I can't help but feel that in 2009, we should have gotten to "the future" already. Instead this looks like stuff from the 70s. Where's the flying cars and anti-grav space crafts?
@adamczar: the fact that the world's most reliable, longest lasting space delivery vehicle is a rocket based on an ICBM from the 50s which ran on kerosene speaks loudly that our space programs should attempt to live in the present, not the future.
@Grey_Area: Yep, Russian engineers know what works and to only make steady, small improvements with each iteration. Evolution instead of revolution. It's given them some very reliable and reasonably priced hardware.
@corpore-metal: I love that instead designing an obscenely huge Vehicle Assembly Building, the Russians build their rockets horizontally then raise them into position.
@Grey_Area: i guess it's just semantics on my part then. to me the design was the R7 and it hasn't changed, the model differences are primarily changes in construction materials and techniques.
It's gorgeous, but does it land again? Or does all of that punkery break up and whizz around in orbit, forever threatening our satellites and space projects?
Baikonur is really a fabulous place for space launches - it's still so old school but so high tech at the same time; it's kind of a gleaming steampunk kind of environment. It's grittiness is a completely different feel from the clean, high tech atmosphere around American space facilities. :)
Special places in my heart for both, I have to say.
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But that's wiki for you. [en.wikipedia.org]
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Do they still do that capsule/splashdown thing?
And where do they attach the bat?
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Special places in my heart for both, I have to say.
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One rocket in, One rocket out! Hopefully.
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Also Cosmodrome is just about the coolest name for a rocket I can think of.
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Even the name evokes an Art Deco aesthetic.