A rant about people who are hyperbiased for Russian rockets.

[NovaSilisko]

http://www.jamesoberg.com/soyuz.html

I like how Wikipedia is a frequently used source of (mis)information. Boy I love those admin politics and edit wars over there.

(I\'ll let you guys check the Wikipedia pages on the missions listed there, bet you won\'t find some of those fun things like 'launch pad fatalities.')

The problem with Wikipedia is, more often than not, things are summarized and paraphrased instead of being given in complete detail...

[Reflector]

They summarize and paraphrase because:

1. The 'politiburo demands so!' (Ergo, they take 'English Wikipedia' and make it barely '+1' over 'Simple English Wikipedia' because one one of the important head honcho admin types decides he wants to squat over the article over automatic transmissions after deleting some information about a specific model of automatic transmission offered by Chrysler.)

2. 'LOL I KNOW BETTER THAN YOU' (See above, then they decide to barf up some regurgitated information that has complete detachment from reality)

Here, familiarize yourself with the internal politics of Wikipedia (NSFW: Encyclopedia Dramatica warning. Extremely NSFW, for the mentally mature especially.)

http://encyclopediadramatica.ch/Wikipedia

Not feeling like doing some reading? How about this golden line:

'Talk page about USS Liberty in which Jayjg attempts to argue with the vice president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association about the Liberty incident. Yes, an Israeli agent involved in the cover-up is allowed to always have the last word on the article, not someone who was actually there and involved in the events in question.'

Sadly, they\'re pretty spot on with the bitter mocking and sarcasm going on there.

Not NSFW:

http://images.encyclopediadramatica.ch/5/5c/Wikipedia_cat.jpg

Pretty much how it rolls over there. I\'m pretty sure some people will argue with me about a 'moderate injury' like whiplash being 'LOL, TOTALLY NOT HARMFUL, EVER' over here. If it was Wikipedia, we\'d be waging a nuclear edit war right now. Ah, right, they do that already over there.

Anyways, for those little 'fatalities in space' statistics, perhaps you guys might want to look at how many times the Shuttle has launched astronauts (Ergo, treat 'launch of crew into space' as unique instances even if the same astronauts go up) and divide that to the deaths. I\'m pretty sure that number looks real good. Or we can just claim RUSSIA MIGHTY, RUSSIA DESTROY AMERICAN PIGDOG WITH SATAN MISSILE. RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE.

[Spacecats!]

Number of fatalities during the moonshot program:

USA: 3

USSR: 0

...because they failed to get to the moon, much less develop a rocket for it.

[Alchemist]

One of the factors of success for a spacecraft is how multi-purpose it is. Apollo was good for lunar expedition but complete fail for LEO operations (just because it\'s too big and heavy for regulal launches). Soyuz wasn\'t so good for lunar mission (LOK had completely different engine for leaving lunar orbit, and for LOI and LK deorbiting Blok D stage was to be used), but it proved itself perfect for LEO.

The same problem with both Saturn V and Energia - there are almost no so large payloads, even space stations are not built so fast to deliver several modules at once or create so big modules. If mankind had decided to fly to Mars, these magnificent vehicles would fly, but there\'s nothing for them in LEO.

But R-7 is really one of the ultimate vehicles - what else has so many achievements and is used for so long with only some modifications and high efficiency?

Don\'t say about the Shuttle. These reusable engines, control systems and life support don\'t justify launching so big and heavy vehicle every time. Especially with it\'s short mission duration. That\'s why the Russians selected light and cheap Soyuz and Progress for station servicing and Proton for the cases it\'s really needed to deliver these 30 tons - there is almost no missions that can\'t be completed by them, that\'s why there was no real missions for Buran, and the Shuttle wasn\'t much better even with its almost full reusability.

[Reflector]

I like how there are so many mentions of 'super simple Soyuz designs are cheap blah blah blah' but nobody brings up Zenit or the Ukrainian involvement with the Soviet Space Program.

Ah, right, fanboyism.

[Kryten]

Or because they don\'t have anything like the Soyuz\' success rate-for the Zenit 2, it\'s less than 3/4.

[Reflector]

http://www.jamesoberg.com/soyuz.html

Man, all those accidents must not exist. Is this true, Comrade?

Total number of times humans have been tossed into space with or without a payload in the shuttle: 806. (Approximate, I\'m probably off +/-10 or so)

Total lives lost: 14

Ratio of successful human tossings into space to losses:806:14 (Hint: 'Around 57.5' astronauts launched to astronauts lost.)

