Text 24493, 114 rader
Skriven 2008-11-25 18:59:16 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
  Kommentar till text 24002 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
Ärende: Spacewalks in the nude
==============================
23 Nov 08 10:50, Ward Dossche wrote to Roy Witt:


 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, ...

 WD> Whatever the location of the HQ, Belgium is a contracted partner

None the less, Belgum plays second fidle to France and Germany, who play
second fidle to Russia.

 WD>  and has "rented" spots on both Soyuz and space-shuttle.

Wow! Rented spots eh....wouldn't they be better off in a chair?

 WD> One of the next commanders of the ISS, he will be launched in 2009,
 WD> for a period of 6 months will be a Belgian. Pretty difficult if you
 WD> haven't got a space-programme.

Actually, as I pointed out, that's a Russian Space Program that will carry
said Belgum into space. Note that the first word in Space Station is
'International'...A program that NASA and Russia started.

 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
 RW>> spaceport is the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, a site made
 RW>> available by France.

 WD> Most ESA launches go from Baikonur Kazahkstan ... as do most American
 WD> satellite launches. The Russians are just cheaper <period>.

Not only cheaper, but they are also the senior partner in the ESA program
now.

 RW>> WD> ... their training center is in Belgium btw.

 RW>> Wrong again: the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), that trains
 RW>> astronauts for future missions is situated in Cologne, Germany.

 WD> NASA has built a full-scale mock-up of a shuttle at Redu (Belgium) at
 WD> the Euro Space Center there.

So, it's a show place and not really a 'space center' per se'...Boeing has
built plenty of 'mock-ups' that never have gotten off the ground, just
like that one NASA built for you.

 WD> My former boss having been an astronaut on Atlantis I was afforded
 WD> the rare privilege of participating in a training-flight for
 WD> astronauts in it.

Sure you were.

 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
 RW>> want to count the Russians, which ESA partnered with a while back in
 RW>> the late 1990s.

 WD> Most ESA personnel go up and down in a Soyuz. Quite reliable.

heh! Russian rockets because the ESA doesn't have any manable rockets.

 WD> Do not talk too bad of our Russian friends. They kept the ISS alive
 WD> when NASA couldn't.

Sure they did...if it wasn't for NASA, there wouldn't be any ISS after
the Russians nearly ruined it.

 RW>> PSS _ Speaking of rocket failures, the Ariane 5 ECA that failed
 RW>> during its first test flight in 2002, has since made fifteen
 RW>> consecutive successful flights (only 15). As the launches gain in
 RW>> numbers, the chances of a failure will be on a par with NASA's, ...

 WD> That is not correct, these people learn from eachother's mishaps.

That is absolutely correct, taking into account age of the equipment and
the strains it goes through going up and coming back. Not to mention the
apathy of the maintenence personel.

 WD> It has been formally recognised by Boeing for example that if the
 WD> Comet-accidents wouldn't have happened, they probably would have
 WD> happened to the 707 as the initial design had the same flaw around
 WD> the windows.

LOL! Boeing had been in the airplane designing and building for quite a
few years before the Comet died. They certainly wouldn't have made such a
mistake.

 RW>> ...who launched it's 15th Atlas in the 1960s.

 WD> And how many launchings went terribly wrong while the Soviets were
 WD> happily sending up satellites which were pinging away like crazy in
 WD> orbit over the US?

LOL! Check out how many Soviet rockets exploded on the pad and those who
crashed before gaining altitude in space.

 WD> It caused a national psychosis ...

In Russia.

                R\%/itt



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