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> The Shuttle even helped Reagan inadvertently bankrupt the Soviet Union, as the Soviets decided they needed a rival orbiter, and cloned the vehicle at terrific

by rdtsc 10y ago

> The Shuttle even helped Reagan inadvertently bankrupt the Soviet Union, as the Soviets decided they needed a rival orbiter, and cloned the vehicle at terrific expense Yeah that line of reasoning is pretty popular. "Soviet Union collapsed because of Reagan's masterful tricks. Look how great we are, we beat them" Reagan didn't have any measurable effect on the collapse. But I guess it makes us feel better saying "We won the fight". Even though in reality the opponent's cancer finally got to him and he collapsed in the ring. Russian shuttle Buran was in some way more advanced than ours: it could land itself automatically. It used an interesting programming and guidance system. There is even a vestige of it alive today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAKON https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAKON https://drakon-editor.com/ https://drakon-editor.com/

Florin_Andrei 10y ago
Exactly. Also, there's a meme that "the Russians beat us to space in the '50s because they were cutting so many safety corners". Bullshit. Not only is it not true, it's not even a good story to teach your kids. "So, you're saying if I cheat I could win?" Good job, dad. Reality not only has the advantage of being, well, real, but the story is that much better. The Russians won the first round because they were laser-focused on the goal, while America was twiddling its thumbs. They had a genius engineer, Sergey Korolev (pronounced: Karalyov), who was like von Braun and James Webb put together, only better, and was dreaming of sending people to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond. They had a forward thinking leader in Nikita Khrushchev, who was a passionate supporter of the space program, and would give Korolev nearly a blank check each year. And they never put any airgap between military rocket research (ICBMs) and civilian space programs - Korolev & Co built both. It also helped that Korolev was an excellent leader who could motivate his teams to crank out 80 hour weeks and love it and be proud of it. Kind of like Elon Musk, come to think of it. So of course they were first to throw Sputnik 1 up into space, and the first to send Gagarin on a world tour in orbit. And then in the mid-60s Korolev died, and Khrushchev got sacked and replaced by stuck-in-the-past Brezhnev. Political will disappeared, funding dried out. They didn't have money to do proper testing on the N1 (their Saturn V equivalent, the Moon rocket), so they did all their testing "in production", during real launches - with results that you could sadly very well imagine. And meanwhile JFK gave his famous speech ("this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth"). And billions of dollars started pouring into the industry, and the sleeping american industrial complex giant woke up. And we won the second round, the race to the Moon, fair and square. It turns out, if you are 100% focused, and you work really hard, and you're passionate - you win. Who knew? And it worked for both sides in that race, but during different rounds in the game. And only afterwards did the Soviets start cutting safety corners, and only then did Vladimir Komarov crash after re-entry. Always tell true stories. Bullshit doesn't help anyone in the long run.
dasmoth 10y ago
Also, the four Buran liquid rocket boosters were designed to also function as the first stage of a smaller launch vehicle, Zenit. At one point, Zenit was set to replace many of the existing Soviet launchers -- that never quite happened, mostly because Zenit is built in the Ukraine, but it has still been a reasonably successful rocket (and although it hasn't launched yet this year, I believe a few more launches are still planned). The RD170 engine family developed for Zenit has been very successful. A half-sized version (RD180) powers Atlas V, and a quarter-sized version (RD191) powers the first-stage modules of Russia's new Angara rocket family.
woodandsteel 10y ago
My understanding is the SU collapsed for several reasons. One was that, as a centrally-controlled socialist economy, it because increasingly inefficient, as Hayek explained. Another was that it had an economy only one-third the size of the US, but was matching it in military strength. This lead to so such huge expenditures that little was left over for capital investment in the rest of the economy. In addition, all the engineering and scientific talent went to the military sector, so there was little technological innovation elsewhere. Reagan looked at his and decided to greatly increase the US military budget, in hopes the SU would see it couldn't win, and quit the cold war. In addition, his technologists came up with the Star Wars idea, which was a scam they knew wouldn't work, but the hoped the SU would be tricked into thinking it would and that they couldn't match it. Fortunately, the Russian Politburo realized Russia was in terrible economic shape and needed radical changes, so they appointed Gorgachev to do this. And so when Reagan launched his plan, he eventually agreed to end the cold war. In addition in his attempt to rescue the Soviet economy he made radical political changes that eventually lead to the end of communism and the dissolution of the SU in to a number of separate states. So yes, Reagan's plan succeeded, but in part because of independent developments in the SU.

