Different link

Russian scientists have drilled into the vast, dark and never-before-touched Lake Vostok 2.2 miles below the surface of Antarctica, according to a source quoted Monday by Ria Novosti, a state-run Russian news agency.

“Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the subglacial lake,” the source was quoted as saying. The news agency described the source as saying the team had “finally managed to pierce” the ice sheet into Vostok.

Lord Cthulu awakens!

They drilled too deep

they are probably all THE THING by now.

nothing worthwhile down there is my call, hoping to be proven wrong however

They need to go DEEPER!

Who cares Labeouf will protect us

Who wants to start a pretentious bottled water company with me? "V O S T O K". I'm thinking at least $5/bottle and that's 7-11 pricing.

Agreed Paveway, now the lake is likely contaminated with bacteria from the surface and kerosene.

so i am guessing they didnt do it without surface contamtination as nasa suggested they basically couldnt do it without that occuring

nasa say alot of things,

the space shuttle will travel to space once a week,
the space shuttle will make money,
the space shuttle is safe,
the space shuttle will take the first female teacher into space,
the space shuttle will never suffer another challenger
the space shuttle is still safe
oh fuck it, let's use the russian shit instead

http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/lake-vostoks-ancient-water-could-harbour-aliens-hitler/story-fn5fsgyc-1226264499986

It says just before the Nazis surrendered in 1945, they started building an ice cave at Lake Vostok in which to house "several boxes of relics from the Third Reich, including Hitler's secret files".

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/lake-vostoks-ancient-water-could-harbour-aliens-hitler/story-fn5fsgyc-1226264499986#ixzz1lfCUwT1N

I think it would be more interesting to find Hitlers secret stash. Aparently they got quite far with all their R&D without the limitations of ethical/moral boundaries holding them back.

Who wants to start a pretentious bottled water company with me? "V O S T O K"

in

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16907998

That must be some drill bit.

Why? They only drilled through Ice and not nearly as far as the record the Russians have owned for a long time now. I think its something like 14km that they drilled. I'll see if I can find a link.

Edit: here you go. I remember reading about this ages ago. The Russians where up against the US in a race for National pride. The US was digging something called the MOhole which got cancelled. The Russians kept going to an incredible depth of 40,226 feet which is 12,261 meters.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/08/gallery_kola_borehole

Thats only about 1/3 the way through the crust so they didn’t get close to what they wanted (Mohorovicic Discontinuity) even after the 15 year effort to reach the depth they did. Gotta give the Russians credit for persistence.

Dad? I dug another hole!

Well if we're going to contaminate it by drilling into it, how else do they suppose we get there? Teleport in? It's like saying.. 'don't go into space, we'll contaminate it.' If we had that attitude, we'd never achieve anything.

cool story bro

we are talking about drilling to an ice covered lake here though

my point was nasa isn't always right

They found the ancient predators temple!

The hole only looks like it's about a foot wide......

well the water at some point would have seen the light of day, (sure not for a few million years but light would have been seen)

it sounded to me as if the russians stop "drilling" and changed method (using a heated tip) to prevent contamination (I really wouldn't label it has sloppy and a high chance just because the russians did it, they are rather good at science, after all lets face it, all bar putting a man on the moon, the rusians beat the US in every other space first)

they are also experts in deep drilling, and sample taking, having done many more of these style of testings etc

