Word: soyuz
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...little resistance as possible, were almost impossible to protect from the heat of re-entry. Faget designed a blunt nose for the Mercury, which created a shock wave that deflected the heat, a design feature later used on the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft, as well as the Soviet Soyuz...
Reality check: unless you have about $15 million for a ride on an old Soviet Soyuz rocket, private space travel still exists only on design boards and in desert workshops. If it does take off, it will be risky. One in 20 missions to space fails, usually catastrophically. Also, the government could set rules onerous enough to ground the fledgling industry. The FAA is now charged with issuing launch licenses and could impose tough restrictions on private trips, in part to minimize its own potential liability. "Even if people accept the risks, our government will be regulating private space travel...
...with NASA's astronauts reduced to hitching rides on Soyuz modules, the private-rocket crowd is fired up because a privately funded ship might be ready for takeoff within a few years. Since 1996, several teams have been racing to develop a three-person spacecraft that could reach the edge of the atmosphere and repeat the feat within two weeks--the qualifications required to win the $10 million X Prize created by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis to encourage private spaceflight. Leading that race is legendary aerospace engineer Burt Rutan, who is gearing up for another test after his rocket plane broke...
...Other observers question whether Beijing merely knocked off Russia's manned program. Indeed, China's first two astronauts received instruction at Star City, the space-training center outside Moscow. China purchased a Soyuz spacecraft from Russia as a model for Shenzhou'sairframe, plus life-support systems and a single pressurized space suit. The Shenzhou bears a resemblance to the Soyuz, but with substantial Chinese modifications. In a clear advance over the Soyuz, the Shenzhou III employed a forward orbital module with a solar panel that remained in space. Future flights could one day dock with the module to form...
...same limitations as the shuttle. What if a rocket were about to explode and the commander tried to abort at supersonic speed? The force would simply rip the wings off a space plane. And leaving one docked to the station for months at a time, the way Soyuz lifeboats are today, would expose its thermal tiles and wingpanels, essentially the same system that failed on Columbia, to hits from space debris, perhaps dooming another crew on re-entry...