On February 5, 2002 due to a combination of poor maintenance and a lot of snow piled up on the roof of the building, the roof collapsed. The people who were in the building perished. A technological enterprise to be proud of ended in a pitiful way
Not long ago I read an article about the sad end of the Russian space shuttle Buran. This ferry was launched only once in 1988 and since then it has been occupied in Bikaner. It was a photo article and a very short text. It turns out that on February 5, 2002, due to a combination of poor maintenance and a lot of snow that piled up on the roof of the building, the roof collapsed. The people who were in the building perished. A technological enterprise to be proud of ended in a pitiful way. The obvious question is why? In the United States this would not happen. What would they do with all the ferries during their service period? Make sure that the shuttle is put into a suitable structure, taken care of and maintained. Turn the storage place into a visitor center and earn money for it. In a reformed country, factories are preserved which are a first class historical and cultural asset.
So what happened here? With the disintegration of the USSR and the closing of budgets, the space agency's budgets were also cut. The historical importance of the ferry was neglected and its maintenance was extremely poor. It is hard to believe that it was impossible to find a budget to preserve the ferry. No one cared and it's a shame.
And maybe the loss of the shuttle is symptomatic of another problem? The Americans landed a man on the moon and the Russians did not. They had plans for that. Many Russian launches to Mars have failed including Phobos Grunt's launch on November 9, 2011 and it was a burning failure that caused a lot of embarrassment. The Americans launched spacecraft to Mercury, the outer planets and asteroids.
Two European spacecraft, one to Venus and one to Mars were launched by Russian launchers and are still operating today. The Russians did not succeed. In the 60s, the Russians developed a huge N1 launcher so that it would be possible to use it to launch manned spacecraft to the moon and most likely it would also be possible to launch spacecraft to the outer planets. Three times they tried to launch it and in all the attempts it exploded and also caused the death of those who were in the launch area. The Russians knew how to do beautiful things in space exploration, such as landing all-terrain vehicles on the moon and returning soil samples from it. There was something very basic that prevented them from reaching achievements like those of the Americans. The Americans also had setbacks but they overcame them. The answer apparently lies in a non-engineering factor. The Russians knew how to work and plan impressive space plants, but they did not know how to manage.
In the 80s, an exhibition of Russia's space achievements was presented in the exhibition grounds. I went to this exhibition and to my astonishment there was not even a single explanatory page about the exhibits nor a single advertising brochure. A complete misunderstanding of public relations and marketing. When I approached one of the Russian employees to ask for an explanation about one item he got angry and asked if I was following him. Apparently he still lives in the era of the KGB.
One can only hope that the Russians have learned all of these lessons for future plans. Will they succeed in this? time will tell.
מקור
Photos: "Soviet Shuttle Dreams To Dust" Jun 16, 2014
Frank Moring Jr. On Space
33 תגובות
Abandoned Russian space shuttles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6vvmWWkNRs
skeptic
For your information, all the launchers, including the Saturn launchers that sent astronauts to the moon, are mostly fuel. Take the weight of the launcher with the fuel and divide by the weight of the spacecraft and you'll see. The Russians launched their space shuttle once and shortly after that the USSR disintegrated. The Russians had no money for anything. Passenger planes are intended for multiple use. Does that make them dangerous? The Boeing spaceX spacecraft that won the NASA tender is built so that it can be used 10 times, does that make it as dangerous as the shuttles. The Americans haven't had astronauts for several years since it takes several years to develop a new spaceship since the shuttle was discontinued.. Do your homework before you respond.
Haim -
The model you came up with may be correct, but the findings in the field do not agree if the theory -
The bottom line still remains - (and does not go into the question, who has bigger launchers...irrelevant)
At this point in time, the Americans cannot send a man into space. The Russians do.
And you still think the Russians are behind in the race? And looking for why this is so?!!
Perhaps they simply realized before the Americans that a spacecraft whose weight is mostly the fuel anyway, is not economical, and it is not safe to have it built for multiple flights. Even with this it takes better pictures...
Life
2 of 120 - How do you relate this to the word "only"? I know there were other "almost hit" cases, so the number 2 is very much a matter of luck. For example, the "Atlantis" was hit on takeoff (1988) and landed quite luckily I think. There was also at least one instance of an engine shutting down on takeoff.
Flying into space is a very dangerous thing and the American management is much better than the Russian management, there is no arguing with that. But, don't say there were "only" 2 ferry accidents....
