1 hour ago, stans said:

I think it's easy to forget that NASA had plenty of kaboom's during their rocket development.

I hope we've moved beyond the days of "But ours keep blowing up!"  The Russians beat us into space because their German rocket scientists were better than our German rocket scientists.  I have often wondered at the competence and experience level of Herr Braun.  It's probably better today not to know too much about that era.

The complexity of today's spacecraft means that things can get overlooked.  But there have been a lot of successful launches to make several failures in a row stand out.

I hope they get things fixed soon.

Hook

I guess we could call this... a "regression test" ?

9 hours ago, LHookins said:

I hope we've moved beyond the days of "But ours keep blowing up!"  The Russians beat us into space because their German rocket scientists were better than our German rocket scientists.  I have often wondered at the competence and experience level of Herr Braun.  It's probably better today not to know too much about that era.

I wouldn't say Soviets had better or the USA had better scientists, both sides had very good resources available. The primary reason why the Soviets ended up winning that space race in that era comes down to PAYLOADS. The primary reason for each side to develop rockets in the first place was to launch nuclear warheads. the USA was far more advanced in developing nuclear weapons at that time and were able to make them much lighter. The Soviets were far behind in developing their nuclear warheads therefore those warheads were much heavier, which forced the Soviets to develop much heaver rockets to deliver those payloads.  The Americans could produce lighter more efficient rockets instead which was better.

What happened next was the Soviets realized those heavier rockets could also do other things like place Sputnik into orbit, followed shortly after by a nuclear test to show these capabilities. The Americans were caught with their pants down because the focus wasn't on heavy rockets in the first place, they had no reason to. That was the reason the Americans had to do a change in policy and play the catch-up game, they simply were not focused on heavy rockets because they didn't see it as a priority, until it was.

On 6/19/2025 at 11:21 AM, tdflightsim said:

Shame, what a waste.  Hopefully no one was hurt.  An act of God possibly?😉 

No, no! God definitely didn't do it!🤣

On 6/19/2025 at 9:33 PM, dave2013 said:

When you've got rockets with about 10 million pounds of fuel that has to be ignited to provide thrust

 

We need anti-gravity, Mr. Dave.

Or maybe a space lift for smaller stuff.

 

Edited June 21, 2025Jun 21 by martin-w

13 hours ago, Matthew Kane said:

I wouldn't say Soviets had better or the USA had better scientists, both sides had very good resources available. The primary reason why the Soviets ended up winning that space race in that era comes down to PAYLOADS. The primary reason for each side to develop rockets in the first place was to launch nuclear warheads. the USA was far more advanced in developing nuclear weapons at that time and were able to make them much lighter. The Soviets were far behind in developing their nuclear warheads therefore those warheads were much heavier, which forced the Soviets to develop much heaver rockets to deliver those payloads.  The Americans could produce lighter more efficient rockets instead which was better.

I don't think there's any doubt that the US scooped the pool when it came to grabbing the real brains behind the German WW2 rocket program. 

The Russians came into possession of a lot of wrecked infrastructure and shipped off quite a few engineers and lots of technicians who they certainly shipped off to the Soviet Union pretty quickly but the cupboard was bare and the actual design teams were largely beginning new lives in the USA.

The space race of the nineteen fifties was dominated by the Soviets simply because the US concentrated on bombers and SAC. The US could utilise bases in the Pacific, Japan, Alaska, Turkey and Western Europe to deliver a nuclear strike. The Soviets simply didn't have an airforce capable of delivering a weapon to North America. 

The Soviets were forced to develop large rockets as they quickly realised that their guidance systems were woefully inadequate. Their scientists were unable to guarantee that a missile launched in the Soviet Union would come anywhere near it's intended target.

This, coupled with how far behind they were with warhead technology meant any credible weapon would have to have a large warhead in the multi-megaton range to assure the intended target was actually damaged.

Big payload = big rocket. After much beurocratic wrangling this led them to the R7 type. This was hardly a credible weapons system. The highly volatile fuel system meant it needed 48 hours to prepare for a launch; plenty of time for the US to wipe out it's launch site and this fuel meant it was too unstable to simply be left in 'readiness' for a launch. It was a technological dead end.

However these arguments were settled in 1960 when this happened;

These large rockets did whoever allow them to stun the world in 1957 by placing a bleeping radio transmitter in orbit. 

At the same time it was becoming apparent to the Pentagon that both Soviet radar and aircraft technology were becoming capable of bringing down fast, high flying aircraft and these developments could seriously impact the US capability of delivering weapons onto Soviet soil.

This triggered another round of interservice rivalry and it also allowed the 1960 US presidential race to turn these technological developments into political footballs. The early years of the nine fifties were dominated by a non existent bomber gap and the early years of the sixties succumbed to a non existent missile gap.

Kennedy went on to settle all the arguments by giving the US's German rocket scientists a blank cheque and the US navy the primary responsibility for the American nuclear deterent based on submarines, solid fuel rockets and the enormous advantages in funding and research that a free, open society gives any nation.

The Soviets were left with in an enormous, ropey technological backwater with a hugely expensive collection of junk and an economy unable to deliver to it's citizens decent plumbing, food stuffs, automobiles or shoes...

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

I don't think there's any doubt that the US scooped the pool when it came to grabbing the real brains behind the German WW2 rocket program. 

So many theories this is endless, mine was not based on a theory it was based on a highlight like I said in that original post and that was based on... PAYLOAD

for me the rest of it is just a rant

Good Night