Argentina Launches First Satellite

[ElQueso]

I agree that this government in particular has better ways to spend their money.

This money is going toward supporting science and engineering jobs, what makes it to the actual design and development that is, and not as coima along the line. But the problem that governments often have is that they make the decision about where to spend the money and a lot of money spent in the wrong place ends up being money poorly lost. Argentina has a reasonable science and engineering base, particularly in IT and other areas. The government is supporting satellite engineers and scientists (not a huge market, really, here) while placing restrictions on other fields with all the crazy controls of the last few years is doing the country serious damage.

A government often doesn't need to spend money to support certain industries but rather get out of the way and lift import/export restrictions and tone down the labor laws, get rid of the patronage in government, then other Argentine scientific and engineering fields would grow for real, with little money spent in the effort.

 

[ArielFabian]

I agree that this government in particular has better ways to spend their money.

ARSAT-1 and Tronador II are going well. If this works fine it will give the chance to Argentina to make some $ renting services to other countries. Those projects are the result of many years of investigation. A long time ago Argentina has been the 4th country after Russia, US and France in sending a living thing to the space and return it alive, and other good projects. With some foreign support it has good chances to succeed. Nobody believes everything is 100% Argentine and it seems that most of the components are imported, but well... it is a good starting point.

 

[ghost]

The Buran flew beautifully into orbit on its first and final flight. It was a fully automated flight, and quite a technical achievement. It never flew again simply due to lack of funds, as the Soviet economy collapsed, but it worked like a Swiss watch and was technically superior to the US space shuttle in pretty much every aspect.

Do not believe what the Russians published as PR BS. Buran was copied in concept from NASA plans and [took advantage of conceptual improvements] like Concordski it had some serious flaws. I should have said it never flew beyond a test mission. Anyway the US has always screwed with NASAs funding it's difficult to do long range planning when the budget looks like a yoyo.

 

[camberiu]

Do not believe what the Russians published as PR BS.

It is not Russian PR. Those conclusion came from the folks from Lockheed, NASA and JPL, who inspected the Buran in person after the fall of the Soviet Union. They were so impressed with what they saw that they purchased many of the technologies from the Russians and incorporated into the US program. Lockheed's Atlas V rocket, the mainstay of the US launcher program, is powered by the Russian RD-180 engine, which was designed and build for the Buran program. It was adopted because it was more powerful, more reliable and more efficient than anything the US had.
Super scalar computing, first developed by soviet engineers in the 70s and that later became the basis of the original Intel Pentium chip, was first used on the Buran program.

 

[ghost]

Good info. Thanks. Check out the SLS and the Falcon Heavy for some fun reading

 

[ArielFabian]

It is not Russian PR. Those conclusion came from the folks from Lockheed, NASA and JPL, who inspected the Buran in person after the fall of the Soviet Union. They were so impressed with what they saw that they purchased many of the technologies from the Russians and incorporated into the US program. Lockheed's Atlas V rocket, the mainstay of the US launcher program, is powered by the Russian RD-180 engine, which was designed and build for the Buran program. It was adopted because it was more powerful, more reliable and more efficient than anything the US had.
Super scalar computing, first developed by soviet engineers in the 70s and that later became the basis of the original Intel Pentium chip, was first used on the Buran program.

Really interesting. It is a pity Buran project was cancelled, and may be this money used for warlike projects.

 

[camberiu]

Really interesting. It is a pity Buran project was cancelled, and may be this money used for warlike projects.

Ironically, the Buran was canceled because it had no commercial use. It was designed from the beginning as a military vessel/weapon system. Russia already had very cost effective and reliable ways to reach space stations with the Soyuz and to launch satellites and comercial cargo with the Proton family of rockets. So there was no civilian/comercial niche for the Buran to occupy. With the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it made no economic sense to keep poring money on a extremely expensive weapon system like the Buran.

 

[ghost]

The flagrant way that Putin has been wagging his nuclear penis at world lately might indicate a rebirth for Buran.

 

[camberiu]

The flagrant way that Putin has been wagging his nuclear penis at world lately might indicate a rebirth for Buran.

I think they might build "something", but I doubt it will be a Buran. The Buran is a product from the strategic/military thinking of the 70s and 80s. A lot has changed since then, and in today's world, Buran would be anachronistic. We also need to consider that most of the tooling specialized used to build the Buran is gone and would need to be rebuild. In this case, it would make more sense to start with a brand new project than to try to resurrect something designed 30 years ago.

 

[ArielFabian]

Ironically, the Buran was canceled because it had no commercial use. It was designed from the beginning as a military vessel/weapon system. Russia already had very cost effective and reliable ways to reach space stations with the Soyuz and to launch satellites and comercial cargo with the Proton family of rockets. So there was no civilian/comercial niche for the Buran to occupy. With the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it made no economic sense to keep poring money on a extremely expensive weapon system like the Buran.

True, but I guess in a time of war another challenge was also to research how to reuse the spacecraft. It was not like the Russian SS-18 Satan that can carry 10 Nuclear Bombs.