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> I think he was good manager Oh, probably that's why in Russia he's known as 'Undertaker of space industry'. It makes sense.

by mahoro 4y ago

orbital-decay 4y ago
Speaking as someone who actually worked in the industry: he didn't take it down. The actual troubles started long before him, and even long before 90s; they weren't noticeable at first. In 70s, those bright rocket engineers who were given carte blanche for almost anything after the war (and showed it was worth it), started to abuse their positions to siphon resources from the state and to justify the existence of companies led by them. It was roughly the same process that was happening in NASA after Apollo, except NASA realized that early on, and somewhat corrected by starting to shift the spaceflight towards the commercial/private sector since 1985. Additionally, NASA never suffered a disintegration of the country and a decade of nothing. Rogozin was just a typical okay-ish manager of Putin era with an inflated ego, who also liked to shitpost to Twitter. The ones before him were even worse (like Komarov who plundered Khrunichev together with his friend Kalinovsky). His main blunder was that he tried to run it as a for-profit state corporation to cater to the government unwilling to pay more for a hopeless industry; otherwise, some of the decisions he made were sensible enough. But the Russian space industry couldn't have been "saved" by mediocrities like him. It needed to be rescaled and the program re-prioritized. The fundamental reform was long overdue, and it required political will from the government, that wasn't there.
- mahoro 4y ago
  Thank you for your comment, it is unexpected. I've read bunch of news articles about Rogozin, Roscosmos and Vostochniy cosmodrome, and I would agree with 'okay-ish for Putin's era' assessment of his management. But I wouldn't separate his management from his public speeches. As top-level official, his shitposting may be as important as his management decisions. Before him, Russian space industry were decaying but it was declaring a peaceful goals (I remember ambitious Phobos-Grunt mission that was close to success). Now Roscosmos looks like a department of ministry of defence.

> I think he was good manager Oh, probably that's why in Russia he's known as 'Undertaker of space industry'. It makes sense.

by mahoro 4y ago

> I think he was good manager Oh, probably that's why in Russia he's known as 'Undertaker of space industry'. It makes sense.

orbital-decay 4y ago

Speaking as someone who actually worked in the industry: he didn't take it down. The actual troubles started long before him, and even long before 90s; they weren't noticeable at first. In 70s, those bright rocket engineers who were given carte blanche for almost anything after the war (and showed it was worth it), started to abuse their positions to siphon resources from the state and to justify the existence of companies led by them. It was roughly the same process that was happening in NASA after Apollo, except NASA realized that early on, and somewhat corrected by starting to shift the spaceflight towards the commercial/private sector since 1985. Additionally, NASA never suffered a disintegration of the country and a decade of nothing. Rogozin was just a typical okay-ish manager of Putin era with an inflated ego, who also liked to shitpost to Twitter. The ones before him were even worse (like Komarov who plundered Khrunichev together with his friend Kalinovsky). His main blunder was that he tried to run it as a for-profit state corporation to cater to the government unwilling to pay more for a hopeless industry; otherwise, some of the decisions he made were sensible enough. But the Russian space industry couldn't have been "saved" by mediocrities like him. It needed to be rescaled and the program re-prioritized. The fundamental reform was long overdue, and it required political will from the government, that wasn't there.

mahoro 4y ago
Thank you for your comment, it is unexpected. I've read bunch of news articles about Rogozin, Roscosmos and Vostochniy cosmodrome, and I would agree with 'okay-ish for Putin's era' assessment of his management. But I wouldn't separate his management from his public speeches. As top-level official, his shitposting may be as important as his management decisions. Before him, Russian space industry were decaying but it was declaring a peaceful goals (I remember ambitious Phobos-Grunt mission that was close to success). Now Roscosmos looks like a department of ministry of defence.