Intolerable Ignomy
How ignominious for the first nation on Earth to have quested into outer space on a successful mission to prove to itself and its space-adventuring, political-ideological antagonist and not least the world at large, that it was capable of venturing further than had ever been dreamed before. Until the United States eclipsed the Soviet Union with its own technological feat by landing a man on the Moon, the USSR stood proudly on the pinnacle of space-exploration achievement.Nothing can diminish the proud accomplishment and wonder of that initial achievement. Since then, quite a few countries have developed their own ambitious and costly aspirations to wander about in the atmosphere of inner and outer space. Space beckons more alluringly now than ever. Many countries of the world now have satellites circling Earth, an undreamed-of enterprise not all that long ago.
And the International Space Station, manned primarily by both Russian and American cosmonauts/astronauts has amply demonstrated that the two countries could successfully and amicably merge their scientific endeavours to further and consolidate adventures in space. Now that NASA has been defunded from manned space capsules, it is Russia and private enterprise that have taken up the responsibility.
And China and India aspire to do likewise. But these are not celebratory days for Russia. While during the dreary era of collectivization in the USSR, space technology advancement was achieved, few other technical and technological and manufacturing enterprises wowed the world. Everything that the USSR produced seemed shoddy and programmed for early self-destruction; built-in obsolescence not by design but through lack of design.
Now that the USSR has faded into history's experimental waste-heap, Russia is oil-wealthier than it has ever been. Yet the lack of expertise and dedication to accomplishment that became a byword of collective failure that described that great experiment in socialist enterprise doesn't appear to have been crowded out by a new, invigorated pride of workmanship and drive for success.
Days after a proton-M booster rocket failed to successful propel two communications satellites into target orbits, Russia's Prime Minister Medvedev lamented the kind of "traditional sloppiness" held to account for a series of humiliating failures as a result of manufacturing flaws and engineering errors. "We are losing our prestige and billions of rubles", he groaned.
~Lost: A robotic probe designed to study a moon of Mars, launched in November, crashed in January. ~Crashed: A Soyuz booster rocket, raising the prospect of losing the capability of ferrying crews and cargo to the International Space Station. Due to an "accidental" manufacturing flaw.
~Lost: Three navigation satellites, a military satellite, a telecommunications satellite.
Blamed: Outdated equipment, an aging workforce, degraded quality standards. "We can't tolerate that any longer", said Dmitry Medvedev, planning to name those responsible for the failures.
Labels: Russia, Science, Space, Technology
posted by Pieface @ Friday, August 10, 2012
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