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Buy Yourself A Russian Space Capsule 60

Posted by timothy from the go-on-you-deserve-it dept.
-Nails- writes: "Apparently there is a Russian space capsule for sale. CNN reports that the capsule that was used to make repairs to Mir and that it's for sale at The Space Store. If I had a few million just lying around I'd buy it. It would be fun to stick it up in a tree in my front yard." Actually, this would make a great treehouse, wouldn't it?
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Buy Yourself A Russian Space Capsule More

Buy Yourself A Russian Space Capsule

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  • It would be nice if everyone could enjoy this. (Score:5)

    by Operandi ( 231803 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @08:19PM (#671792)
    Does anyone think it would be possible for us to organise a community purchase of the space capsule and then donate it to a museum for everyone to enjoy? Post your comments and if there's a chance, I'll take the initiative.

    Regards
  • quick, get it before this guy [slashdot.org] does! =)
  • The FAA and similar agencies around the world are just going to love this. It's bad enough that we've got people building rockets in their back yards. This reminds me of the expedition where a bunch of people died on Everest because they went up with no experience. It was just anyone who had a couple hundred thousand could join up for the thrill.

    On a side note, is it just me, or has it seemed like the Russians have been doing a garage sale lately? I hope the rumors about the nuclear fuel are mostly false, at least.

  • This makes sense (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You can already buy a Russian wife.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • umm no I don't...

    well ok, go on then...

  • Just 2.2 Million dollars! (Score:3)

    by WinnieTheShit ( 248078 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @08:29PM (#671798)
    Cnn wrote: A unique find for bargain hunters everywhere: A Russian space capsule is going on sale at just $2.2 million. Only 2.2 million?!? What a bargain! Guess I can finally break my 50 million which I've been carrying in my wallet since I bought that useless particle accelerator...
  • My guess is this is where some of the money to keep Mir up is comming from.

  • There is something sad about this. (Score:4)

    by edo-01 ( 241933 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @08:36PM (#671800)
    In an age where manned exploration of space seems to have taken a slug to the guts since the Apollo days, there is something quite sad about seeing an actual spacecraft, the product of a once proud space program being sold off as "a nice playhouse for kids".

    The Russians used to have a fearsome space program, one that very nearly saw them reach the moon and beyond. Now they are so strapped for cash they are selling their spacecraft for treehouses (I know, whoever buys it will most certainly not use it as such and likely treasure it, and that's good) and willing to let some smarmy TV exec use their space station as the destination for first prize in a gameshow. Frankly I hope they de-orbit it first. When my grandkids ask me "so what was the first privately funded manned space mission?" I'd hate to have to respond that it was a "reality show" putting some clueless mugging idiot in space, so some TV network could sell primo advertising space to a bunch of softdrink and tampon manufacturers.

  • Attention OSDN marketing (Score:3)

    by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @08:42PM (#671801)
    Junk that old-packard-looking-thing OSDN is giving away and put this baby up for giveaway. I can almost see the scripts now: create user, fill form, reply, goto begining. "Wow, 9 million more people signed up for the space capsule today, this Linux thing is huge!"

  • Ha! (Score:3)

    by The Original Bobski ( 52567 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @08:44PM (#671802) Homepage Journal
    You should have lived in Huntsville, Al in the hey-days of NASA. Surplus rocket boosters in the back yard was not an uncommon sight. Even as late as the late '80s (the last I lived there) a neighbor across the street had an old beat-up rocket engine laying beside his house.
  • A tree house. What a great idea this would be. I can see it now, "Hey bebe, you wanna see my love nest?" Ahh, to be a teenager again. *Sigh*
  • From some of the earlier posts, I would say the neatest use would be to take all the old pieces of Boosters laying around Huntsville. Then you fit a couple of them together and put the Russian capsule on top like the crowning cherry on a perfect nerdesque sundae.

    It is just a thought. I wonder what the insides of one of those things look like? Is it all old tech switches and primitve computers strapped together or does it have a cool look that reminds one of all those small kid wonder ideas of what it would be like to be an astronaut?

