Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Glorgnole
Oct 23, 2012


US Space Shuttle :911:
- solid boosters can't be turned off, impossible to abort launch for first two minutes
- solid boosters explode and kill crew
- carries huge heavy engines into orbit, cutting into cargo
- heat shield tiles fall off and kill crew
- landing gear lever exclusively operated by hand to appease hotshot pilots
- no ejection seats, no way to escape vehicle during flight
- again, solid boosters will probably kill you if something goes wrong, as seven astronauts experienced firsthand


Soviet Buran :ussr:
- superior reliable liquid boosters
- engines are not idiotically integrated with orbiter
- fully automated flight from start to finish
- ejection seats so crew isn't trapped to die during ascent
- analog control system not as vulnerable to failure
- tiles do not fall off and kill crew
- has jet engines for atmospheric flight
- no-one died while flying this rocket, a testament to its safety and superior design

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

The Protagonist
Jun 29, 2009

The average is 5.5? I thought it was 4. This is very unsettling.
They're pretty much the same except one was actually used op

RAGE HOLE
Jun 7, 2006

Stendhal Stockholm
:nms: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage :nms:

Glorgnole
Oct 23, 2012


pretty lovely way to die. he managed to wrestle his malfunctioning capsule into orbit despite everything breaking and going wrong, only to get wasted by his parachutes at the last minute.

gnarlyhotep
Sep 30, 2008

by Lowtax
Oven Wrangler
I like that the Russian one has all that crazy writing on it

Cthulu Carl
Apr 16, 2006

Buran is superior because it was cancelled after only one unmanned flight.

Glorgnole
Oct 23, 2012

Cthulu Carl posted:

Buran is superior because it was cancelled after only one unmanned flight.

actually, it was cancelled because the soviet union imploded and they ran out of money to fly it. this is a question of engineering, not politics.

The Protagonist
Jun 29, 2009

The average is 5.5? I thought it was 4. This is very unsettling.
yes it wasn't given enough time to spectacularly fail because the organization behind it's construction failed spectacularly first

i don't like how it looks like shiny toy plastic

Zippy the Bummer
Dec 14, 2008

Silent Majority
The Don
LORD COMMANDER OF THE UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES
Snowstorm is a much better name for a space ship imo

Elukka
Feb 18, 2011

For All Mankind
OP is mostly right but shuttles are dumb and the Buran's real strength was that its booster could be used as a standalone Saturn V scale rocket without the Buran.

Zippy the Bummer
Dec 14, 2008

Silent Majority
The Don
LORD COMMANDER OF THE UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES
space craft have such boring unimaginative names these days. Apollo was cool, but Columbia? Curiosity? wtf is that pussy poo poo

why not name them like Conqueror or Baghdad's Bane or Hulk Hogan's Delight

John Denver Hoxha
May 31, 2014

What a persistent nightmare!
....but enough about my posts
Buran is cool, but Energia is the best part imo

redshirt
Aug 11, 2007

Reporting for shovel mission Sir.
lol #BuranIsBest

Glorgnole
Oct 23, 2012

The Protagonist posted:

yes it wasn't given enough time to spectacularly fail because the organization behind it's construction failed spectacularly first

i don't like how it looks like shiny toy plastic

The point is though, it wouldn't have massively exploded during launch like Challenger, because it didn't have solids, and it wouldn't have broken up on reentry like Columbia, because its external tank didn't shed ridiculously huge chunks of insulation during flight.

If it hadn't been cancelled, it would have worked very well. It was at worst equivalent to the Shuttle, and at best superior because its engineers could compare against the Shuttle and fix its design flaws.

Genesplicer
Oct 19, 2002

I give your invention the worst grade imaginable: An A-minus-minus!

Total Clam
-Space Shuttle
*Flew successfully into space more than 100 times.
*Successfully carried Hundreds of astronauts into space and back


-Buran
*Flew exactly once (on my birthday)
*Carried exactly ZERO people into space.

Glorgnole
Oct 23, 2012

John Denver Hoxha posted:

Buran is cool, but Energia is the best part imo

This is correct, and Energia is the only rocket (that I know of) used to launch a enormous orbital laser weapon.

gnarlyhotep
Sep 30, 2008

by Lowtax
Oven Wrangler

genesplicer posted:

-Space Shuttle
*Flew successfully into space more than 100 times.
*Successfully carried Hundreds of astronauts into space and back


-Buran
*Flew exactly once (on my birthday)
*Carried exactly ZERO people into space.

come on GS, the Russian would could possibly have done better, WE JUST DON'T KNOW

The Protagonist
Jun 29, 2009

The average is 5.5? I thought it was 4. This is very unsettling.
Glorg you should take this topic to the spaceflight thread in SAL I'm sure they'd be very interested to have this debate.

Cthulu Carl
Apr 16, 2006

Glorgnole posted:

This is correct, and Energia is the only rocket (that I know of) used to launch a enormous orbital laser weapon.

An enormous orbital laser weapon that immediately flew itself back into the atmosphere.

Harime Nui
Apr 15, 2008

The New Insincerity

The Protagonist posted:

yes it wasn't given enough time to spectacularly fail because the organization behind it's construction failed spectacularly first

i don't like how it looks like shiny toy plastic

I will write a 15 page paper on Russian vs Western preferences concerning varnish sheen and what deep truths this reveals about cultural assignations to masculinity, the "End of History," and why The Hobbit movies are bad

The Protagonist
Jun 29, 2009

The average is 5.5? I thought it was 4. This is very unsettling.

Cthulu Carl posted:

An enormous orbital laser weapon that immediately flew itself back into the atmosphere.

Reentry crash test. Is normal.

gnarlyhotep
Sep 30, 2008

by Lowtax
Oven Wrangler

Harime Nui posted:

why The Hobbit movies are bad

whoa whoa let's keep important topics out of this

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Harime Nui posted:

I will write a 15 page paper on Russian vs Western preferences concerning varnish sheen and what deep truths this reveals about cultural assignations to masculinity, the "End of History," and why The Hobbit movies are bad

On the flip side Russian Hobbit is actually good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl7w2Z0vGpA

Cthulu Carl
Apr 16, 2006

The Protagonist posted:

Reentry crash test. Is normal.

Why do they call it Energia? Because you take one look at it, turn 360 degrees and crash back into the atmosphere full throttle.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Cthulu Carl posted:

Why do they call it Energia? Because you take one look at it, turn 360 degrees and crash back into the atmosphere full throttle.

deadlines had to be met

Pidgin Englishman
Apr 30, 2007

If you shoot
you better hit your mark

genesplicer posted:

-Space Shuttle
*Flew successfully into space more than 100 times.
*Successfully carried Hundreds of astronauts into space and back


-Buran
*Flew exactly once (on my birthday)
*Carried exactly ZERO people into space.

- Space Shuttle
*Killed a bunch of astronauts

-Buran
*Didn't kill a single cosmonaut

Makes u think

gnarlyhotep
Sep 30, 2008

by Lowtax
Oven Wrangler

Sanguine posted:

- Space Shuttle
*Killed a bunch of astronauts

-Buran
*Didn't kill a single cosmonaut

Makes u think

- Gun I shot one time at a wall
*Didn't kill a single person

MegaGatts
Dec 12, 2004

The Enteroctopus dofleini, also known as the giant Pacific octopus (GPO) or North Pacific giant octopus, is a large marine cephalopod belonging to the phylum Mollusca and is tripping balls.
They're actually both garbage and set space flight back decades op.

TEAYCHES
Jun 23, 2002

MegaGatts posted:

They're actually both garbage and set space flight back decades op.

Nameless_Steve
Oct 18, 2010

"There are fair questions about shooting non-lethally at retreating civilian combatants."

MegaGatts posted:

They're actually both garbage and set space flight back decades op.

The Protagonist
Jun 29, 2009

The average is 5.5? I thought it was 4. This is very unsettling.

MegaGatts posted:

They're actually both garbage and set space flight back decades op.

:mmmhmm:

Glorgnole
Oct 23, 2012

gnarlyhotep posted:

- Gun I shot one time at a wall
*Didn't kill a single person

- fires hundreds of rounds into crowd, brutally murdering fourteen
"great job everyone, we did it, we've made space accessible"

Smoremaster
Aug 5, 2009

Don't forget to source your quotes!

Zippy the Bummer posted:

space craft have such boring unimaginative names these days. Apollo was cool, but Columbia? Curiosity? wtf is that pussy poo poo

why not name them like Conqueror or Baghdad's Bane or Hulk Hogan's Delight

Apollo was the name of the program, the actual spacecraft had pretty corny names. The command/service module on Apollo 11 was Columbia and the lander was Eagle.

I really like Baghdad's Bane though, mods change my name to this TIA

gnarlyhotep
Sep 30, 2008

by Lowtax
Oven Wrangler

Glorgnole posted:

- fires hundreds of rounds into crowd, brutally murdering fourteen
"great job everyone, we did it, we've made space accessible"

Jeremiah Flintwick
Jan 14, 2010

King of Kings Ozysandwich am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work.



This is a dumb argument because everyone knows Soyuz is the best spacecraft. :colbert:

Zippy the Bummer
Dec 14, 2008

Silent Majority
The Don
LORD COMMANDER OF THE UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES

Smoremaster posted:

Apollo was the name of the program, the actual spacecraft had pretty corny names. The command/service module on Apollo 11 was Columbia and the lander was Eagle.

I really like Baghdad's Bane though, mods change my name to this TIA

i recall that now that you mention it....drat

i guess Viking was a good name but that was the lander and not the craft that bore it to Mars

Tarkus
Aug 27, 2000

People make fun of the Cold war Russians but those bastards had some loving incredible know-how to make poo poo work the way they did without the resources of the western nations. Look at the conditions and resources they had and then look at what they made, everything from jets to computers, it's very impressive.

gnarlyhotep
Sep 30, 2008

by Lowtax
Oven Wrangler
it's almost like if we all focused on science and technology instead of politics, we would be better at science and technology

Pinguliten
Jan 8, 2007
Also the Russians started their shuttle program seven years after the US one, not to mention that the Buran first flew in 93. Not surprising that they could design some of the most retarded aspects out of it.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Lawman 0
Aug 17, 2010

MegaGatts posted:

They're actually both garbage and set space flight back decades op.

  • Locked thread