 Posted January 16, 2013 Report Share Posted January 16, 2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21044408 Note about halfway down the article, the bartering agreement the US and Europe have worked out. To what do we owe Russia for all the resupply missions to the ISS? I know we did alot of that with the shuttle before it retired but other than a few from Europe and Japan it's been mostly Russia supplying the station for the last two yrs. Do we owe them or did we do our share before the shuttle retired? Bartering at such big monetary levels seems to be a broad way of doing things between countries, but I guess if everybody is OK with it then... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MacPhee Posted January 18, 2013 Report Share Posted January 18, 2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21044408 Note about halfway down the article, the bartering agreement the US and Europe have worked out. To what do we owe Russia for all the resupply missions to the ISS? I know we did alot of that with the shuttle before it retired but other than a few from Europe and Japan it's been mostly Russia supplying the station for the last two yrs. Do we owe them or did we do our share before the shuttle retired? Bartering at such big monetary levels seems to be a broad way of doing things between countries, but I guess if everybody is OK with it then... The Space Shuttle didn't actually "retire" though. I mean it didn't think to itself: "I'll retire from active service." It got forced out of service by US politicians. Why did they do that? The Space Shuttle was not perfect. However it was streets ahead of anything the Russians had. The Russians tried to imitate the Shuttle with their "Buran" vehicle. But the "Buran" had no on-board engines - it was only a big inert glider, strapped to the side of the "Energia" rocket launcher. And the "Energia" was a very primitive rocket - just a giant assembly of small engines - heaving itself laboriously up, while belching out appalling clouds of inefficiently burned fuel. Just watch a video of an "Energia" launch, and you'll think: "That's going to blow up any minute"! No wonder the Russians abandoned Energia. And only made one trial flight with Buran (unmanned - they obviously didn't trust it). They were defeated by US technology. This technology, even in the mid-1960s, produced the Saturn-5, and the beautiful "Gemini" and "Apollo" spacecraft. But, now in 2013, the US is reduced to a humiliating position. You have to pay the Russians for a seat in one of their primitive "Soyuz" capsules! What happened to you? Was it your politicians? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deepwater6 Posted January 18, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2013 http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/04/30/hybrid-spaceplane-engines-could-change-economics-of-space-travel/ What happend to us? It's a very long and sad story. However the future is looking brighter with private space companies taking the lead. One great example of that is right in your back yard. See the Skylon project link above. I'm looking forward to this project if they can make it work it would be ideal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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