4 ms·

Actually the government space program was mired and slow in the 50s as Werner von Braun was walled out of the main programs because he was unpopular among the b

Actually the government space program was mired and slow in the 50s as Werner von Braun was walled out of the main programs because he was unpopular among the bureaucrats. It was only after the success of the Soviet space program that the US government got worried and decided things needed to change. They put von Braun in charge an the rest is history. The lessons one learns from this isn't that he government is good at science. The lessons are that great individuals produced just about every great thing humanity has, and the best way to empower individuals in through the private sector, rather then having them bogged down in the bureaucracy. The other lesson is something that most totalitarian regimes in history worked out pretty quick: that an all powerful governments can only function well when it has an enemy. It is something in human nature that we fight among ourselves and are happy to corrupt and ruin things for our own benefit. It is only when faced with an enemy that the human instinct to work together for survival kicks in.

inglor_cz 5y ago
This had a mirror situation in the East. Korolev was a genius engineer. He was also a workaholic who would not relent until he got first class components for his rockets, even if it involved bitter fights with ossified Soviet industry. When he died, his peers Glushko and Chelomei could not really replace him. After Korolev's death, innovation in Soviet space program slowed down and they lost the edge.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  That's not quite fair. In the East there were actually many different streams of development. And the Soviet space program didn't really slow down. They would continue to make great engines and launch great rockets. In no way can it be said that they lost 'the edge'. What failed was the moon program, but its not at all clear that Korolev being alive would have changed that. The Soviet still ended up building the second most powerful rocket ever. They built engines that were way better then anything the US did (RS-25 might be the exception but it was outrageously expensive). The Soviets also built pretty cool nuclear engines as well. In the 90s US engineers went over to Russia and literally didn't believe the engine specs they were being told. Some of the things they did was considered impossible in the West. Keep your eye on the 'Everyday Astronaut' channel on Youtube. He will soon release an insane 1.5h video about Soviet rocket engines. Its insanely detailed and long and well researched. I was able to see it because of Patreon, but it should be public in a week or two.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    What was unique about Korolev was the fact that his designs worked almost from scratch and usually did not result in much delay. It wasn't just product of his genius, but of the fact that he was willing to spend hours and hours on the phone with various factories, cajoling and threatening them into shipping the necessary parts in good quality and on time. Generally, the USSR had a major weakness in logistics of industrial products and Korolev was able to overcome it. N-1 was an impressive design, but Korolev's successors were unable to get it to fly, which was a major financial black hole and a source of embarassment for the USSR. To be honest, we do not know if Korolev could make it fly either. The design was very revolutionary, a lot of engines firing at once. Soviet engines were absolutely great. But development of the launchers as such slowed down significantly after Korolev's death. As one of the examples of losing the edge: Soviet attempt at building a space shuttle was almost ten years delayed compared to the American one.
    - panick21_ 5y ago
      Interesting, I have not read to much about Korolev day to day. What the best thing to read? They should have never attempted to build the Shuttle. I mean as far as I know they started to copy it pretty late in the game. In my opinion the US could have been far ahead overall, but they decide to drop every aspect of Apollo. The should have continued with the Saturn 1B and the Apollo stack.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        I am afraid my sources are Czech, for example, Konstruktéři raketového věku by Karel Pacner and a lot of articles by the same author. Pacner was our top rocket journalist, he had a lot of sources in Russia. Unfortunately he died this February. Quality was a recurring problem in industrial production east of the Iron Curtain. I was born in an industrial city as well (Ostrava) and it was well known which section of which factory is "good" and which is "bad". People could not be fired for mere incompetence or laziness (as long as they were physically present), because jobs, especially in primary production, were seen as a right. Therefore, getting a good and reliable team together and getting rid of the misfits was a real challenge. In production, quantity was rewarded. Quality did not matter as much. As a result, you had leaking faucets, uneven sheets of metal, crooked nails, weak glue, brittle bricks, shoddy workmanship ... and finding high quality stuff was a problem even for important industries.

inglor_cz 5y ago

This had a mirror situation in the East. Korolev was a genius engineer. He was also a workaholic who would not relent until he got first class components for his rockets, even if it involved bitter fights with ossified Soviet industry. When he died, his peers Glushko and Chelomei could not really replace him. After Korolev's death, innovation in Soviet space program slowed down and they lost the edge.

panick21_ 5y ago
That's not quite fair. In the East there were actually many different streams of development. And the Soviet space program didn't really slow down. They would continue to make great engines and launch great rockets. In no way can it be said that they lost 'the edge'. What failed was the moon program, but its not at all clear that Korolev being alive would have changed that. The Soviet still ended up building the second most powerful rocket ever. They built engines that were way better then anything the US did (RS-25 might be the exception but it was outrageously expensive). The Soviets also built pretty cool nuclear engines as well. In the 90s US engineers went over to Russia and literally didn't believe the engine specs they were being told. Some of the things they did was considered impossible in the West. Keep your eye on the 'Everyday Astronaut' channel on Youtube. He will soon release an insane 1.5h video about Soviet rocket engines. Its insanely detailed and long and well researched. I was able to see it because of Patreon, but it should be public in a week or two.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  What was unique about Korolev was the fact that his designs worked almost from scratch and usually did not result in much delay. It wasn't just product of his genius, but of the fact that he was willing to spend hours and hours on the phone with various factories, cajoling and threatening them into shipping the necessary parts in good quality and on time. Generally, the USSR had a major weakness in logistics of industrial products and Korolev was able to overcome it. N-1 was an impressive design, but Korolev's successors were unable to get it to fly, which was a major financial black hole and a source of embarassment for the USSR. To be honest, we do not know if Korolev could make it fly either. The design was very revolutionary, a lot of engines firing at once. Soviet engines were absolutely great. But development of the launchers as such slowed down significantly after Korolev's death. As one of the examples of losing the edge: Soviet attempt at building a space shuttle was almost ten years delayed compared to the American one.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    Interesting, I have not read to much about Korolev day to day. What the best thing to read? They should have never attempted to build the Shuttle. I mean as far as I know they started to copy it pretty late in the game. In my opinion the US could have been far ahead overall, but they decide to drop every aspect of Apollo. The should have continued with the Saturn 1B and the Apollo stack.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      I am afraid my sources are Czech, for example, Konstruktéři raketového věku by Karel Pacner and a lot of articles by the same author. Pacner was our top rocket journalist, he had a lot of sources in Russia. Unfortunately he died this February. Quality was a recurring problem in industrial production east of the Iron Curtain. I was born in an industrial city as well (Ostrava) and it was well known which section of which factory is "good" and which is "bad". People could not be fired for mere incompetence or laziness (as long as they were physically present), because jobs, especially in primary production, were seen as a right. Therefore, getting a good and reliable team together and getting rid of the misfits was a real challenge. In production, quantity was rewarded. Quality did not matter as much. As a result, you had leaking faucets, uneven sheets of metal, crooked nails, weak glue, brittle bricks, shoddy workmanship ... and finding high quality stuff was a problem even for important industries.