Total launches: 135

Total incidents: 2+* (Man, 67.5? 'Looks pretty good' given they didn\'t have all those random things going bad like all the Soyuz missions)

*Misc incidents like early engine shutdown, APU burping after the shuttle landed and all sorts of 'funny' incidents.

Failures: O Ring on SRB (Rest of launches OK), Main Tank chunk struck wing and damaged a tile.

Vostok/Soyuz/Voskhod incidents where there orbital module decided it didn\'t want to seperate: Unfunny amount of times, given that pre-Soyuz, it was a tad too common.

Other incidents: I don\'t like staring at this either. You guys want to stare at it for me?

So for a 'much more complex, reusable vehicle that has parts refurbished and replaced for every launch' the Shuttle doesn\'t look too bad.

Vostok manned launches: 6

Voskhod manned launches: 2

Soyuz family manned launches: 66

Total number of Soyuz (Original, not the later T... TM...TMA.. Etc series): 40

Total number of humans tossed into space by Soyuz (Not the family): 79

Soyuz (Not the later Soyuz vehicles) incidents that involved loss of life: 2

Total lives lost from Soyuz 1 to 40: 4 (Excluding all incidents on the ground and R&D, etc, etc... Disclaimer: I am using the same measurement for the Shuttle.)

Incident ratio: 40:2 (Hint: '20')

Ratio of successful human tossings into space to losses: 79:4 (Hint: '19.75')

Unfunny incidents that involve Bad Things Happening (Incomplete list):

Soyuz 1: 'Probably-a-bad-idea to cram the parachute in. Oh right your manual chute tangles too... Enjoy.' (Fatal)

Soyuz 5: 'Volynov had his worst day ever, what with a smokey interior as Soyuz decided to not seperate the orbit module then the landing rockets decided to hate him too and he had a hard landing.'

Soyuz 11: 'Whoops leaking your atmosphere out.'

Soyuz 18a: 'Upper stage decided it wanted to stay mated to Soyuz and caused a harder reentry than usual. Capsule rolled down hill in comic fashion and almost fell off cliff.'

Soyuz T-10-1: 'Proving that escape towers rock your world, especially when your rocket explodes on the pad.'

Soyuz TMA-1: 'Decided to do a ballistic reentry when it wasn\'t supposed to and landed pretty damn far away from where it should of.'

Soyuz TMA-11: 'Also decided to do ballistic reentry and do a really hard landing.'

I should note that the TMA missions had 'a whole damn lot of help' from NASA pouring funding and resources in there ontop of the Russian Space Program.

Something about fanboyism and not actually looking at incident reports. Right. Right.

I\'m not saying the Shuttle was 'infinitely more reliable.' I\'m just saying that people who claim that Russian rockets are 'infinitely more reliable than those overly complex Western rockets' need to stare at the incident reports before they decided to parrot out fanboyistic pieces of information obtained from the internet. Additionally it should be noted that Soyuz launches typically threw less mass into space and had crew sizes of 2-3 (Risk is more contained compared to a full crew of 7-8.)

So no, I\'m pretty sure the 'LOL STATISTICS, SOYUZ MORE RELIABLE' stuff is pretty off. Given how many Shuttle launches there were 'compared to the entire Soyuz family.'

[Agamemnon]

Launch Vehicle by Success Rate

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2011.html#rate

[RichieD76]

Don\'t say about the Shuttle. These reusable engines, control systems and life support don\'t justify launching so big and heavy vehicle every time. Especially with it\'s short mission duration. That\'s why the Russians selected light and cheap Soyuz and Progress for station servicing and Proton for the cases it\'s really needed to deliver these 30 tons - there is almost no missions that can\'t be completed by them, that\'s why there was no real missions for Buran, and the Shuttle wasn\'t much better even with its almost full reusability.

But then no one has noted how the shuttle could return whole satellites intact back to earth. And there isn\'t another ship created that could do what the crew of STS-61, STS-81, STS-103, STS-109 and STS-125 did.

The Hubble has been repaired, maintained, reengineered practically! All would have been impossible without the shuttle. If James Webb telescope finally gets into orbit sometime this century and it\'s broke.....it will be the single biggest failure of all time with no chance of a repair...