Elisaf Movshowitz
If you had read the article carefully, you would have seen that in the sentence "with the Americans this would not have happened" the reference is to the maintenance of the Boran ferry and how it was neglected. It was not popular with the Americans. It was a source of pride and they would strengthen and preserve it. Try to read carefully next time and then you will understand the poet's intention
Haim, I definitely read your articles, including the article about Apollo 13 🙂
Although the solution is brilliant, I had the impression that after that, there was already an atmosphere of "even if something goes wrong, we will manage to solve it", and this may have caused excessive complacency.
In any case, I agree that the Russians had more failures than the Americans, but a sentence like "it wouldn't have happened to the Americans" is not accurate.
Miracles
Since I do not speak Russian, has a management book ever been written in Russia, formerly the USSR, in this language to exclude communist management methods? Here, in my opinion, is the root of the problem. Out of over 120 shuttle launches (I don't remember the exact number) there were only two space disasters. An admirable achievement, with all the pain involved in the loss of human life. Engineering failures and management failures are inevitable. It is necessary and even mandatory to see everything in a broad panoramic view. Only in this way is it possible to reduce engineering and management failures to a minimum number as possible.
Life
As far as I know, the problem with Apollo 13 was technical. Change the electrical system from 28 to 115 volts and forget one detector (I'm probably oversimplifying). But, Challenzer in Porosh had a management problem, and the technical problem was known in advance.
So even the English speakers have management problems. I completely agree that the problem with the Russians is very difficult...
Elisaf Movshowitz
What you say is true, but don't forget that there will always be glitches. an inevitable thing. If you make a comparison between the total successes of the USA and those of Russia, you can clearly see that the USA was more successful and overwhelmingly. In the USA, lessons were learned and they knew how to deal with the most difficult situations. As an example, the Apollo 13 flight. The malfunction was serious, but the solutions were brilliant, returning astronauts alive and safe to Earth from almost certain death, and at such a great distance from the Earth is an unprecedented achievement.. Read my article about the Apollo 13 flight. Because it was minor, but there was also beheading and this was a common thing in the communist regime. The Russians with all their attempts failed to land a man on the moon. Their fundamental problem, and it probably remains even today, is management. Don't forget that management is a profession. Read some books on management. I repeat that failures are inevitable.
The sentence "in the United States this would not happen" is not accurate.
Two ferries exploded on their crew, due to omissions (if I'm not mistaken the editor of this site wrote a book about it).
The mistakes in Apollo 13 miraculously did not cause a disaster, but whoever examines them, it reaches a shocking level.
The Hubble Space Telescope, in which billions were invested, was launched into space with the focus of the mirror 2 cm away from where it should be. And they made a replacement mirror, but you can't replace a mirror in space.
more and more…
skeptic
I know every accident that the Americans have had and a small part of the accidents of the Russians. The Russian part is bigger than the American whole...
skeptic
For your information, the largest launcher was that of the Apollo spacecraft. He could put a 120-ton payload into Earth's orbit and a 45-ton payload to the moon. The largest launcher of the Russians was the one that launched the Buran space shuttle. He could put a load of 90 tons into the earth. It was used only once and then came the collapse of the USSR and there was no continuation.. As for the bureaucracy, it is much greater in Russia. There is a concept in political science that originates in Russian - aparchik, the one who lives from the apparatus, in particular the members of the Communist Party. Since my academic education is in political science and I know the Russian space program very well, I know these two fields very well. If you want to respond, do your homework well. Your incompetence shouts to the sky and it reaches Gagarin's ears and it permeates.
Amazing article,
They probably forgot the fact that the Russians built much more reliable launchers than the Americans.
They probably waited because at this point in time, the only ones who can launch a person into space or bring him back are the Russians.
(that the Americans need their services to man and maintain the space station)
If anything, I would say that there is something rotten in the American way of conduct and management.
Most American science is based on local bureaucrats run by Chinese Russian and Indian scientists.
Fair report - I am not Russian, and I do not receive a salary from Putin.
Life
I suspected it..
They say:
nalog na duvaulnuyo stoimost. (nalog na dobavlenuiu stoimost)
Einstein
Meaning - value added tax
Life
I could not understand. If you write in English letters I can understand.
Stoinost - stability, durability?
Nalogni - did you mean Nalognei? Or Na Logni?
Dubbychna?
Einstein
Now explain the following words in phonetic transcription into Hebrew
Nalogny Dubbychna Stoynost
I see that in Israel there are people who devote a lot of hatred to Russia, of Russia. But why don't we pay more attention to our acute problems? Problems of growing gaps between rich and poor - the collapse of the middle class. Or the difficulty of converting - who denies so many people the right to self-determination? Or the hatred for minorities - a result of poverty = danger of civil war.
