In Photos: Olympic torch to make first-ever spacewalk

Like anyone's gonna let you in there anyway :)
The crews of Challenger and Columbia would probably choose this "graveyard" landscape over the ocean view they had. Thank god they finally shut that space coffin down.

Safety record? Are you serious? Check all the rocket explosions in the 60's during the moon space race,you'll be amazed!.It was more fireworks than rocket launches!. Add to that all the planetary mission failures by the russians.
The Space Shuttle has one of the best safety records in the industry.

Early failures in the 60's? Oh man, that's an eye opener! How stupid are Americans to even allow their astronauts to get near a Russian rocket? They obviously haven't seen the terrifying "graveyard". Even a drunk person wouldn't get in one of those things, what does that tell you? They must be on some serious drugs - that's the only explanation. Possibly LSD.
Overall the stereotypes are confirmed - everything Russian is junk and Americans are stupid.

Well, believe it or not, the old Saturn V has the best safety record to date, and there has never been anything like the Saturn V. Even today its power and design remains unmatched.
The closest thing the Saturn V had to a contemporary was the Soviet N1, which launched four times and exploded each time, almost always because of failures in the complex system that managed the N1's 30 individual first-stage rocket motors. In contrast, the Saturn V has an unblemished string of successful launches, never suffering a problem or failure significant enough to trigger an abort.
Stereotypes are never good, but facts are facts.

And where is your Saturn V now? The facts are that today out of six operational US launch vehicles two are built on Russian engines bought directly from Russia and one more is simply reproducing a Russian design.

The Russian leadership in space launch area has already achieved the "exponential gap" quality. Nobody can ever catch up, regardless of the effort spent. So, as everyone understands perfectly well, the real reason you claim you would not step into a Russian rocket is the ordinary propaganda-induced butthurt you experience after each successful Russian launch.

Meanwhile, the situation with rockets today is pretty much the same as the situation with helicopters: there's no such thing as non-Russian rocket anymore. All rockets are Russian in one way or another. Which makes your claims rather irrelevant.

Stating the facts is fine as long as they have something to do with the current discussion. Unfortunately this is where you have failed. Tune your vacuum tube radio, grandpa, and realize that it's not 1969 any more.

You must be dreaming or drinking too much cheap Vodka. The USA does not need russian rocket engines. The SpaceX Falcon 9 is available and has been recently upgraded for improved performance (and has already been awarded contracts for launches by the US military). It has launched both the reusable "Dragon" spacecraft to the International Space Station as well as several commercial payloads. Indeed, the new heavy-lift three-core "Falcon 9 Heavy" is scheduled for a test flight in 2014, and is capable of lifting notably more mass than the Atlas 5 could. There is also the Delta IV Heavy vehicle powered by the Rocketdyne RS-68 engines (768,000 lbs of thrust vacuum) rather than Russian-made RD-180 engines (933,400 lbs of vacuum thrust). Even without the Russian engines for the Atlas V, the U.S. can still get things into Earth orbit.
And what did the russians accomplish in space in the meantime? Sent men to the moon? Successfully explored ALL planets of the Solar System and beyond?

The Soyuz is the safest and most reliable manned launch vehicle ever. The foreground of the first photo is pilings setup years ago for a new set of buildings that was never completed. Baikonur is full of such relics. Bill frequently uses those as foregrounds in his pictures when he's out there.

@alegator: You shouldn't have followed that good old American tradition of displacing Vodka with more serious controlled substances, and we wouldn't have to educate you here now. (Not that I hold much hope that in your condition you are responsive to any kind of education.)

If USA didn't need Russian engines, USA wouldn't be buying them, would it? Easy question, huh? :)

Meanwhile, the USA dependence of Russia is not limited to absolute reliance on Russian engines. Your rant about imaginary future US engines is funny at best. Even if it proves not to be the typical American vaporware, still all rocket engines in the world are Russian. Just because someone in USA decided to make a local copy does not make it non-Russian.

In addition to that the current US space program is completely, utterly and critically dependent on the cargo capabilities of An-124 plane. No An-124 - no US space program.

As for space accomplishments... all US accomplishments of late are just copycats of Soviet accomplishments from 40-50 years ago. What, you finally managed to launch a rover? I'm sure Lunokhods are having a good laugh about that. You are transferring pictures from another planet? Venera was transferring pictures and video in the 1970's already. You are trying to build a rocket engine that would rival RD-180? I wish you good luck with that attempt to reproduce another Russian achievement.

