8 thoughts on “We Need Real Rocket Science”

  1. Heard someplace today they are now blaming cosmic rays.

    The linked article was very interesting and so were some of the coments about what might have been the source of the problem.

  2. Since Russia lacks satellite tracking and commanding capability in that part of the world, they should work with NASA to make their interplanetary missions TDRSS compatibe. I suspect NASA would be quite willing to cooperate with interplanetary space missions such as Phobos-Grunt and they’d likely contribute the TDRSS support for free.

    1. Dunno, maybe it is like Open Source Software and Closed Source Software. Maybe the Russians want to keep there systems Closed Source, or at least closed to NASA.

      I don’t think it is a national pride matter. If NASA helped them with telemetry, they might have to explain their systems to NASA, or NASA would be able to “do rocket science” and figure out their systems. I think it is a Russian thing that they want to keep secrets, especially in their aerospace tech.

      1. The Russians have already opened up a great deal of their space work with the Soyuz and ISS. Unless the space probe is using military hardware – which is always a possibility, the Russians tend to reuse stuff a great deal -there shouldn’t be a problem and the costs would be minimal.

  4. Part of the problem is the rapidly aging aerospace workforce in Russia. You can make more money selling cell phones on the street in Moscow than as an aerospace engineer I hear.

  5. The last place I worked, the client was hiring newly minted BSMEs out of college for $10/hr, and the local Taco Bell was offering $12/hr with some bennies. Here, the client is offering @$12, for BSMEs, but the Taco Bell is only paying @$9. They at least have bennies…and MUCH less stress.

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