Text 24002, 66 rader
Skriven 2008-11-23 10:50:17 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
  Kommentar till text 23977 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
Ärende: Re: Spacewalks in the nude
==================================
RW>RW>> DC>> How many manned spacecraft have the Belgians lost?
 
RW>RW>> WD> None. All of our astronauts made it back alive.
 
RW>RW>> In fact, Belgum never had a space program.
 
RW>WD> You probably never heard about ESA either
 
RW> Wrong...Headquartered in Paris, ...
 
Whatever the location of the HQ, Belgium is a contracted partner and has
"rented" spots on both Soyuz and space-shuttle. One of the next commanders of
the ISS, he will be launched in 2009, for a period of 6 months will be a
Belgian. Pretty difficult if you haven't got a space-programme.
 
RW> ESA has a staff of close to 2,000 with an
RW> annual budget of about 2.9 billion Euro in 2007. ESA's main spaceport is
RW> the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, a site made available by France.
 
Most ESA launches go from Baikonur Kazahkstan ... as do most American satellite
launches. The Russians are just cheaper <period>.
 
RW>WD> ... their training center is in Belgium btw.
 
RW> Wrong again: the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), that trains astronauts
RW> for future missions is situated in Cologne, Germany.
 
NASA has built a full-scale mock-up of a shuttle at Redu (Belgium) at the Euro
Space Center there. My former boss having been an astronaut on Atlantis I was
afforded the rare privilege of participating in a training-flight for
astronauts in it.
 
RW> PS - So far, all that has been accomplished by the ESA has been
RW> 'unmanned'
RW> commercial and research space launches. No Astronauts, unless you want to
RW> count the Russians, which ESA partnered with a while back in the late
RW> 1990s.
 
Most ESA personnel go up and down in a Soyuz. Quite reliable.
 
Do not talk too bad of our Russian friends. They kept the ISS alive when NASA
couldn't.
 
RW> PSS _ Speaking of rocket failures, the Ariane 5 ECA that failed during
RW> its
RW> first test flight in 2002, has since made fifteen consecutive successful
RW> flights (only 15). As the launches gain in numbers, the chances of a
RW> failure will be on a par with NASA's, ...
 
That is not correct, these people learn from eachother's mishaps.
 
It has been formally recognised by Boeing for example that if the
Comet-accidents wouldn't have happened, they probably would have happened to
the 707 as the initial design had the same flaw around the windows.
 
RW> ...who launched it's 15th Atlas in the 1960s.
 
And how many launchings went terribly wrong while the Soviets were happily
sending up satellites which were pinging away like crazy in orbit over the US?
 
It caused a national psychosis ...
 
 \%/@rd

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 * Origin: Many Glacier -o=O=o- Preserve - Protect - Conserve (2:292/854)