I have presented you with the facts but you don't seem to want to learn. Instead, you reply with hilarious statements, to say the least.
The Space Shuttle Main Engine, which will be used on the SLS also, was developed with no input from Russia. As for the AN-124, United Launch Alliance does use it to transport Atlas V rockets from the factory to the launch site. But the Atlas V is not the entire U.S. space program. The Delta IV rockets are shipped by ship. The Falcon 9 is transported by truck. The SLS stages will be shipped by sea, as were the Space Shuttle external tanks, from the Michoud facility in Louisiana. So as far as that goes, you're just blowing smoke.

With respect to the copycat accusations, that's a real example of the pot calling the kettle black. If the Curiosity Mars rover is just a copycat of the Lunokhods, considering its vastly larger size and capability (and considering Russia's failure so far to accomplish a Mars landing), then every Russian airplane can be considered a copy of the Wright Flyer! lol

Why the US buys russian rocket engines? Because they're cheap, and the Russians were just going to destroy them. The NK-33's were intended to be used on the N-1 Moon rocket, which turned into a fiasco. It was so embarrassing that not only was the program canceled, but the upgraded engines for the next version were ordered destroyed. They weren't, though. They were warehoused instead. And when political winds changed, it became a profitable thing to sell them.
You know, your posts are so ridiculous that I'm starting to think that you have irreversible brain damage from your successful Chernobyl nuclear plant. In the meantime please keep posting because I'm having a lot of fun! lol

I have explained the reasons for us buying Russian rocket engines. They have a lot of thrust for only one engine, but they are not the most efficient as you claim. The thrust to weight ratio of the RD-180 is only 78.44 to 1, while the American made F-1 engine from the Saturn V had a better T/W ratio of 94.1 (and more thrust than the RD-180). Even the "little" Merlin 1D engine (made by SpaceX for their Falcon 9) has a thrust to weight ratio of 150 to 1, which is about the highest ever achieved.

Equal freedoms? Are you an American? Well then you must be a straight white male...

I'm not an American, and I would probably be saying the same thing if they were doing it too. It just seems a silly distraction. I do take back I the d1ck part, because that seems directed at the people of Russia, not the leadership, and I know they don't make these decisions. I'm sorry.I'm sure if the people of Russia had the choice, they would prefer more respect for women, a repeal of the law that stops people talking about homosexuality, less threatened freedom of speech etc rather than a moonwalking torch.

I don't think there is anything in the world that makes you look more like d1cks than being brainwashed by American propaganda to the point where people around you stop perceiving you as member of human species. With about 95% of US population falling into that category, I don't think anyone can meaningfully criticize Russians for doing something as innocent as taking an Olympic torch into space.

Russian equipment looks scary, but has done better safety-wise:
By space program, 18 NASA astronauts (4.1%) and four Russian cosmonauts (0.9% of all the people launched) died while in a spacecraft.

Women of this type are called ... Do not tell me how?

1 kilogram delivered to the ISS costs $20000.

GULAG?
American Holocaust: D. Stannard (Oxford Press, 1992) - "more than 100 million dead" Do not forget?

Obviously, the safety factor concerning the flame is not the only issue.

Even if the safety issue could be addressed, flames need oxygen. Oxygen is a a limited resource in a space ship and best used for breathing rather than burning.

Photogeek - oxygen takes up volume (obviously). The volume of air in a space craft is limited and is better spent on breathing than burning a fire.

Regarding competence - no I do not think that there is enough competence to have a burning flame inside a space ship. Which is why it is never ever done.

If the oxygen was contained in the torch itself (as you suggest); then what you have is a bomb: a flame atop a bomb, in a confined space. No engineer would even attempt such a thing, even on earth, without very tight control procedures including fire management and escape routes - none of which are possible in a space ship.

I work in confined space engineering and naked flames are without a special permit and very strict controls: trained fire control persons on site; fire brigade on standby, escape routes cleared and managed and several hours of cool down watch.

No, a modicum of competence is not needed to light a flame inside a space ship - you'd have to be insane!

The sending the olympic torch to the space doesn't cost millions. It costs about $15000. $10000 per kg.