> They clearly dropped the ball after a few early successes in the space race.
Not true - even in 90's when designing ISS Russian experience with space stations was one of the reasons to invite them to the project.
> By the 70s the Soviet program was in tatters and a joke
Presumably while continuing space stations program with ever increasing capabilities and flight times? Or have you heard about VEGA interplanetary automatic project - admittedly in 80's?
> by the 80s the Shuttle did incredible things that the capsule based approach simple couldn't do (repairing hubble, etc)
Have you heard about reviving Salyut-7 using Soyuz spacecraft? Dzhanibekov-Savinykh flight?
> Obviously, the cost estimates of the shuttle were lower than real cost, but I can't think of any major project where that wasn't true.
But Shuttle was particularly bad miss by costs, wasn't it?
> the Shuttle was retired for a capsule based approach that is a private and public partnership
I'd agree - but note how many years NASA pays to Roscosmos for flying astronauts to ISS and back. Shuttle was retired rather for safety reasons.
> between NASA and companies like SpaceX who are showing us how cheap rockets can be
Which also might be an attempt to reach Russian low cost figures by other means?
> Its unfair to compare failed test projects, which were also fairly uninspired copies, like the Buran and the N1 to workhorses like the Saturn V and the Shuttle.
Here you're clearly missing the mark. N1 wasn't a copy of anything whatsoever. All-kerosene 5-stages stack? Record (bigger than Saturn-5) liftoff thrust? Number of separate engines? Spherical tanks? Not that Buran was particularly uninspired - for one, Energia was capable of flying even without Buran, for another, Buran used kerosine-LOX as main orbital fuel - with advantages both in efficiency and toxicity over Shuttle.
> The Russiophilia around here is pretty high and unfairly so.
You might be right here - it's highly subjective - but you have to admit USSR had plenty of original achievements.
> oddball projects like mounting 50 cal guns on space stations
If you'd analyze carefully, you'll see that those were mostly perfect rational decisions given information which was available at the time. Sense of oddity can be explained by incomplete review.
> pathetic attempts at cloning western successes like the Concorde
That one I don't get at all. How Tu-144, which flew before Concorde, be a copy of Concorde?
>If you'd analyze carefully you'll see that those were mostly perfect rational decisions
This was Soviet thuggery at best. There is no rational reason to put guns in space. Their attempts to militarize space against treaties they signed shouldn't be applauded by apologists like yourself. It doesn't make sense, it was a provocation and "fuck you" to manned spaceflight because Soviets wanted to take the cold war to space. Thankfully their corruption and incomptence made it a non-issue when they failed with Polyus and were too broke to try again.
Its incredible the revisionism here. The USSR has gone from a proper evil empire to a wonderful utopia thanks to space nerds who think the US is the worst government in history. I just hope this USSR fetishism is a temporary fad for attention, like all fads. I think the bullshit has gotten thicker as HN Russophiles try to pretend Putin is a legitimate leader and his war crimes in Ukraine are, per usual, "the west's fault."
Lets call a spade here a spade. The USSR's space program became a pig with lipstick on it towards the seventies and never recovered. All the excuses about how wonderful the Buran was (which put as many men into space as my own personal space program) is ridiculous. Lets give kudos to real achievements. Lets give real NASA projects which were successful half the credit HN space nerds give failed soviet copies. Thanks.
>Not true - even in 90's when designing ISS Russian experience with space stations was one of the reasons to invite them to the project.
This was, at best, diplomatic welfare to bring the ex-soviets into the modern world. We didn't need them to launch another armed platform, so we invited them to a peacetime collaboration. We've been trying to turn Russia into a civilized country since 1991. Unfortunately, they keep falling into an annexation obsessed dictatorship. At least we tried. Now the ISS is a political football for them to kick around to provide political cover for their various annexations. If you don't think the early Russian retirement of it isn't a political move, then I've got a bridge to sell you.
Meanwhile, NASA continues to lead the world in space exploration and science both in manned and unmanned missions. I wish it got 1/10th the credit HN'ers give failed Soviet projects.
