Who won the Space Race? Community poll

[czokletmuss]

Was the shuttle expensive to maintain? Yes. But without it, many of the things it did simply would not have been done. Doesn't matter how inefficient it was, it was in no way a failed program And no amount of post-program revisionism can change that.

This is not a thread about STS (there were few about it, as far as I remember); there are a lot of good points made by critics of it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program) but please let's not derail into the current NASA's manned program. Instead, let's concentrate on THIS:

Edited September 14, 2013 by czokletmuss

[EvilotionCR2]

It's SPACE race,Russia put Gagarin up first. The Moon race was won by USA.

[Tiberion]

The USAF is not capable of using foreign launchers due to various regulations (mostly related to technology transfer control). NASA is subject to most of the same agreements. In terms of actual commercial launches, Boeing (or rather the ILS assets they've developed) hasn't launched one since 2006, Lockheed hasn't launched one since 2002, and ATK, uh, well, ATK isn't actually a launch provider. The decline started long before that; when it was decided the shiny new Space Shuttle^TM would be used to launch all US payloads. Having an industry suddenly stop, and then start from scratch a few years later, isn't terribly good for it...

And yet its still a multi-billion dollar industry and wasn't destroyed at all, and all of those companies were still providing commercial services during that time.

Man I had no idea that NASA and the USAF, who, if you can go by some comments in this thread are barely competent of waking up in the morning, could have destroyed the worldwide commercial market. If the shuttle was such a poor choice, maybe there was some other company that could have also provided launch services out there.. maybe something supported by the ESA. Guess nothing like that existed.

Nope, the industry was definitely dead for the entire time the Shuttle flew. I learned something today.

BTW ATK purchased Thiokol, which absolutely provided stages for a variety of launch vehicles.

Also, do you even know what the United Launch Alliance (ULA) is?

This is not a thread about STS (there were few about it, as far as I remember); there are a lot of good points made by critics of it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program) but please let's not derail into the current NASA's manned program.

Sorry, its completely relevant, and I have no problem challenging specious unsupported claims as often as they're made. You can level criticisms at any space program, Soyuz and Apollo included, but saying that the Shuttle program is an outright failure is a non-starter for me and shall not stand.

If you didn't want people arguing about the various space projects of the 2 nations, then you probably chose a poor thread to start.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Tiberion

[Kryten]

If the shuttle was such a poor choice, maybe there was some other company that could have also provided launch services out there.. maybe something supported by the ESA. Guess nothing like that existed.

...destroying the US commercial launch industry.

How many times am I going to have to do that until you start responding to the post I actually made?

[czokletmuss]

If you didn't want people arguing about the various space projects of the 2 nations, then you probably chose a poor thread to start.

I have no problem with that, just please be civil and remember that there are other programs than STS and that STS itself maybe considered by some to begin after the Space Race concluded

[Tiberion]

How many times am I going to have to do that until you start responding to the post I actually made?

As many as it takes you to decide you made an exaggerated and silly claim. You brought up the lack of foreign launchers in your last post.

As for US launchers being superceded by the Shuttle;

Explain the Atlas, Delta, and Titan rocket families continuing to operate from the 60s clear through the 90s and (except for the Titan which ended in 2005) continue to operate today.

What about the GPS network? not a single one of those were launched on a shuttle. All Atlas and Delta Launches

And companies like Hughes, EchoStar, DirecTV and so on used a combination of US, EU, and RU launchers.

So exactly what WAS destroyed?

If anything limited the scope of launches by the US providers, it was their sometimes spotty record. Like the absolute failure that was the Delta III rocket (3 launches, all failures)

Sorry, far too much revisionism happening here.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Tiberion

[Kryten]

Explain the Atlas, Delta, and Titan rocket families continuing to operate from the 60s clear through the 90s and (except for the Titan which ended in 2005) continue to operate today.

Non-competitive US government contracts. US government payloads being put up by rockets developed as part of a US government program, and via a 'company' that survives through US government funding independent of services rendered cannot be called 'commercial' with anything like a straight face.

[Tiberion]

You are mis-informed. Those launchers had business outside of the US government. By your measure, Ariane isn't commercial either.

[Kryten]

What business? Atlas V, as I mentioned, hasn't launched a non-gov payload since 2005. Delta IV hasn't launched one since it's first launch in 2002, meaning it has never launched one on a full-price contract.

[Skyrunner27]

Don't be ridiculous. It flew 135 missions over 30 years.

If being the 2nd most used 'people launcher' makes you a failure, I am sure there are dozens of countries and private companies lining up to get in on some of that failure.

Come on people, get a grip on reality.

Not to mention it had the greatest capacity of any manned space vehicle to date and on top of that it could launch cargo on top of that. It also acted as a cheap space station.

[Tiberion]

What business? Atlas V, as I mentioned, hasn't launched a non-gov payload since 2005. Delta IV hasn't launched one since it's first launch in 2002, meaning it has never launched one on a full-price contract.

2006 actually, mostly since the creation of the ULA. I think their payload choices are more of a fact that the government was able to fill up their schedule, rather than the Atlas V suddenly becoming unsuitable for commercial operations. Maybe other providers also started being competitive? I think the major limiting factor was the lack of launch space.

The original claim was that the Shuttle destroyed the US launch business. How can that be so if it 'ended' in 2006, when the shuttle was already pretty much dedicated to finishing the ISS (since nothing else could) and thus wasn't really available to take those jobs from the commercial launchers? And the Delta II HAS launched commercial payloads since then.

And you can't discount the government launches anyway, its still a commercial endeavor and they certainly profit from it.

Oh, and those dozens and dozens of government launches? They back up the notion that the US is very dominant in overall space activity. We already talked about NASA and the USAF, but there is also the NOAA who has launched numerous weather research projects.

