On the 8th of august in 1988, a general strike began in Myanmar (Burma) as part of the 8888 Uprising, with mass anti-government demonstrations throughout the country demanding multi-party democracy from the ruling one-party state. Over the following days, the mass demonstrations devolved into violent riots as the military fired into crowds of protesters.
The 8888 Uprising, also known as the People Power Uprising, took place in the context of an economic crisis in the country, governed as a one-party state by the Burma Socialist Programme Party, led by General Ne Win. Students and farmers had been engaging in protest and campaigns of rebellion against various state economic policies since 1985.
On August 8th, 1988 (thus the uprising’s name) mass anti-government demonstrations took place throughout the country. Participants came from a wide variety of demographics - Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, students, workers, young and old participated.
The protests began relatively peacefully, with only one casualty reported on the first day, the result of a frightened traffic cop who fired into the crowd and fled. Over the next few days, the protests devolved into violent riots as the military and police fired on the protesters, at one point even shooting doctors and nurses tending to the wounded.
Protesters responded by throwing Molotov cocktails, swords, knives, rocks, poisoned darts and bicycle spokes. In one incident, rioters burned a police station and killed four fleeing police officers.
On August 26th, Aung San Suu Kyi (eventual leader of the country and complicit in the rohingya genocide), the daughter of anti-imperialist revolutionary Aung San, addressed half a million people at Shwedagon Pagoda, becoming an international figure in the uprising, supported by the West. Her party would later go on to win elections in 1990, however these results were ignored by the military government and she was arrested.
On September 18th, the military retook power in the country, with General Saw Maung repealing the 1974 constitution and imposing martial law. The demonstrations were violently suppressed and, by the end of September, at least 3,000 people were killed, however estimates of casualties vary widely.
Eventually after another mass protests in the saffron revolution and the 2010-2015 reforms Aung San party the NLD would take power in 2015 and be overthrown by a coup in 2021 and banned 2 years later.
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Funny you mention this, because it’s a topic of some debate in spaceflight forums. The Chinese Shenzhou crew vehicle is heavily based on the Russian Soyuz, just as the Chinese space station modules are heavily based on Russia’s standard Salyut station module. But the CNSA is famously secretive about technical details. It’s not publicly known if Shenzhou’s docking system is actually compatible with the modern Russian APAS docking standard. If the CNSA has made significant design changes it may not even be possible to dock Chinese and Russian vehicles and station modules.
Boeing totally shit the bed with the current Starliner flight and the news keeps getting worse. It just became news a few days ago that the crewed Starliner now docked to the ISS isn’t loaded with the software required for autonomous undocking and return like the prior uncrewed Starliner was. The speculation is that Boeing’s programmers discovered serious flaws with that software, their managers assumed that there would be no other issues, and instead of fixing the software, they would just have the crew do the undocking manually after an otherwise-normal flight and docking. Whoops.
So to sum up:
Starliner can’t autonomously undock with the current software aboard.
It’s not clear if the spacecraft can return crew safely to Earth due to thruster issues.
It’s not clear if the software can be remotely updated.
It’s not clear if NASA trusts Boeing to properly update the software remotely.
It’s not clear if the Starliner’s thruster issues won’t cause a post-undocking collision with the ISS.
Starliner is occupying the docking port that’s needed for the next Crew Dragon flight which would be the rescue flight. That flight has been delayed a month while the Starliner issue is sorted.
Starliner is not equipped with a grapple point for the canadarm to grab on to.
The only hatch on Starliner big enough for astronauts in full EVA suits to physically fit through is the side hatch used for astronauts to enter and exit the spacecraft while on the ground, but that hatch physically cannot be opened in space - it was designed as a safety precaution.
There’s two rumours flying around that I actually think have merit. First is that NASA requested SpaceX make a modification of the Crew-9 Crew Dragon vehicle for two additional seats and Dragon-compatible IVA suits using the two stranded astronauts’ measurements. This is technically possibly as Crew Dragon was designed from the start to be able to seat seven. In practice NASA has only ever had four crew on any given flight, and used the extra area and mass budget for cargo.
The second rumour is that Boeing will be required to update the software so that Starliner can undock autonomously. Then the ISS itself will maneuver away from the drifting capsule. Only when there’s a safe distance would Starliner fire its thrusters to put it into a safer orbit that has no chance of a future collision with the ISS. This is technically possible because the ISS does maneuvers routinely for debris collision avoidance. NASA doesn’t just need to return its astronauts safely. They need that docking port cleared. They are not going to accept a derelict Starliner becoming a permanent part of the ISS and fucking up their future docking schedules.
The only bright side to the whole mess is that it’s a fixed-price contract. Boeing is 100% on the financial hook for this. They’ve already lost more than $1.6 billion on the Starliner project and that’s only looking to increase.
I am going back in time to mock every american celebrating america’s return to space by reminding them that 20th century Soviet rockets are still better and more reliable than any 21st century American rocket.
To be fair, the actual rocket involved in the Starliner flight, Atlas V, did its job perfectly. The funny thing is that it was originally designed and operated by Boeing competitor Lockheed Martin.
Atlas V is operated by a company owned 50/50 by Lockheed Martin and Boeing called United Launch Alliance. ULA was the result of a shotgun marriage arranged by a thoroughly pissed-off US government. A few decades ago the two companies were engaged in vicious industrial espionage. The US government was worried this would threaten domestic heavy launch capabilities, like for spy sats. So they basically told both companies that a new company would be formed that they jointly owned, but would really only be answerable to the US government in practice.
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That RD-180 is a masterpiece of engineering. Literally the only reason ULA won’t be using them in the future is political, not technical.
Maybe the only mass-produced engine that competed with the RD-180 in terms of reliability was the American F-1, the absolute beast that powered the first stage of the legendary Saturn V. There were 65 F-1 engines that went through a launch, and every single one of them worked perfectly from ignition to planned shutdown. To this day they’re the most powerful engines to fly. Their fuel pumps were more powerful than most rocket engines! A great missed opportunity was the never-built Jarvis concept from the 1980s, which would have used proven Saturn V technology in a medium-lift rocket. Its first stage would have used two of those proven and powerful F-1 engines.
The youtuber Tim Dodd (aka “everyday astronaut”) did an excellent history of Soviet rocket engines a few years back. The article is here, and video version is here. It’s a very long video (94 minutes!) but it’s extremely technically detailed. And it’s very complimentary towards the Soviet scientists and engineers who developed and built those engines.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Cool!
Thank you for the effort post comrade. I just heard on that SpaceX is having tod play their next planned mission up there till September. I hadn’t been aware of all their and it is really cool to get all this new info. Thank you.
No worries! A while back I made some posts on the history of the Commercial Crew program, including the switch to fixed-price contracts which are now saving NASA’s financial bacon.
Marg Bar Boeing
Hope the company sinks and doesn’t get bailed out.