    Personally, I think we should have an ICBM dealer on every block. They need to recycle them somehow and all the money is in the US. I bet Bill Gates would pay a pretty penny to be a nuclear power. He could finally tell the Feds to screw off in a big way. Oooops that would be bad! Well, Larry Ellison would have to have one if Gates has one so at least there would a semblance of detente. Hahahahaha!!

    They are already spying on each other like autonomous governments I say let the monopolies go to war. Give AOL a couple of migs and .... wait I digress...

  • The thought behind the idea is certainly admirable, and one I'd support.

    *looks in wallet*

    Hrm, thing is, I could only put up maybe five bucks at most right now. Being broke sucks. I'll keep my fingers proverbially crossed in hope that the space capsule ends up in a museum (after all, it's the thought that counts, right?).
    ---
  • Imagine if 100k of us put up a few bucks. I'd slap down a few hundred. Hell, I'm set for life thanks to the stock rally of the late 90s and so I figure I owe it to the world. Don't underestimate the strength of numbers.

    Regards
  • ... Does it comes with assorted fungus ?

    --
  • Hey, I'd enter the contest if I could win a prize like this!

    I grew up in the '70s. I thought by now everyone would have a flying saucer parked in their garage. Where's that damn jet pack they were promising us? Where's my vacation on the Moon?

    Goddess, the Year 2000 is way fsckn boring compared to what Sci-Fi was predicting...

    ---- Hey Grrl Geeks! Your very own geek news site has arrived!
  • If 100k of us put up a few bucks, we'd still be off by a factor of 10, and there aren't even that many of us.

    I think that's a very cool idea, but you'd probably need a wider base of people to sponsor it.

    Also, who would we donate it to? And couldn't we contact the museums about it first? Maybe they could help...
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • 1. The first privately funded manned space mission took place earlier this year when MirCorp paid for a pair of Cosmonauts to go up and begin refurbishing Mir for commercial use. It had nothing to do with Destination Mir.

    2. Why do you hope they de-orbit Mir first? Is it out of spite? That space station still has much use left in it, and you propose to throw it away? This sounds an awful lot like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

    Commercial space is the only way we'll get off this planet. If the price of the survival of the species is a Pizza Hut logo on the side of a spaceship, I'm willing to pay.
  • The conversation of my neighbors if I were to buy this thing: Jim: Hey Ned! Ned: Yeah! Jim: What you recon that is in Teyu's yard? Ned: I think it's one of them there new fangled boats. Jim: How ya figure? Ned: Well it can't be a car. Jim: Why you say that? Ned: (With a look of disgust on his face.) Cause the darn tooting thing would be on blocks Jim.
  • The FAA and similar agencies around the world are just going to love this. It's bad enough that we've got people building rockets in their back yards. This reminds me of the expedition where a bunch of people died on Everest because they went up with no experience. It was just anyone who had a couple hundred thousand could join up for the thrill.

    It's a space capsule, not a rocket. All it's good for is sitting behind a velvet rope, as a display piece. Or a treehouse.

    Josh Sisk
  • it's been ./'d any mirrors?
    Think about it, we've all seen the /. effect, there are a lot of ppl here. We could each donate minimal funds and have it put at the geek commune or whatever Rob is calling his house these days... hehe
  • ahh... fuck that sojus thing - too old... and while we're talking garage sale - i am waiting to bid in on the atomic reactor of the kursk...seems like they are really going to haul this bitch up...
  • No,

    They're gonna drop it [cnn.com] in the ocean next year.
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

  • crue (Score:1)

    by H*rus ( 237994 )
    I can live with the $2.200.000, but do you know how much it cost to keep it up right and running?

    Besides, they're gonna dump the Mir anyway. So we don't have any place to go. I'll bet they won't let us dock the ISS.
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
  • It actually might make a good diving bell, or an aquarium (as long as you dont mind having a tiny viewing area).

  • I can't afford it (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I spent my last $2 200 000 on a PS2.
  • 1. I didn't know that, thanks. But which mission would get more publicity? Which really in the long run may even work out to be a good thing. As tacky and awful sounding as that scenario would be (Mission To Mir(tm))it would certainly put the idea of manned spaceflight into the minds of the greater public. Commercialisation of space is likely to be the best hope for our race expanding out there - it would just suck if I had to take a ride on the USS Taco Bell for my first spaceflight (not that I would refuse to go)

    2. Why not de-orbit it? It's outlived it's use-by date and has been a great sucess. But now it's starting to grow fungus and dissolve. The ISS will be operational soon to take it's place. I have no idea what state Mir is in, but if it can be safely refurbished, great. Otherwise to continue using it is probably a bit risky.

