Quote Originally Posted by eisenherz View Post
reminds me of Kepler 62f; pity 62f and 186f are somewhat heavier then our beloved earth and hence likely to have an unihabitable dense He athmosphere...
pity the 500 lightyears distance - not easy to have it checked out in a rush
Not the same. Kepler 62f is 1 1/2 times larger in diameter than Earth. Kepler 186f is less than 10% larger. Since the STIS (Space Telescope Imaging Spectograph) on Hubble failed in 2004, there aren't many options for determining the composition of exoplanets yet - especially for a planet as small as 186f. They even had to work with the Keck and Gemini North telescopes on Mauna Kea to confirm the existence of 186f. That's always the case for exoplanets that small. But there's still hope because the failing Hubble Space Telescope will be replaced by the JWST (James Web Space Telescope) in 2018. Then they'll have a chance to learn more about the composition of 186f.
And yeah, it's 500 light years away but the point is just to learn more about how solar systems evolve.

Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
One thing that really got me at the time the USSR fell apart, was that they had developed this really AMAZING space launching system called Energia. It had some vessels called "Buran". They were just about finished and had started testing it, if I recall (I was pretty interested in that kind of stuff when I was younger).

Then they just had to pull the plug. Nothing more was heard, ever about Buran.
TWENTY years of engineering work at the highest possible level down the drain.

Unbelievable. I don't know what happened to this vessel, probably a lump of rust on the steppes of Kazakhstan by now. It was only launched once in a test. It was totally superior to anything the US had, or anything that has been built or even devised since. Both Roscosmos and NASA are but a spec of what they were before. Energia could have been used to launch a manned flight to Mars, if the USSR had continued on. What a tragedy.
It was too much like the US Space Shuttle system and that was epic fail. But the Energia system didn't just vanish. The purpose of the Energia was to engineer a successful heavy-lift vehicle and it started the series of RD-170 rocket engines and the Zenit launcher - the Zenit boosters are still being made and used in the Zenit rockets. And a scaled version of the RD171 rocket (the RD-191) is being used in the new Angara rockets.
So the only part of the project that got shelved was the space shuttle but hey, the US shelved that too. Tbh, it was the Energia design that made the new Angara heavy-lift launch vehicle possible. It's a level up from Energia.
And don't forget, Putin is throwing tons of money at space projects now, including a manned trip to Mars. Also, the new Vostochny Cosmodrome is under construction in the Svobodny and Shimanovsk districts of Amur oblast.
Tbh, it's Russian technology and determination that kept the MIR space station alive and manned beyond it's predicted life expectancy. And it's also what's kept the International Space Station manned since 2002. That's one of the reasons why I say that NASA is falling apart. It has a lot of technology but it has serious issues with dedication and NASA changes it's plans and policies almost as often as I change the sheets on my bed. =/ Russia has a long long history of proving it's dedication to space - including 12 years of sending Expedition Crews to the ISS without fail. And that's too long to wait for the US to even decide on what kind of rocket they wanna build and what they want for a space policy.

Quote Originally Posted by bytemare View Post
It's common for business to publish bio's about executives in their company, and in many places it's required by law to publish changes in the executive organization for a public organization. A similar search of Russian banks will produce bio's about their executives, including the American CEO that I mentioned.
The American CEO's bank job didn't depend on the results of a bloody conflict with the CIA and US backing the deaths of so-called terrorists (Ukrainian citizens) so that Hunter Biden could safely go to Ukraine and get even more wealthy than he already is.
I can respect the American CEO in Russia but I'll never respect Hunter Biden. Imo, greed is never a good reason to oust a democratically elected President and cause that many deaths.
And don't forget, if this does turn into a civil war, instead of Napolean arriving to find Moscow in ruins, after the Battle of Borodino, it could be Hunter that arrives to find Kiev in ruins.