A Russian Proton rocket carrying three Glonass navigation satellites failed quite dramatically on Monday:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7piHsxLs7Ss&w=700]

The Russian space program has had quite a few failures recently. Nevertheless, the United States Congress seems more inclined to trust NASA’s astronauts to Roscosmos than to US companies like SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, and Boeing which have no experience in human spaceflight (unless you count the Space Shuttle, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the X-15, and US portions of the International Space Station — all of which were built by Boeing or heritage companies acquired by Boeing).

Congress has used safety concerns as an excuse to slow-march the Dragon, DreamChaser, and CST-100 programs. The Russian space program, however, is exempt from the requirements being imposed on US companies. The reasoning behind this double standard dis inexplicable.

Written by Astro1 on July 2nd, 2013 , Space Policy and Management

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COMMENTS
    jim brown commented

    Also SpaceX has had a short but good string of successes.

    Reply
    July 2, 2013 at 9:48 pm
    Dave commented

    The US has lost thousands of aerospace jobs so the current administration can pay Russia ever increasing amounts to carry our astronauts into space. I suppose we should be pleased at their keen grasp of capitalism. We were once the world leader in space but now have become content to sit on the sidelines and watch other nations pass us by. Is it any wonder why our younger generations have so little interest in math, science and engineering.

    Reply
    July 3, 2013 at 1:24 pm