NasaFail

[AlfredJPruffock]

Aye Bogeyman

The Russian Space Agency is arguably the leader in terms of sheer number of launches - they even launch some Sats for ESA in Bakinour via their Vostock Launcher - very simple in its design yet very effective.

Also the Russians do not use any booster jets for the seperation of the RocketStages - incredibly its all done by the gyrations of the Rocket itself.

ESA typically use French Arriane rockets from their SpacePort in Kourou in South America - they have a good record but are not immune from failure either.

Shame about NASA as this satellite was dedicated to monitoing Global Warming, hopefully ESAs next launch in Mid-April will be a success as it launches the largest ever infraRed (Herschel) and microwave SpaceTelescopes (Planck)- two spacecraft on the one Arriane rocket launch .

These exciting Space Telescopes , twenty years in the design - far exceeds the capablities of the Hubble Telescope , the Planck SpaceTelescope itself will reveal the state of the Universe at Big Bang , 14 Billion years ago - by creating a Map of the Cosmic Background Radiation thus answering many of the cosmological questions as to the Birth of the Universe - and its Ending.

Finally an illuminating article from last months Forbes as to why NASA are finding it more difficult to obtain the very top talent... as BM was curious as to why this may be so.

May the Cosmos be with You

http://www.forbes.com/2006/01/18/spa...rtner=yahootix

[HairyArsedBloke]

Intelligence tests showed the man had an IQ of 75, below the average score of 100 but not considered mentally retarded or disabled.

But this is a French civil servant. In the UK that would count as a higher-grade civil servant.

[swamp]

It turns out that civil servants can manage fine with a "50-75% reduction" in their brain.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...s-doctors.html

Someone misheard the minister when he said "we need more civil servants like a hole in the head".

[PRC1964]

All the bright people are moving into the public sector now.

It turns out that civil servants can manage fine with a "50-75% reduction" in their brain.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...s-doctors.html

[Mich the Tester]

All the bright people are moving into the public sector now.

We will have a brave new 'Concorde' age within the echelons of civil service and local government. All these bright young things will do to pen-pushing what Thatcher did to the capital markets.

They'll be employed to add up the national debt. Rumour has it that Gordon's appointed a new 'Numbers Tsar' whose job will be to invent new big numbers for the national debt and the banknotes that'll have to be issued.

[sasguru]

Or putting it another way, the thickos end up in NASA and the geniuses went to Wall Street.

Oh Dear ™

Indeed. All these dodgy financial instruments were created by Maths PhDs who were clever but not wise. Their stupid managers could not understand the models but didn't want to admit it.

And that in a nutshell is what happened.

On the other hand if these PhDs were designing supersonic engines, the natural engineering discipline would have tested their models to destruction before run time.

[swamp]

All the bright people are moving into the public sector now.

We will have a brave new 'Concorde' age within the echelons of civil service and local government. All these bright young things will do to pen-pushing what Thatcher did to the capital markets.

[Mich the Tester]

This crash only cost 280 million. Weak effort guys.

[DimPrawn]

Same thing that happened here. In the 50s and 60s all the best and brightest went into engineering and science - there were companies with jobs and being geeky and scientific was cool.

From the 80s onwards going to something unproductive like law, finance or other bulltulip became more lucrative.

The result is the total shambles we have today.

Or putting it another way, the thickos end up in NASA and the geniuses went to Wall Street.

Oh Dear ™

[sasguru]

Whatever happened?

* a full-blown fekkup

Same thing that happened here. In the 50s and 60s all the best and brightest went into engineering and science - there were companies with jobs and being geeky and scientific was cool.

From the 80s onwards going to something unproductive like law, finance or other bulltulip became more lucrative.

The result is the total shambles we have today.

[bogeyman]

They had a 'contingency' *

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7907602.stm

There'll be loads of scientists somewhere, crying into their beer tonight.

I think the sceptics should now leave it to the Russians or ESA or someone who actually knows how to launch payloads into orbit.

And to think these chaps put men on the moon once. Whatever happened?

* a full-blown fekkup