A rant about people who are hyperbiased for Russian rockets.

[Gojira]

Why do most Russians think that the Russian rockets are so good? They\'re no better than ours, and they have had their fair share of failures too. Take the N1 lunar rocket for example. That didn\'t take off. It barely even left the launchpad before falling and exploding, and most likely killing those on board, unless there was a launch abort system. Our Saturn V made it to the Moon before the Russians did. I understand that you have safe rocket parts and tried-and-true designs. Yeah, we use Russian rocket parts, but we also use our own tried-and-true designs that work just fine.

No rocket type is any better than another. They\'re all designed to put shit into space, and that\'s (mostly) what they do.

Argument settled.

Gah.

/rant

Please do not be offended by this. I do not mean to hurt anyone\'s feelings.

[Guest GroundHOG-2010]

^ No rocket is better than any other at anything. But the Saturn V for me was crap. They took 10 years to develop the thing and only used it for another 10. Sure it took people to the moon, but if the N1 had been in development for the same amount of time as the Saturn V, then the Russians would have been up there almost beating the USA.

Also take the Buran and the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle wasn\'t better than the Buran, it just was worked on long enough to get into operational use. The Buran wasn\'t.

[Gojira]

That\'s my whole point. No rocket is any better than any other, they all do their job, I just hate people who are so hyperbiased either for or against Russian or American rockets.

[Phoxtane]

I really don\'t have a preference; the Saturn V was huge, but the Vostoks have a pleasing look to them.

[NovaSilisko]

The main thing Russian rockets have going for them is reliability - but the recent string of failures is putting that into doubt.

[Tosh]

I don\'t think Buran was any better than Shuttle. Shuttle had a lot more reusable parts, including main engines (which in case of Energia-Buran system were simply lost)... and even Shuttle didn\'t pay for itself.

Korolev\'s R7/Vostok/Soyuz series is really a masterpiece. R7, the world\'s first ICBM, was first launched in 1957 -- and even now its descendants still remain cheap and reliable lifters (not counting recent Progress fail). But now it\'s 2011, and maybe it\'s time for something new? (And I remind that Angara\'s first launch is delayed again for 2013).

But Proton? Meh... too toxic (and Kazakhstan people are not very much pleased by its fuel tanks falling from above). Europan and American heavy carriers look much more interesting. \'Conversion\' vehicles like Volna or Strela? Well... ICBM carrying a satellite instead of reentry vehicle, and nothing more than that.

And speaking of N1 rocket with its 30 (!) first stage engines -- it was definitely a very Kerbal fail

P.S. I\'m Russian.

[Gojira]

Ah. Like I said, I don\'t mean to offend anyone, I am just irritated by the fact that people are so hyperbiased for rockets of one coutry or another, even going so far as to call us 'greedy capitalist pigs' (and yes, I have seen some youtube comments on rocket launches that say this) just because they like their rockets more.

[RichieD76]

The main thing Russian rockets have going for them is reliability - but the recent string of failures is putting that into doubt.

maybe having next to sole responsability for supplying the ISS is pushing the limits of what they can make and quality if suffering so its abit worrying. Seams ESA lauches are going ok but then there dont have such a tight deadlines and with it being new for them, there taking there time to get it right. Soyuz can carry like double the payload weight from french guiana to which is cool. Makes you wonder if the Saturn V could have been alot smaller if it was launched form near the equator. Buran will always be a nicer craft for me. maybe because there wasnt so much known about it in comparison to the shuttle....plus it had more boosters! Personly i find the Jaxa, chinese & ISRO rockets the most interesting, although you can tell they have looked at american and european rockets before designing there own. but i dont care, they seam to blow up alot so that keeps me happy

[Tosh]

Ah. Like I said, I don\'t mean to offend anyone, I am just irritated by the fact that people are so hyperbiased for rockets of one coutry or another, even going so far as to call us 'greedy capitalist pigs' (and yes, I have seen some youtube comments on rocket launches that say this) just because they like their rockets more.

No offense taken.

People bitchin\' about \'greedy capitalist pigs\' are probably trying to emphasize a thing that \'we can do better than Europeans/Americans\'... while those things are presently not very easy to find . And that\'s quite sad, I should say.

[Guest GroundHOG-2010]

'greedy capitalist pigs'

Well sort of. In space exploration, no. In almost everything else, Yes.

[Sordid]

Why do most Russians think that the Russian rockets are so good? They\'re no better than ours, and they have had their fair share of failures too. Take the N1 lunar rocket for example. That didn\'t take off. It barely even left the launchpad before falling and exploding, and most likely killing those on board, unless there was a launch abort system. Our Saturn V made it to the Moon before the Russians did. I understand that you have safe rocket parts and tried-and-true designs. Yeah, we use Russian rocket parts, but we also use our own tried-and-true designs that work just fine.

No rocket type is any better than another. They\'re all designed to put shit into space, and that\'s (mostly) what they do.

Argument settled.

Argument settled, eh? Well let\'s look at some actual facts:

Astronaut fatalities during spaceflight:

USA: 13

USSR: 4

Astronaut fatalities during training:

USA: 8

USSR/Russia: 3

Number of fatalities during the moonshot program:

USA: 3

USSR: 0

And I don\'t even like the Rooskies! ;P

[Gojira]

I need to do more research before I post, don\'t I.