1957: First satellite, Sputnik 1
1957: First animal in Earth orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2
1959: First rocket ignition in Earth orbit, first man-made object to escape Earth's gravity, Luna 1
1959: First data communications, or telemetry, to and from outer space, Luna 1.
1959: First man-made object to pass near the Moon, first man-made object in Heliocentric orbit, Luna 1
1959: First probe to impact the Moon, Luna 2
1959: First images of the moon's far side, Luna 3
1960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogs Belka and Strelka on Sputnik 5.
1961: First probe launched to Venus, Venera 1
1961: First person in space (International definition) and in Earth orbit, Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, Vostok programme
1961: First person to spend over 24 hours in space Gherman Titov, Vostok 2 (also first person to sleep in space).
1962: First dual manned spaceflight, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4
1962: First probe launched to Mars, Mars 1
1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6
1964: First multi-person crew (3), Voskhod 1
1965: First extra-vehicular activity (EVA), by Aleksei Leonov, Voskhod 2
1965: First probe to hit another planet of the Solar system (Venus), Venera 3
1966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the moon, Luna 9
1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10
1967: First unmanned rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188. (Until 2006, this had remained the only major space achievement that the US had not duplicated.)
1969: First docking between two manned craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5
1970: First soil samples automatically extracted and returned to Earth from another celestial body, Luna 16
1970: First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1 on the Moon.
1970: First data received from the surface of another planet of the Solar system (Venus), Venera 7
1971: First space station, Salyut 1
1971: First probe to reach surface and make soft landing on Mars, Mars 2
1975: First probe to orbit Venus, to make soft landing on Venus, first photos from surface of Venus, Venera 9
1980: First Hispanic and Black person in space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez on Soyuz 38
1984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya (Salyut 7 space station)
1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations (Mir and Salyut 7)
1986: First probes to deploy robotic balloons into Venus atmosphere and to return pictures of a comet during close flyby Vega 1, Vega 2
1986: First permanently manned space station, Mir, 1986–2001, with permanent presence on board (1989–1999)
1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov on board of Soyuz TM-4 - Mir

that's not every other space first... it's just a list of pre-1987 space firsts.

lol E.T., I was joking. Damn text and it's inability to convey intonation.

46 years after russia was the first to fly by mars, which then there was the normal barrage of probes etc, nasa becoming the first to have a mars obiter is hardly that great,


also saying how dodgy the russians can be is kinda ignoring the fact that they have shown many time that the US way of thinking isn't always the best

(this is why russia had ground effect "planes", used turbo props to long range bombers despite the US thinking the future was in Jets only, while they might attack things from a different angle, it isn't always dodgy, or risky, look at how each country tested their space shuttles,

Nasa, tested it with people
Russia tested it with computers,

sure, they done always have the money to take the same precautions (in the past) but the science is and has always been pretty solid

first to dock in space
first space station

The first dock in space was either gemini 6 or gemini 8 depending how you define it. Gemini 8 was super interesting. A thruster malfunction caused the craft to spin out of control, but quick and skilful action by Neil Armstrong saved the crew and the mission, arguably securing his place as first man on the moon.

They also have the dubious honour of first person killed in space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Komarov

The mission for first russian docking with a space station resulted in the death of the 3 crew. Does the record still count when everyone dies?

Russia tested it with computers

Not really, the russians were notoriously callous towards their cosmonauts. They ignored safety features to be the first to accomplish something on multiple occasions, as demonstrated by the poor design of the multicrew Voskhod capsule and the shitty re-entry procedures they had.

eski, re-read,

as far as space shuttle tests go, my point still stands, they tested it with computers

also

The Soviets carried out the first automated, unmanned docking between Cosmos 186 and Cosmos 188 on October 30, 1967.

this was before failing at their manned docking

nasa wasn't the nest at looking after its crews, very little unmanned testing before letting it loose on people

first to dock in space

The first dock in space was either gemini 6 or gemini 8 depending how you define it.

I'm guessing copuis was referring to this line in his previous post:

1967: First unmanned rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188.

There are some interesting points about the USSR/Russia's achievements in this thread. The US won the race to the moon, but Russia did do a lot of other things first. And though I personally think of the US having won the race to explore space, they are currently relying on Russia to get astronauts into and out of orbit. And the reason Russia fell behind in the 90s is because of the decrease in state funding around the breakup of the USSR. Meanwhile we're seeing constant threats to NASA programs due to decreases in funding... so at what point is the race really won?