[Kryten]

Shuttle led to the major gap in capability in unmanned that led to Arianespace becoming ascendant, it left the US providers unable to catch up. The government certainly did not fill up their schedule, as shown by the previously mentioned payments rendered for various ongoing costs (e.g. pad maintenance); if we assume the government did fill their schedule, the payments mean we have to assume Boeing and Lockheed designed two launch vehicles that they were literally impossible to make a profit on. ULA is at this point effectively a branch of the DoD, they have no commercial aspects apart from their management structure, which given the amount of subsidy required appears to only make a difference of terms of paychecks to managers.

[Tiberion]

Except those launchers still existed throughout the shuttle program, so there was no lack of capability. Any failure on their ends is directly attributed to issues within the organization (again, see Delta III) so at the end of this discussion I am only left to boggle at the need to attach everything to the shuttle to discredit it. But I digress.

And if we're discounting ULA then I guess Ariane is right out too, since it literally IS a branch of the ESA. Same goes for any Russian launches since the Russian government maintains a hammerlock on everything there.

All hail Sealunch, the captain of industry for the private launch sector.

I wonder if SpaceX will be able to unseat them.

Edit, I've had enough of this. Clearly I have been blind to the joke the US has become in the space sector. I have seen the error of my ways.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Tiberion

[Kryten]

Arianespace does what a company is supposed to do; it launches, and the monetary return on those launches is enough to actually run the organisation. Same for ILS or Sealaunch. ULA is a complete failure as a commercial organisation in that it simply doesn't return any kind of profit. It can't even attract customers except ones that have no other choice.

[DisarmingBaton5]

US landed on the moon! USSR did not!

Though they were ahead early on, the USSR failed to rendezvous and dock before the US and never managed a lunar landing.

[Rockhem]

The USSR did everything except dock and a lunar landing first. so the USSR won.

[Skyrunner27]

The USSR did everything except dock and a lunar landing first. so the USSR won.

and first spy satellite, first telecommunication via a satellite, first international cooperation, first manned flyby/orbit of the moon,longest lasting satellite to date,first flyby of mars, first successful Mars soft landing, First flyby of mercury, first flyby of Jupiter,Saturn,Uranus,Neptune,soon to be Pluto, first spacecraft to drop into Jupiter, and first spacecraft to exit the solar system.

[Canopus]

Don't be ridiculous. It flew 135 missions over 30 years.

If being the 2nd most used 'people launcher' makes you a failure, I am sure there are dozens of countries and private companies lining up to get in on some of that failure.

Come on people, get a grip on reality.

Don't get me wrong, i think the STS is a wonderful spacecraft but it failed to accomplish its goal. It was supposed to be a cheap way to transport hardware into space, just a stepping stone on the way to other planets. In the end it was just as expensive (if not even more expensive) to launch like every conventional rocket. Its greatest achievement was building part of the ISS which could have been done with conventional rockets too.

[Gornakosh]

Germany won without knowing and before the race even started. First man made object in space: V2 Rocket in WW2

[Pixel of Life]

The fact is that we would almost certainly not be where we are in terms of space exploration if one of these two magnificent space programs didn't exist. And that is why I don't like thinking about it as a race. Science is not about competing against the others to see who gets the furthest - it's about working together and getting much, much further than anyone could on their own. If I absolutely had to choose a winner, it would be USSR for all their "first times". Laika, Belka & Strelka, Sputnik 1, Gagarin, Leonov, MIR, the Venera probes.. Sure, USA has done some really cool stuff, like the Voyager probes, Space Shuttles, ISS, the Apollo missions and Mars rovers, but I think it's safe to say that USSR played a big part in building a base of knowledge for future space exploration.

[FellipeC]

Werner von Braun won the space race alone!

[B787_300]

Human Civilization won the space race, just from the sheer amount of technology and spinoffs. Simple as that.

[ReptilianGameplays]

Laika won.

Her death led to allow humans in space.

[Jacob01]

Its a tough question to answer. I'm just going to answer it on the period which I think the space race was. From 1957 to 1969 I'd say the USSR. Alot of people would probably disagree with this, but the USSR did most of the things first. They got a satellite into orbit first, sent men up there first and docked the first spacecraft together. Even though America got men to the Moon, and the USSR didn't, I still believe the USSR won.

If we are talking about after the Moon landings, then the USA probably won. They built the space shuttle which I think, along with the Moon landings put them in front.

And at present day, Russia are winning. This is because the USA currently do not have a rocket to get their astronauts off the ground, but Russia can. To be honest though, its not really a space race anymore. Most nations who can get to space are working with others, so they can build things such as the ISS. And, working together is what we need to do if we want to send people to Mars and other worlds.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Jacob01

[Tiberion]

and docked the first spacecraft together.

Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_rendezvous#First_docking

USA:

First rendezvous - December 15, 1965 Gemini 6 & 7

First docking of 2 craft - March 16, 1966 - Gemini 8

First crew transfer March 1969 During Apollo 9 (2 months after the Russian transfer)

Russia:

First Russian rendezvous and docking (unmanned vessels) October 30, 1967

First Russian successful manual docking (and transfer) January 16, 1969 (Soyuz 4 and 5) - just 6 months before the Moon Landing

Their first attempt failed in Oct 1968 with Soyuz 2 and 3 (one being unmanned)

Note, Russia launched 2 Vostok craft into identical orbits in 1962, but they lacked the systems for even rudimentary rendezvous maneuvers. It was just a timed launched like Apollo 6 and 7.

So the only first related to rendezvous and docking was crew transfer for Soyuz 4 and 5. Gemini was definitely the first successful docking program, by more than a year