[Squeal]

I find it quite amusing that before I found KSP and my interest for rockets, I would always imagine the Russian rockets as something badly built in some shed, and the American\'s rockets more precise and accurate. Then again, I was quite young.

[Tosh]

Astronaut fatalities during spaceflight:

Shuttle has bigger crew than Soyuz. Both countries suffered two spaceflight catastrophes, but USA had more fatalities per each incident

Number of fatalities during the moonshot program:

No manned moonshots in USSR at all (not counting an old hoax that Lunokhod was manned 8) )

Speaking seriously, I\'ve no data on launch catastrophes in USA. In USSR there have been several terrible explosions resulted in numerous fatalities (e.g. Nedelin catastrophe).

[Kryten]

Shuttle has bigger crew than Soyuz. More fatalities per incident

Fine.

Russian fatal incidents;2

American fatal incidents;2

Of course one of the Russian ones was a test flight, while the American system was \'operational\'.

If we expand the list beyond simply astronauts/cosmonauts, the Soyuz has killed one person (in a launch explosion) and the shuttle has killed...7 (3 in a gas leak, 4 fell from the launch complex).

[NovaSilisko]

I\'ve been doing lots of reading on the Challenger and Columbia disasters. In both cases, engineers raised concerns with NASA Management, but the management either ignored them or played down their fears... Atlantis could have been launched to save Columbia, because Columbia had 30 days worth of consumables on board - and Atlantis was scheduled for a launch in 25 days, giving 5 days overlap for a rescue mission.

But they decided not to look any further into the foam strike problem, not to inspect the shuttle\'s wing for damage after they saw the foam strike. They knew about it, but said that even if something was wrong, there was 'nothing they could do' (which was false).

The same applies for Challenger. The cold weather prompted engineers to ask management to postpone the launch, but they refused. The O-rings were only rated to 40 degrees - not the 18 degrees that the launch was at.

I could go on, but...

[Tosh]

In most of catastrophes there\'s a person that could do something but either didn\'t do or was not listened to . Nedelin catastrophe (78 fatalities) could easily be prevented if Nedelin was not in such a hurry to present a new rocket to government.

[RichieD76]

while the American system was \'operational\'.

If we expand the list beyond simply astronauts/cosmonauts, the Soyuz has killed one person (in a launch explosion) and the shuttle has killed...7 (3 in a gas leak, 4 fell from the launch complex).

Regardless of what anyone says...there is no such thing as operational in spaceflight...only lower risk. And I take it you didn\'t read the bits where 57 we\'re killed filling up the Vostok & Kosmos rockets then?

But we\'ll not get into how many scientists & engineers were beaten to within inches of there life\'s if the kremlin saw fit...

For some reason I\'ve been looking into the shuttle MISTAKES (chose not to call them disasters as disasters are unavoidable) like you say the foam strike was only a matter of sending the boom arm over the edge to look at the leading edge of the wing. I herd one engineer had even asked to use telescopes or military satellites to look at columbia, and was denied. Even though he argued they had done so on sts-1 through 4 to check on thermal tiles.

[Kryten]

And I take it you didn\'t read the bits where 57 we\'re killed filling up the Vostok & Kosmos rockets then?

You have to take the proportion into account for example-that Vostok was one of only 3 R7 based rockets to ever explode, out of 1707 launch attempts-more than all U.S. rockets added together. The Kosmos rockets weren\'t even initially designed as orbital launchers, and it must be remembered that those 2 are, again, part of a very large sample-more than 600 orbital launch attempts, compared to the 2 out of 134 failed shuttle launches.

[Johno]

There are different philosophies in play for each rocket. This makes comparison difficult.

For example, the Soyuz rocket was designed to be a cheap and reliable way to get a specific spacecraft into Low Earth Orbit. Nothing more, nothing less. At this, it excels. It was technologically as advanced as it needed to be, without any more.

The Saturn V was equally good at what it did. It was an uncompromising moon rocket (which could also be used to launch an ENTIRE FULLY ASSEMBLED SPACE STATION!). Once the Lunar Landings had ceased (for good or for bad), it no longer had a role. It was excellent, but it was limited in its scope.

I would argue that at least in concept, Buran WAS better than the American Shuttle. This isn\'t any suggestion that the American engineers were inferior; rather, the engineers responsible for Buran had seen the Shuttle in action, and could see the weaknesses in the design. Far from suggesting the Americans were in some way defective, I\'d say that if the Russians FAILED to make it an improvement they\'d have been defective!

[Kryten]

Far from suggesting the Americans were in some way defective, I\'d say that if the Russians FAILED to make it an improvement they\'d have been defective!

And, of course, having Buran also meant having Energia, which could lift far more than the Shuttle-e.g. it could have launched your \' ENTIRE FULLY ASSEMBLED SPACE STATION!\'

[Johno]

Absolutely correct. I would contend that the loss of Energia is more grievous a loss than Buran itself.

[Phoxtane]

What I find most interesting about Energia is the fact that the entire system was designed to be re-used -- in fact, the boosters were designed to be flown back to an airfield, where they\'d land much like the Shuttle!

[Kryten]

What I find most interesting about Energia is the fact that the entire system was designed to be re-used -- in fact, the boosters were designed to be flown back to an airfield, where they\'d land much like the Shuttle!

Not baseline Energia-that was planned for Energia II.

[Phoxtane]

Not baseline Energia-that was planned for Energia II.

Whoops, got me there. Energia II was still an interesting concept.