Russia Botches Another Rocket Launch

Next time do even some research before spreading worthless garbage. Did a Russian rape your mother or something?

Seriously, I can't find one sentence in what you wrote that isn't false, that's downright impressive.

this will remain the case for at least 20 years

The Space X Dragon Capsule had it's first test flight in 2010.

the time it'll take for a functional Shuttle replacement to be designed, built, tested and launched given the current available funding (or lack thereof)

The Shuttle was a giant worthless dangerous money sink that should never be resurrected.

rockets are updated regularly, but when was the last time the US actually invented one from scratch through to completion?

Falcon 9- First Launch in 2010
Antares- First Launch to be in 2012

extreme age of all existing launch facilities.

I wish someone invented some way of building new things, boy would that be a wonder. Also, SpaceX is building a launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base right now. Guess someone did invent a way.

If a Soyuz carrying US astronauts reaches orbit but cannot dock with the ISS, the astronauts will be stranded. There's no rescue service possible.

So the ISS is populated by magical fairies that give the Soyuz their magic to get back to Earth and it can't de-orbit without their help?

More likely, if a stage failed, the rocket would be remotely destroyed along with the crew. Or it would smear itself over the landscape with much the same effect.

Unlike the stupidly dangerous Shuttle, the Soyuz system is perfectly capable of ejecting the capsule to safety even before launch. In fact, in one instance the they did do just that moments before the rocket exploded on the tarmac. Everyone survived.

We're increasingly aware that space is unsafe, but nobody is willing to stump up the cash to make it safe enough.

The Soyuz hasn't killed anyone in forty years, despite probably being run in a borderline criminally negligible manner for the last twenty. The Shuttle was handled with kid gloves in comparison and we still lost two of them. A capsule is just inherently an order of magnitude easier to shove with safety and failsafe features. More than once the Soyuz has reentered the atmosphere upside down while still strapped to it's orbital module. No one died. Imagine if the Shuttle did that.

It would also require total trust and cooperation between the US and Russia - and that would be political suicide for anyone in either country to suggest, let alone try.

The Russians seem to be doing rather well so far and I don't doubt SpaceX won't have much trouble either.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/P9zA0P7dfH8/russia-botches-another-rocket-launch

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