Astronauts to be renamed to cosmonavts

I wonder what the standard of proficiency is, learning the technical words or also mastering the difficult grammar?

jsw

S volkami zit, po volchi vyt!

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

Truer words have not been spoken!

i

When in Rome, eh?

-- We are always the same age inside. -- Gertrude Stein

Lots of technical words in Russian are from English or German. I would say up to 50%.

i

've been doing it for quite some time. Now, especially that the Russians are our only way to get to/from the space station, we need to be able to communicate with them, without interpreters.

Jon

They've been doing it for quite some time. Now, especially that the

Makes sense. Fortunately, vodka is pronounced the same way in both countries. (as is "algebra", the reason why I registered algebra.com in

1995). i

> They've been doing it for quite some time. Now, especially that the

Eez not wadka?

-- We are always the same age inside. -- Gertrude Stein

>>

I have been thinking about this. Getting people into orbit is, well, rocket science, but all ingredients in it are well known.

So, how come we have to ask the Russians to send our cosmonavts into orbit? What if the Congress asks NASA to design a very reliable, but basic, people launching system, with disposable spacecraft? NASA can surely do it? WTF?

i

Surely.

But Congress doesn't want to PAY for it...

French provided aviation terms to Russian, also to English (aileron, fuselage). I traced Forsirovanny (supercharged, boosted) back to the French term for forcing plant growth.

Knowing French, German and Latin has helped me considerably with Russian.

jsw

I did not even know this, but it makes perfect sense.

i

Obama cancelled it.

After all, the money should be spent here on Earth to create jobs.

jsw

I thought that Constellation was for trips far away from the Earth?

i

I believe NASA to be a very inefficient organization, despite their achievements. They probably could design small craft, but they could not do so cost-effectively at all.

-- I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. --Duke Ellington

Yeah, he's done a bang-up job here on that, hasn't he? Now they're going after defaulted student loans. Loans they can't repay because there are no jobs. Default is up to 15% this year.

I wonder why he doesn't have GE audited and start paying taxes. Their share should be 100 times what the student loan defaults come to. And maybe have the gov't (IRS, SSA, and who else?) stop payments to dead people? Senator Coburn's report shows over $1 billion paid in the last decade or so.

-- I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. --Duke Ellington

Before I was married my standard of proficiency for any language was: can I talk a girl into bed.

Alas, I wasn't very proficient at all, even in English.

NASA jobs are almost entirely here on earth. Good jobs too. Research, engineering, manufacturing. (If you are into that kind of stuff)