  • The Russians are being pragmatic

    They are broke, so they are selling things. ( I'd love to hear from a slashdot reader who could give some solid references to links on the economy there). I am more concerned about the Russians losing their knowledge base - what's happening to all the people with the knowhow to build and keep up space technology. Are they moving to other countries or are they losing their knowledge slowly by not being able to keep up with developments? Now that is truly sad.

    The West should think about ways to help support that infrastructure - universities supporting their Russian counterparts, helping fund research, that sort of thing. Letting all this knowledge and technology (don't forget the military stuff) drop into an economic blackhole is worrying. A lot of people are concerned about terrorist/ 'rogue government' activities. Well, a continent full of of highly skilled, disaffected, very poor rocket scientists who are looking just to survive could be tempted by less than morally pure work. This isn't sad, this is dangerous. What are we doing to improve the situation?

  • The Russians have been doing a huge garage sale since 1990-91. I've read stories about fighter jets and complete aircraft carriers being auctioned away (maybe today it would've been on ebay?).

    And I'm pretty sure they have exported some nuclear warheads, I mean, they had _thousands_ of them laying around, some must have made their way to the eager buyers in the 3. world...

  • If you are going to stick it in a tree ... (Score:5)

    by bob_jordan ( 39836 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @11:13PM (#671822)
    You should also drape a parachute over it so, when you show new visiters around you can walk out into the garden and say ...

    "Where the hell did that come from!!!!"

    Bob.
  • Why they're all right here:

    http://retrofuture.web.aol.com/
  • Remember the power of the club, and how useful it was in both battle and domestic chores. Now they can be found anywhere!

    Oh, and the alphabet, oh man that stuff is worthless.

    And the halycion days of the gentleman's motorcar, now any idiot can have at one by going to the nearest used car dealership!

    Kinda elitist, lets move on its just technology.
  • This reminds me of the expedition where a bunch of people died on Everest because they went up with no experience

    That's funny. It reminds me of the expedition where a few early hominids climbed out of their tree and died because they tried to set up housekeeping in a nearby cave with no experience.

    Fortunately, your ancestors failed to dissuade the others from trying again.

    (Oh, and like Graham Chapman's ex-parrot, this thing wouldn't fly, blow up, or otherwise threaten what's left of your manhood if you put four thousand volts through it. It's a capsule, not a rocket.)
  • I'd have to say its a risky investment... Especially with mutant space fungus and the likes.
  • nothing better than the smell or a russian space capsul; I mean these guys smell bad in the lab, and its big.

    Can't wait for my kids to play in something that several large sweaty russians occupied for hour on end.

  • Bravery above all (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I just want to pay my respects to the Soviet Cosmonauts, and point out that people actualy used to go out of this beautiful planet in those tin cans.

    A few years back we got a show of russian spacecraft, and since then I rate of soviet courage as high as the first world discovers.

    And remember, if the Soviet union didn't try to get to the moon, problably the USA would never take the trouble to go there either.
  • Sigh, the future just ain't what it used to be.
  • Like John Q. Public is gonna buy this thing, build/buy the Russian equivalent of a Saturn V rocket, build/rent the associated launch pad and facilities, just to launch this piece of DOGSHIT.

    All you need is a big catapult. Or one of those ramps like in 'When Worlds Collide'. No?

  • And with the change you could buy MIR too! Think about it! The whole collection for 47 Milion and we can give you 15% discount then...
  • My only question is, which is worth more right now...the space capsule or a Playstation 2. Anyone have the ebay number for the space capsule?

    --trb

  • Hmmm...I doubt it. Remember that a space capsule only has to maintain &lt 1 atmosphere pressure against a vaccuum. I don't think you could dive much deeper than a bathtub toy.

    However, I would think it's designed to cope with both extreme cold and radiation, so you might find a use for it as a polar habitat, what with the ozone hole and all.

