I dont know why you continue bashing russian rockets as if they were crap. True is that while there have been issues with last Proton model, that comes after about 400 protons launched with a 88% of succes, which is not bad, at the same level as any american rocket series, and lets not forget Soyuz is the most reliable rocket there with 99% success after near 1000 launches. Beat that.
Hey now, I actually don't think Russian rockets are crap. Russian
quality control and their space program in general are objectively crap.
They have had a string of really bad screw ups that cost them a ton of market share and their program itself is in such disarray that they haven't launched a successful interplanetary probe since the 80's, their new launch site is riddled with corruption and years over-schedule and over-budget and their new launch vehicle line (Angara), was proposed back in the 80's and until like 2 years ago was completely vaporware. Even now the Angara program is struggling as it got somewhat de-emphasized in order to fix problems with the Proton and Soyuz lines.
Proton and Soyuz are great rockets, when they are built correctly. Mind you, space is hard and lots of companies have had screw-ups lately so I do make wide allowances for that. What makes the Russians unique is the consistent string of screw ups and they are all traced back to just abysmal quality control and lack of training.
You know that Proton that did a cartwheel and exploded a couple years back? That happened because a technician (who wasn't trained) installed an accelerometer upside down. When it wouldn't fit in its slot in that orientation,
he pulled out a hammer and beat it into place and no one caught it before launch.
Finally, while the Angara does offer some new ideas, by and large, the Russian space program is moribund and unable to innovate. The Proton and Soyuz are both cold war kids in their entirety and in a lot of ways are seriously outdated (the Proton in particular being an extreme hazard that would never be allowed to fly in the West). The Angara is their attempt to catch up by switching to LOX/H2 and modularity, things which the West figured out decades ago.
Having said all of that, Russian engines are pretty fantastic, bar none.
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The following post was redirected from the Republican Nomination Thread, of all places:
The Van Allen belts are at a much higher altitude near the equator, and those seriously interfere with the electronics and communications. The ideal launch site would be the south pole, because the Van Allen belt is just not there. But that carries a host of other practical issues. Plus it is not just about the launch, but the orbit. Not much of an orbit around the south pole. If you try and orbit longitudinally, the belts go in-out-in-out. But at the equator you can just keep your altitude below the belt. You want your comm centers south, away from the belt, as well. At this point, we could probably work with it, be it North or South, but we didn't know as much about it in 1969, and why make it harder for ourselves than we have to?
First, we have to define what kinds of missions we are talking about.
For manned missions that are not going into deep space (so basically everything except Apollo), the Van Allen Belts are much too high to be a real concern. They do dip around the South Atlantic Anomaly but that isn't a deal-breaker. Additionally, even deep space missions (Apollo) only briefly cruise through the VAB's, so the crews aren't in any real danger. So, given the extra energy boost afforded by a low-latitude, eastward launch, you basically always want to do manned missions from near the equator when possible (important caveat because like with Russia, it's not always possible to be near the equator).
Satellites have to be radiation hardened to deal with Coronal Mass Ejections and Cosmic Ray Events so while the VAB's aren't a good thing for them either, they aren't a particularly lethal threat. And again, the position of the VAB's don't really impact the majority of useful orbits for satellites which typically operate above or below them. The VAB's just aren't situated in an altitude where there are any particular advantages to operating there, which is very fortunate.
Also, interplanetary missions are going to be launched from low-latitude, eastward locations because of the aforementioned energy boost and the fact that they won't have to do a massive inclination change like they would when launching into a polar orbit.
Polar launches absolutely have a place, but really only for certain types of missions - spying missions and certain Earth-observation missions. These make up an important, but relatively small amount of the total missions for satellites. So while NASA and other countries do polar launches, it wouldn't make sense to set up all your launch sites for polar launches.
Also, you can do a polar launch from
any latitude. In fact, the only reason why US launches to polar orbits from Vandenberg CA and Alaska is because you can launch south from there and not fly over other countries during your boost phase. You can't do that from Florida. Other programs like Russia and the ESA do launch from much lower latitudes because they either launch over water to the south or they don't care who they fly over (lol Kazakhstan).
You don't want your comm centers in the south for any particular reason. If you want global coverage, you put your comm centers in roughly 120 degree spacings across the globe (as practical). So for example, NASA has major comm stations in the US, Spain and Australia. For less than total global coverage, you put the comm stations where it is convenient. Radiation in space has next to no input into that decision, to be honest.