Tobrish Chaim
Po Roski.
Da. Nash Tobrish Yisrael Toja Punimayet Namnogo. 🙂
(But I'm not Russian and I wasn't born in Russia).
Einstein
Ponmeish Po Roscoe?
Although not in Cyrillic letters, still
Don't forget your Tobrish Yisrael party card.. 🙂 🙂
Probably..
Spakoinei Nochi Druzhkov, Israel is now going to bed.
Israel Shapira
I have the impression Yossi doesn't know who you mean.
Joseph
And let's not forget in the list of geniuses the satanic genius Visserionovich Jogashvili who put his enemy Adolf Schickelgruber in his small pocket.
Joseph
I have the impression that you have come to the wrong site. Your words do not belong at all to the topic of the article. did you drink some vodka
Last but not least, let's not forget that the barbarian giant from Moscow, who fought most of the Second World War, like most of the world, against Nazi Germany, while allowing Jews to become partisans, and about 2 million Jewish soldiers in the army itself, including Mishna battalion commanders in the Armored and Hormash brigades, and freed the Auschwitz extermination and incineration plant. It involved anti-Semitism, self-inflicted barbarism and towards others, and more. But the Western Allies carried out a massive invasion of Normandy only in 1.5 and the war ended in 1944. They indeed raided Italy, but without decision from the south, and fought in Africa. But they were busy with Japan and also armed the USSR until the production mechanisms in it went into action. The Russian giant is a mixture of contrasts: barbarism and totalitarianism, and art and science and engineering, military genius, the absence of democracy and saving the world from itself, but with selfish motives. In the line of performance, they shed a lot of blood in World War II. The Jews lost 1945% of their people. The Russians 33%.
Pouring content to the geniuses I said: I'm not Russian by the way.
Literature: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky, Turgenev, Bolgakos, Solzhenitsyn.
Music: Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovich. In today's pianistic virtuosos, the Russians dominate at least 40% in my estimation.
Mathematics and physics: Landau, the Lipshitz brothers (one continued Landau's work by publishing the series in theoretical physics published in the West by Pergamon Publishing, and the other in semiconductor research), Kapitza, Khaitin (Chaos), Markov, Gamov. Until the end of the 80s they stood out very much in the sciences. Today there is a slowdown due to the economic crisis, but the nucleus that can be nurtured is there.
chess.
They cannot be given up as Jews in Israel. Their contribution to hi-tech in Israel is decisive, and demographically they bought us 20 years of peace that are now coming to an end. Even Putin recognizes their tremendous contribution to Israel and suggested they return to Russia.
They have things that irritate some of us and cannot be included. And so I saved for the end: alcohol, gathering within themselves, permissiveness. But overall the positive far outweighs the negative.
The Russians, despite all the poverty, have a glorious heritage in music, especially in the twentieth century, in literature, and in mathematics and physics.
Those who are so easily willing to differ from the Russians, not proper behavior. This is not Europe, but a special culture found in the mixture between Asia and Europe. But the large amount of geniuses, which she bequeathed to the world, does not allow them to be given up.
Even in England tragic nonsense happens to me. The question of whether Scotland with 55% natural resources and 20% population should be disintegrated in the name of democracy, and whether Muhammad should be the common name in the kingdom, in my opinion, shames a 1500 year old heritage. And so is France.
The Russian people have proven that with creativity you can go far. But in order to be a power, the citizens of Russia need to live at a western standard of living. In order for there to be true charity, these super expensive projects. And as for me, Israel Bibi has ruled for too long, and he is endangering democracy
Who cares if the Russians learned or not? Let them drown in their own shit. The Iranians are not successful either.
Space exploration is not the property of the Russians. Space belongs to everyone. And if the Americans manage to explore space..what good.
What do we care that the Russians didn't succeed (because of their crappy politics)?
About a year ago I traveled in Russia. The local guide said that the supermarket workers should be expected to treat us rudely, a habit from the communist era. So Russia is now a dictatorship, what has changed is only the name of the government, the system remains almost the same. The working committee of the Communist Party was replaced by a group of oligarchs. On the topic of science - there were many brilliant scientists in Russia, but those who did not get along with the government were thrown aside. In large organizations, such as the space program, people were promoted according to their connections in the party and not according to their skills. Some of the results are described in the article.