Really Rocket Science

The inaugural launch of a Soyuz-2.1a from the ridiculously corrupt Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur Oblast was to be something big. Putin made the trip to view it and, naturally, it failed. Well, not completely: it was scrubbed after the computers took over, roughly at the T-90-second mark.

It’s a good thing the computers are doing their job, because Russians aren’t capable. Without the contribution of Ukraine’s Yuzhmash, they’ll probably continue to be the primary exporter of failure. Together with being a state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, they give the term “embrace failure” new meaning.

Second attempt will be later today. If that fails, Russian rocket scientists will start disappearing. Putin confirmed somebody’s going to jail already.

In space exploration, global cooperation is the name of the game — it’s the only way to get the best people working together. Keep politics out of it. The International Space Station is the perfect example.

However, with Vladimir “No Truth” Putin running Russia like a tyrant-dictator, it’s become risker. Seeing everyone as an enemy and/or threat to his power, gaining control of access to space is key. Hence his pledging billions of rubles to finish the Vostochny Cosmodrome in record time. Since then, besides rubles losing most of their value, there seems to be a terrible shortage to said rubles to pay the contractor doing the work — or the contractor has none to pay their workers. They haven’t been paid in months and they’ve gone as far as painting a message on the roof to “save the workers.”

Last month, Rogozin said he would “rip their heads off” for embezzling the people of Russia.

If all the leaders blatantly lie to their people, and every boss is stealing money from big contracts, how does anything ever get done?

Putin’s kleptocracy is bound for spectacular failure.