by rdtsc 10y ago

Florin_Andrei 10y ago

Exactly. Also, there's a meme that "the Russians beat us to space in the '50s because they were cutting so many safety corners". Bullshit. Not only is it not true, it's not even a good story to teach your kids. "So, you're saying if I cheat I could win?" Good job, dad. Reality not only has the advantage of being, well, real, but the story is that much better. The Russians won the first round because they were laser-focused on the goal, while America was twiddling its thumbs. They had a genius engineer, Sergey Korolev (pronounced: Karalyov), who was like von Braun and James Webb put together, only better, and was dreaming of sending people to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond. They had a forward thinking leader in Nikita Khrushchev, who was a passionate supporter of the space program, and would give Korolev nearly a blank check each year. And they never put any airgap between military rocket research (ICBMs) and civilian space programs - Korolev & Co built both. It also helped that Korolev was an excellent leader who could motivate his teams to crank out 80 hour weeks and love it and be proud of it. Kind of like Elon Musk, come to think of it. So of course they were first to throw Sputnik 1 up into space, and the first to send Gagarin on a world tour in orbit. And then in the mid-60s Korolev died, and Khrushchev got sacked and replaced by stuck-in-the-past Brezhnev. Political will disappeared, funding dried out. They didn't have money to do proper testing on the N1 (their Saturn V equivalent, the Moon rocket), so they did all their testing "in production", during real launches - with results that you could sadly very well imagine. And meanwhile JFK gave his famous speech ("this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth"). And billions of dollars started pouring into the industry, and the sleeping american industrial complex giant woke up. And we won the second round, the race to the Moon, fair and square. It turns out, if you are 100% focused, and you work really hard, and you're passionate - you win. Who knew? And it worked for both sides in that race, but during different rounds in the game. And only afterwards did the Soviets start cutting safety corners, and only then did Vladimir Komarov crash after re-entry. Always tell true stories. Bullshit doesn't help anyone in the long run.

dasmoth 10y ago

Also, the four Buran liquid rocket boosters were designed to also function as the first stage of a smaller launch vehicle, Zenit. At one point, Zenit was set to replace many of the existing Soviet launchers -- that never quite happened, mostly because Zenit is built in the Ukraine, but it has still been a reasonably successful rocket (and although it hasn't launched yet this year, I believe a few more launches are still planned). The RD170 engine family developed for Zenit has been very successful. A half-sized version (RD180) powers Atlas V, and a quarter-sized version (RD191) powers the first-stage modules of Russia's new Angara rocket family.

woodandsteel 10y ago

My understanding is the SU collapsed for several reasons. One was that, as a centrally-controlled socialist economy, it because increasingly inefficient, as Hayek explained. Another was that it had an economy only one-third the size of the US, but was matching it in military strength. This lead to so such huge expenditures that little was left over for capital investment in the rest of the economy. In addition, all the engineering and scientific talent went to the military sector, so there was little technological innovation elsewhere. Reagan looked at his and decided to greatly increase the US military budget, in hopes the SU would see it couldn't win, and quit the cold war. In addition, his technologists came up with the Star Wars idea, which was a scam they knew wouldn't work, but the hoped the SU would be tricked into thinking it would and that they couldn't match it. Fortunately, the Russian Politburo realized Russia was in terrible economic shape and needed radical changes, so they appointed Gorgachev to do this. And so when Reagan launched his plan, he eventually agreed to end the cold war. In addition in his attempt to rescue the Soviet economy he made radical political changes that eventually lead to the end of communism and the dissolution of the SU in to a number of separate states. So yes, Reagan's plan succeeded, but in part because of independent developments in the SU.