Wow, now that we're bringing supposed war crimes in Ukraine into this, you'd do well to examine the US' conduct in Ukraine from a historically literate point of view.
For starters, recall our reaction when the Soviets put nukes in Cuba. In what world could we expect Russia to stand idly by while a nato naval base was installed on the Crimean peninsula?
The US supported coup of Yanukovych, came with an "impeachment" -- if one were so generous to call it that -- supported by less than 3/4 of the rada, ie not a quorum. This would be like impeaching a sitting US president by vote of 50 senators.
And given the success of the referendum in Crimea -- a reasonably legitimate election -- it's hard to honestly make the case that residents of the peninsula don't support annexation by Russia. The US is reduced to whining about a treaty that, um, we have previously publicly stated we don't consider binding.
If you wish to understand the depth of US meddling in the Ukraine, their finance minister is a longtime US apparatchik with extensive work experience in the US state department named Natalie Jaresko. Natalie -- and this is fucking amazing -- is a US citizen who received her Ukranian citizenship the day of her appointment as Minister of Finance.
And while you're complaining about Russian treaty violations, are you aware the US signed the UN Convention against Torture?
Typical whataboutisms from a Putin apologist, none of which has to do with the space race. Sadly, those on the wrong side of history and who worship tyrants just can't seem to understand the modern world.
Being Russian myself, I wholeheartedly agree with your comment, thank you.
It's amazing how little people think about sustainability when they speak about USSR space program. I mean, yeah, DPRK can do space program, too, but at what cost? What will come out of that space program if there is no market structure to handle spin-offs? What will keep the program going when oppressive govt will collapse, as they always do? There is no market value in such program, and there is no surplus to spend out of curiosity.
It's just plain stupid to ignore a larger picture and look at "achievements" by themselves.
> They clearly dropped the ball after a few early successes in the space race.
Not true - even in 90's when designing ISS Russian experience with space stations was one of the reasons to invite them to the project.
> By the 70s the Soviet program was in tatters and a joke
Presumably while continuing space stations program with ever increasing capabilities and flight times? Or have you heard about VEGA interplanetary automatic project - admittedly in 80's?
> by the 80s the Shuttle did incredible things that the capsule based approach simple couldn't do (repairing hubble, etc)
Have you heard about reviving Salyut-7 using Soyuz spacecraft? Dzhanibekov-Savinykh flight?
> Obviously, the cost estimates of the shuttle were lower than real cost, but I can't think of any major project where that wasn't true.
But Shuttle was particularly bad miss by costs, wasn't it?
> the Shuttle was retired for a capsule based approach that is a private and public partnership
I'd agree - but note how many years NASA pays to Roscosmos for flying astronauts to ISS and back. Shuttle was retired rather for safety reasons.
> between NASA and companies like SpaceX who are showing us how cheap rockets can be
Which also might be an attempt to reach Russian low cost figures by other means?
> Its unfair to compare failed test projects, which were also fairly uninspired copies, like the Buran and the N1 to workhorses like the Saturn V and the Shuttle.
Here you're clearly missing the mark. N1 wasn't a copy of anything whatsoever. All-kerosene 5-stages stack? Record (bigger than Saturn-5) liftoff thrust? Number of separate engines? Spherical tanks? Not that Buran was particularly uninspired - for one, Energia was capable of flying even without Buran, for another, Buran used kerosine-LOX as main orbital fuel - with advantages both in efficiency and toxicity over Shuttle.
> The Russiophilia around here is pretty high and unfairly so.
You might be right here - it's highly subjective - but you have to admit USSR had plenty of original achievements.
> oddball projects like mounting 50 cal guns on space stations
If you'd analyze carefully, you'll see that those were mostly perfect rational decisions given information which was available at the time. Sense of oddity can be explained by incomplete review.
> pathetic attempts at cloning western successes like the Concorde
That one I don't get at all. How Tu-144, which flew before Concorde, be a copy of Concorde?