• Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Roscosmos doesn’t consider clearing the launch tower to be a success. There is value in continuing to use proven technology.

        • AngryMob@lemmy.one
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          4 months ago

          Youre comparing a testing goal to an operational goal? How the hell is that even relevant?

          We’d all still be using steam engines with your logic, because the moment a gasoline engine blew up in testing we shoulda just given up! And jet engines for aircraft? What a waste of time!

          C’mon. You gotta be smarter than that.

          • Emerald@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Eh? Both the Soyuz and Falcon 9 are proven spacecraft. That one abort was a fluke and the crew survived without injury. I’m sure they’ve put in some effort to make sure that abort won’t happen again.

        • becausechemistry@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          clearing the launch tower during a test launch with an experimental rocket that has no payload and no humans aboard is success

          managing to get into the right orbit without aborting using a rocket that’s launched since the 60s and is lit with giant matchsticks is success

          You, an idiot: “these are comparable”

    • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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      4 months ago

      From looking up the numbers, it seems like a soyuz launch under the cheapest circumstances can get decently cheaper than a falcon 9 launch, however, it also carries significantly less payload mass, so the actual cost per mass to orbit is lower for falcon 9, which makes the comparison a bit like comparing a van to a semi truck; if you want to move something small enough to fit in the van, without any other cargo to fill the space, then the van makes sense. But if you’re running a logistics network and have enough cargo to fill whatever vehicle you’re using, the bigger truck is going to be cheaper to use.

      As far as them being a better rocket company though, Roscosmos has just been operating a group of designs that are quite ancient in terms of rockets, especially the soyuz which is an evolution on an original design that literally predates Sputnik. They’re not bad rockets per se, but Roscosmos didn’t develop them and they don’t seem to be innovating much beyond them, and so are quickly becoming out of date as more groups work on things like rocket reusability. SpaceX by contrast has been quite innovative in the space especially with regards to reuse, and has such a high capacity that one satellite constellation it owns accounts for a majority of operational satellites at the moment.