  • Yes, but you'd have to go to Somewhere in the South Pacific with a catcher's mitt to accept delivery.
  • Or plant it, nose down, halfway into the ground. Then blame your dog.
  • It will. Just let me put it in my bathroom for a month.
  • This is a descent capsule. I posted a similar article yesterday, with a link directly to the page, and mentioned it was for descent, but my article was rejected in favor of this less descriptive one.

    So, it's not like the buyer is going to slap down $2.2M and try to take off from Chicago, O'Hare on the commute to Zeeland, MI. It would only work for landing, as it has no engine, it's just a somewhat fireproof capsule plummeting in flames back to Earth (or land in Zeeland.)

    After This news [yahoo.com] it's probably not so surprising that the Russians always brought their capsules down on land, as they'd probably lose a lot of cosmonauts, by putting off recovery for a couple months.


    --
  • Buy a space capsule, get Microsoft's code for free.

    Michael


    http://www.buymeasportscar.com [buymeasportsar.com]

  • There was a recent flap in San Francisco concerning the auctioning of a door handle from an apollo space capsule which a museum viewed as useless and taking up room and decided to discard.

    I dunno about you, but I just can't see a display of a door handle capturing that much imagination. But, hell, this is /. after all, who else is going to go out of their way to see something like this, but a true Nerd?


    --

  • An interesting proposition, but i have no doubt that some billionaire already has his hands on this one. Ah, Capitalism. ;-)
  • ...but it would make a kick-ass outhouse :0)

  • That's all they need in Alabama, another useless piece of junk to place on their lawn. It could go next to the collection of large appliances, the pair of el caminos awaiting restoration and the rocket engine. A scary though would be if they actually found a way to compine all of these things. The possibilities and amount of damage that could be inflicted is mind blowing.
  • In an age where manned exploration of space seems to have taken a slug to the guts since the Apollo days, there is something quite sad about seeing an actual spacecraft, the product of a once proud space program being sold off as "a nice playhouse for kids".

    I'll agree that it's a shame, but it's not new: the Russians already have a Buran (the "Russian Shuttle") in Gorky Park as an amusement-park ride [friends-partners.org] (although I believe this is a static-test article, not one of the flight spacecraft).

    And the US's very own NASA took the last two fully-functional Saturn V lunar boosters and laid 'em down as lawn ornaments [friends-partners.org] in Huntsville and Cape Canaveral;a static test item is also on display in Houston (it's been alleged -- accurately, I believe -- that NASA did this to reduce competition with Shuttle).

    From my POV, I don't know which is worse: selling the hardware for cash when you're broke, or disabling it for motives less admirable...

    ---

  • This Soyuz TM-26 is one in a long line of Soyuz capsules starting with Soyuz 1. Soyuz 1, had a number of problems, the most prominent, was having the drouge, primary and secondary parachutes all fail, sending the descent capsule into the steppes, Cosmonaut aboard, at a speed, probably around 450-500mph. http://www.friends-partners.org/~mwade/flights/soy uz1.htm PICTURES! [friends-partners.org]
  • I know that no one is still reading this, but i will put my opinion anyway. If there is a russian capsule up for sale, how can we, (nerdy americans), let it go to waste. Yes, there are maybe 100k of us at most, but assume if you can afford a few thousand for a computer, imagine if you put up the amount you would pay for a semi good scsi hard drive. It doesn't matter where we put it, we could just have it in Oklahoma, or somewhere where no one goes and is in the middle of the country. We could have a nerd convention at that museum, or lack there of. If anyone reads this, post your response!
  • When Russia donated the money to the MIR program, and (allegedly) they were broke. Nobody knows where it came from. Heh. I think I know.
  • and think of all the pussy you could get from showing geek-girls around this thing!!!! Am I wrong here?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Took me 5 minutes on Google to find it. Just check out: http://www.fas.org/ma n/d od-101/sys/ship/row/rus/1143_5.htm [fas.org]

    The USSR apparently had 3 aircraft carriers, 1 is still in (Russian) service, although it's probably been docked for good. 1 they abandoned, 1 was sold by the Ukraine government.

    I quote:"Ukraine began trying to sell the ship, and talks with Chinese and British companies were held in 1995. However, it was hard to find a customer. The sale of Varyag for US$20 million was announced on 17 March 1998 for conversion to an entertainment complex and casino."

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