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I think you have it backwards in the first paragraph. A general misunderstanding of this 'weird universe' is that 'politics' declared science and technology as

I think you have it backwards in the first paragraph. A general misunderstanding of this 'weird universe' is that 'politics' declared science and technology as the top goals, and the entire soviet planned economy revolved around plans for industrial projects, be they exploratory or defense, or agriculture. Most aspects of Soviet space program were scientific and exploratory in nature. Sending a new lab satellite into space every few month, rovers to Moon, Venus, Mars long before US. What was the military point of that? On the other hand US put a much bigger emphasis on star wars than substantive exploration.

InclinedPlane 13y ago
The Soviets undertook missions of exploration for much the same reason as the US did. For scientific reasons, of course, but also for reasons of national prestige on the geopolitical stage. If you look at the Soviet manned spaceflight missions things are very much different though. Around half of the "Salyut" space stations were actually military "Almaz" stations (Salyut 2, 3, and 5), at least one of which was armed with a fully automatic cannon designed to engage other spacecraft. The Soviets also pioneered the development of anti-satellite systems starting in the 1960s, long before the US had even started an anti-satellite program. The kicker is "Polyus", the first payload of the Energia launcher, it was an 80 ton orbital warship. It was a prototype designed around the missions of anti-satellite/anti-spacecraft warfare and laying nuclear "mines" in space (in contravention of the Outer Space Treaty, of course). Polyus itself did not contain mines though it did contain a set of test targets and a 1 megawatt laser. But Polyus failed to achieve orbit due to a glitch during the launch. As far as exploration, the US has contributed more to interplanetary exploration than any other nation or group of nations. It has sent more successful missions to other planets and been the only nation to send probes into interstellar space. Excluding spending on ground-based ballistic missile defense the total spending on "Star Wars" is less than the cost of Apollo, ISS, or even NASA's fleet of space telescopes.
- Demiurge 13y ago
  I'm kind of at a loss for words. Are you including the past 20 years USSR did not exist in your comparison with US? I remember the timeline of lunches, if you start in 60s, overall it was much more densely packed for USSR compared to US until 90s. Your mention of 'Polyus' is the end of this timeline, 3 years past completely destructive actions of Gorbochev. Do you think Skylab beats Mir?
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    I can't make sense of what point you're trying to make. I think Apollo trumps Mir/Salyut/Almaz, and I think Voyager 2 alone trumps the entire Soviet unmanned space program, even the Venera missions. As does COBE, for that matter. Edit: which is to say, that while the Soviets may have made impressive contributions to science in the form of the peaceful exploration of space the idea that their contributions outclassed those of the US is simply preposterous.
    - Demiurge 13y ago
      I think my point is that being the first to plant a flag on the moon is not space exploration. You think Voyager 2 trumps the entire Soviet unmanned space program, and I think I would prefer all the papers and progress made by Soviet program. Luckily I can read them in native language. Thanks for your perspective.
      - krapp 13y ago
        Perhaps the Russians surpassed the US in terms of space research and development initially, but the US did more on the moon than plant a flag and play golf. You can't explore someplace you never actually reach in any case. And as far as Russia being about research and the US being about militarizing space (which you seem to suggest upthread), I'd remind you that the Russians (as far as I know) were the only country to arm one of their space stations and test fire the weapon[1]: To suggest that either the US or Russia weren't keenly interested in using space as leverage against the other, as well as in scientific exploration, is probably not taking the entire picture into consideration. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz ... and yes, having more than one space station puts a check in the Russian column.
        Demiurge 13y ago
        Yeah, I'm not denying geopolitics, just the emphasis as was described.
        avmich 13y ago
- avmich 13y ago
  You probably mean contributing in the dollar amount, but that's hardly the scale I'd choose to measure it by.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

The Soviets undertook missions of exploration for much the same reason as the US did. For scientific reasons, of course, but also for reasons of national prestige on the geopolitical stage. If you look at the Soviet manned spaceflight missions things are very much different though. Around half of the "Salyut" space stations were actually military "Almaz" stations (Salyut 2, 3, and 5), at least one of which was armed with a fully automatic cannon designed to engage other spacecraft. The Soviets also pioneered the development of anti-satellite systems starting in the 1960s, long before the US had even started an anti-satellite program. The kicker is "Polyus", the first payload of the Energia launcher, it was an 80 ton orbital warship. It was a prototype designed around the missions of anti-satellite/anti-spacecraft warfare and laying nuclear "mines" in space (in contravention of the Outer Space Treaty, of course). Polyus itself did not contain mines though it did contain a set of test targets and a 1 megawatt laser. But Polyus failed to achieve orbit due to a glitch during the launch. As far as exploration, the US has contributed more to interplanetary exploration than any other nation or group of nations. It has sent more successful missions to other planets and been the only nation to send probes into interstellar space. Excluding spending on ground-based ballistic missile defense the total spending on "Star Wars" is less than the cost of Apollo, ISS, or even NASA's fleet of space telescopes.

Demiurge 13y ago
I'm kind of at a loss for words. Are you including the past 20 years USSR did not exist in your comparison with US? I remember the timeline of lunches, if you start in 60s, overall it was much more densely packed for USSR compared to US until 90s. Your mention of 'Polyus' is the end of this timeline, 3 years past completely destructive actions of Gorbochev. Do you think Skylab beats Mir?
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  I can't make sense of what point you're trying to make. I think Apollo trumps Mir/Salyut/Almaz, and I think Voyager 2 alone trumps the entire Soviet unmanned space program, even the Venera missions. As does COBE, for that matter. Edit: which is to say, that while the Soviets may have made impressive contributions to science in the form of the peaceful exploration of space the idea that their contributions outclassed those of the US is simply preposterous.
  - Demiurge 13y ago
    I think my point is that being the first to plant a flag on the moon is not space exploration. You think Voyager 2 trumps the entire Soviet unmanned space program, and I think I would prefer all the papers and progress made by Soviet program. Luckily I can read them in native language. Thanks for your perspective.
    - krapp 13y ago
      Perhaps the Russians surpassed the US in terms of space research and development initially, but the US did more on the moon than plant a flag and play golf. You can't explore someplace you never actually reach in any case. And as far as Russia being about research and the US being about militarizing space (which you seem to suggest upthread), I'd remind you that the Russians (as far as I know) were the only country to arm one of their space stations and test fire the weapon[1]: To suggest that either the US or Russia weren't keenly interested in using space as leverage against the other, as well as in scientific exploration, is probably not taking the entire picture into consideration. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz ... and yes, having more than one space station puts a check in the Russian column.
      - Demiurge 13y ago
        Yeah, I'm not denying geopolitics, just the emphasis as was described.
      - avmich 13y ago
avmich 13y ago
You probably mean contributing in the dollar amount, but that's hardly the scale I'd choose to measure it by.