"ed kyle" wrote in message
om...
According to the ITAR-TASS story at,

"http://www.itar-tass.com/english/allnews/394859.html"

only 98 Russian workers will be needed to process and launch each
Soyuz from Kourou (beginning in 2006) - and only 15 will be
needed at the site between launch campaigns.

Does anyone know how many workers are needed to process equivalent
Western rockets?

These are just ground handlers of course. I suspect that a Ariane 4/5 or
Atlas has about the same number of people, maybe slightly more. The rockets
are basically shipped completely tested from Russia so all they have to do
is screw them together and fill them up.