More Now, On The Baikonur Mishap: This Is Out In A Very Remote Section Of Kazakhstan... ~700 Miles, To Truck In Very Heavy Replacement Parts [Likely From A... Museum?!] -- Or Rebuild, On Site(?)

Well, the good news is that Russia's launch tech is very well-vetted (or very. . . old, if you prefer -- with earlier item, here). It is being said by people with knowlege of the matter that the Gagarin Museum houses what may be a working version of the damaged equipment -- and, in any event that might be speedier than trying to rebuild, from scratch, off of perhaps 68 year old blueprints. . . in an area reachable only by semi trucks, over dirt roads, after a perhaps 700 mile drive. And that, after a long jet ride (for any newly-constructed assemblies).

The story will be very gratifying, here -- to Russian national pride, though -- if some of the now-ancient Yuri Gagarin first flight equipment is pressed back into service -- here, in the 21^st Century. Not so much a mishap story -- as a redemptive, and historical one. ["The old Soviet engineers built things. . . to last."]

We will have to wait -- and see. Here's the latest, from insiders:

. . .[A] drone flying around the launch complex showed Site 31/6’s mobile maintenance cabin lying upside down in the flame trench. . . .

The main issue with the structure collapse is that it puts Site 31/6 — the only Russian launch site capable of launching crew and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) — out of service until the structure is fixed. There are other Soyuz 2 rocket launch pads, but they are either located at an unsuitable latitude, like Plesetsk, or not certified for crewed flights, like Vostochny, or decommissioned and transferred to a museum, like Gagarin’s Start at Baikonur. . . .

When the rocket launched, a pressure difference was created between the space under the rocket, where gases from running engines are discharged, and the nook where the maintenance cabin was located. The resulting pressure difference pulled the service cabin out of the nook and threw it into the flame trench, where it fell upside down from a height of 20 meters.

Photos of the accident showed significant damage to the maintenance cabin, which, according to experts, is too extensive to allow for repairs. The only way to resume launches from Site 31/6 is to install a spare maintenance cabin or construct a new one. . . .

This is a significant set-back, and yet ironically, it may make Musk's rockets the newly primary way -- to get crewed missions to and from the ISS -- for perhaps the next 12 to 18 months. [Semi-serious Q.: is it possible that Musk paid some low level worker, at the site, to "let" this mishap occur? Only the equipment was damaged -- and it makes him a monopolist, for now. Hmm.] We shall see. Onward.

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