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In no way is this news or a scoop, but who can resist the tale of plucky cosmonauts calmly relaying such nuggets from a dead-in-the-water space station as:
Savinikh: "We're trying to turn on the light now. Command issued. No reaction, not even one little diode. If only something would light up..."
and
Savinikh: “I’ve gotten the Rodnik schematics. Pump connected. The valves aren’t opening. There’s an icicle sticking out of the air pipe.”
Yep — all the makings of a sci-fi straight to TV movie… icicles hanging out of air pipes indeed!
However, it is not. It is the tale of two cosmonauts sent to try to recover the dead in low earth orbit Salyut 7 back in 1985. The included cosmonaut to earth communication transcripts would be comedy genius had they been scripted, if only as a parody of calm professionalism in a seemingly absurd predicament.
Over to Ars Technica for the piece: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/09/the-little-known-soviet-mission-to-rescue-a-dead-space-station/
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:36AM
The thing is, it worked. While the U.S. would spend billions to make a critical part triple redundant and incredibly reliable, the Soviet approach was to design so the part wasn't critical. Space station suffers total power failure? No problem, we have days to fix it.
Not saying it's superior, just that there is probably a happy medium somewhere in there.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday September 18 2014, @11:42AM
I remember hearing about the difference between US and Soviet anti aircraft guns. The US ones were super accurate with a computer tracking and targeting system that could predict course changes. The Soviet ones were built a little sloppy so the shots would disperse in a shotgun pattern. Efficacy was comparable.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday September 20 2014, @09:04AM
If you want the perfect example go look up the video of the guy that invented the AK47, there is one where he actually meets the guy that made the M16 and they pointed out how different they were which fits the meme perfectly. The M16 is so accurate you can put it in single shot mode and use it as a sniper rifle but the gun is VERY sensitive to dirt, in fact in the first days of the Vietnam war it was common to see Americans using either the older M1s or the AK47 they picked off a dead NVA because their gun fouled in a critical combat moment and they lost faith in the gun.
Compare this with the AK47 which is sloppy as shit and can't hit the broad side of a barn farther than 50 yards and past 30 yards anything but body shots are right out because it "sprays" more than it shoots, but the flip side is you can pick up one that has laid in muck for a month, bang it against a tree to clear it out, and then go right into combat as it was damned near impossible to jam. When they talked to the designer he said something like "We saw with Stalingrad that nearly every battle happens when you are close enough to shake hands with the enemy, you trip over each other on patrol, so accuracy? Not important, you want accurate that is what the Mosen Nagant is for. What you want in a soldier rifle is a gun that can be effective with no more training than 'bullets come out that end' and that will work no matter how nasty the battlefield is. Because you REALLY think a soldier in the midst of battle for weeks is gonna remember to fieldstrip and clean his weapon on a schedule?"
And we can see which design ultimately proved the best for battle, with AK47s and their clones as common as dirt on every battlefield on the planet while the M16 is relegated to a handful of western countries, despite their being ample time to copy it if anybody wanted to.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:17PM
The jamming if the M16 in Vietnam was exacerbated by a nepotistic contract for dirty powder as well. Of course the AK wouldn't care if the cartridges were loaded with black powder.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek