Star City and the Baikonur Cosmodrome

First time accepted submitter zyborg writes "Here's 44 photographs of the Baikonour Cosmodrome used by the ISS program. The pictures range from training, launch vehicle transport and assembly, launch, touchdown, pictures from space, etc. From the article 'Earlier today, a Soyuz-FG rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying an International Space Station (ISS) crew into orbit. Baikonur, Russia's primary space launch facility since the 1950s, is the largest in the world, and supports multiple launches of both manned and unmanned rockets every year. With the U.S. manned space program currently on hold, Baikonur is now the sole launching point for trips to the ISS. Gathered here is a look at the facility, some of the cosmonaut training programs in Star City outside of Moscow, and a few recent launches and landings — plus a bonus: 3 spectacular long-exposure images of Earth from the ISS.'"

Re:Cold War

[TWX]

The shuttle as promised and the shuttle as delivered were not the same craft. The original idea was that it was a rocket-assist plane that could land and be turned around to fly again in a matter of days or weeks, and that shuttles would be constantly flying, likely more than one mission at a time.

There have also been discussions that American military/industrial/aerospace developments weren't really because we wanted to push the boundaries of what we could do, but that we wanted to get the Russians to try to do something that they couldn't afford. If you look at the idea of defensive platforms in space, coupled with the shuttle, the aerial laser, and other ideas, you have an extremely expensive set of tech to develop. Not so expensive that the US couldn't afford to expend resources in those directions, but that possibly the Russians couldn't but would try anyway, ultimately breaking their own economy in the process. Given the way the Soviet Union broke up, it arguably worked.

And taken as a percentage of total space presence?

[SmallFurryCreature]

The Shuttle only stayed up for a few days, the Russians had permanent presence for year after year.

Oh and launches? The Russians never stopped their and still going. The Americans are begging for rides.

Steve Jobs did not have a reality distortion field, he was just an American in America.