Soyuz struck by lightning on the way up.

Ouch. Looks nasty. According to Russian sources, the rocket was undamaged, successfully reached orbit, and deployed its payload satellite as scheduled.

Wow. Talk about coincidence!

well it IS made from metals and lightning likes to take the easiest way possible, also Why is it that the Russians were so intent on sending a rocket when it's bad weather?

Wow, that looks cool

They aren't much into count-downs, either. I watched a Russian launch years ago, and it went sort of like:

"Everybody cool with this?"

"Yah."

"Sure."

"Whatever."

"Cool" <presses button>

To bad it's not NK's rocket

Lol

Lol

More to the point, the rocket is connected to the ground by a trail of hot ionized gasses (from the rocket engine), making it in effect a lightning rod a kilometer tall.

yeah, i searched it up and rocket fuel has 69% ammonium perchlorate 16% aluminium, and a bit of polymers and stuff, both ammonium perchlorate and aluminium being great conductors of electricity(Aluminium isn't THAT great)

Better than air

Cool facts in this topic, I didn't know this about a rocket trail.

well it's basically metal heated up to the point it gives enough thrust to reach escape velocity, but the metal is still in the air, just in gaseous form, even in gaseous form it's enough for the lightning to go zwoooooooooooooop

You are describing solid propellants, of course, like the Space Shuttle's SRBs.

Liquid fueled rockets use other mixtures (liquid Hydrogen and liquid Oxygen, or Kerosene and liquid Oxygen, or unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine and inhibited fuming red nitric acid) and yield different reaction products.

Most (perhaps all?) liquid fueled rockets will run fuel-rich rather than using stoichiometric quantities of fuel and oxidant... since perfect stoichiometric ratios would burn TOO efficiently and would melt the rocket engines.

I am unable to tell if you're joking or not

That is no coincidence, that is a sign!! They should return  

100 lightning bolts strike earth's surface every second so that's a lot of signs I'd say

Do the 100 lightning bolts strike a starting rocket? 

First think - then write  

lol, someone who suggests it's a sign says the words "first think then wright"

As explained, it's a natural path. Air is very a good insulator. It would more likely be a sign if it didn't hit the rocket.

the whole point was that 100 lightning bolts strike the earth's surface every second so sooner or later a rocket WAS to be bolted considering it's conductivity

lol