The Russian mars lander that was launched before Christmas..may have been sucsessful if it had been launched from a platform like the shuttle. It could have been recaptured and returned, or a repair in space could have been attempted. Yes the shuttle was heavy (remeber it was designed back in the 70\'s and earlier though) but it took a lot of risk away from mission success, even though it was putting lives at risk.

[Iskierka]

And with the cost of the shuttle, it\'s very possible that it would\'ve been cheaper to replace the Hubble than upgrade it. And it\'s continually pointed out how reliable each is, but no-one seems to be noting the relative costs.

I also note how those favouring America are focussing on the shuttle, a manned vehicle, and comparing it against the unmanned Soyuz. Logically, Soyuz should be compared to one of the USA\'s unmanned launchers.

Oh, wait, those are known to fail, aren\'t they?

Point is, a manned vehicle has 'does not explode' as a much, much higher priority, since the insurance can\'t quite properly cover people. And, NASA has a much bigger budget to check a badly designed vehicle for flaws before launching, helping their reliability numbers by just using lots more money. The comparison is quite unfair, to say the least.

I\'ll give another point about manned safety anyway: Russians have almost 2,000 days more spaceflight than the US, and fewer Russians have been lost. That statistic should speak for itself about safety rates.

[Kryten]

And with the cost of the shuttle, it\'s very possible that it would\'ve been cheaper to replace the Hubble than upgrade it. And it\'s continually pointed out how reliable each is, but no-one seems to be noting the relative costs.

That\'s almost certainly true-the KH-11 satellite is thought to be very similar to the Hubble, with a similar spacecraft cost (~2.5 billion dollars), and those are replaced rather than serviced.

[RichieD76]

And the mars rover that Russia built will be cheaper to replace than repair.....But they look mighty stupid not being able to send a rocket to mars after America have done it countless times. It\'s not always about safety, money or being better than the other....it\'s about pride and success. There\'s a saying in the USAF and in the astronaut core 'better dead than look bad'

When Hubble was found to be faulty, who in the public was looking at the receipt for all the shuttle launches? No one, all they cared about was did in work...No=anger, waste of money...

Repairing something was a lot more heroic than saying to the tax payer...'oh that one didn\'t work, we\'ll get it right next time....can we have a few more billion'?

By repairing it they showed no matter how bad things got...'failure was not an option!' While also showing how valuable and flexible the shuttle was.

STS-36 I think launched a classified recon satellite for the USAF/CIA (1990-O19b AKA KH-11 as Kryten said above) which is reportedly the same as Hubble in size and optics at a much lower altitude. It apparently broke in less than a month. But the was no repair mission for that...no point....it wasn\'t in the public eye with it being classified at the time. On a final note there has been hint that the USA (god know what they were thinking) also but wepons of nuclear technology in space during the 70\'s 80\'s. Leaving their orbit, no matter how inert, is perfect reason for having a platform that could retrieve payloads from orbit....and as such is the reason the airforce had it as a design requirement and why Vanderberg AFB was building its own launch facility.

[Kryten]

STS-36 was a launch of a KH-11 successor-standard KH-11\'s have been launched 15 times. Loss of pride wouldn\'t really have been a factor if we\'d had 14 spare Hubbles.

[Iskierka]

And the mars rover that Russia built will be cheaper to replace than repair.....But they look mighty stupid not being able to send a rocket to mars after America have done it countless times. It\'s not always about safety, money or being better than the other....it\'s about pride and success. There\'s a saying in the USAF and in the astronaut core 'better dead than look bad'

You -do- realise that Russia were first impact and first soft landing on Mars, right? Less than a month behind America\'s record of first orbiter, so they\'re not far apart in capability. Phobos-Grunt also isn\'t a Russian rocket. It\'s Russian, but it\'s a probe, the rocket itself worked fine. Sure, details, but this is about people favouring the Soyuz and such, not PG.

It\'s not as though Russians are the only ones screwing up either. After all, what was that other thing we were talking about? Oh, right. Hubble.

And while yes, public perception is important, prior to 2002 Soyuz had a long string of flawless launches (or nearly flawless, at least: no major failures). That, plus being cheaper, would generally be a good indication of its quality. 2011 has simply been an unlucky year for Russia.

[Kryten]

The rocket itself did work fine, but it was Ukrainian-not really relevant to the Russian program.

[RichieD76]

You -do- realise that Russia were first impact and first soft landing on Mars, right? Less than a month behind America\'s record of first orbiter, so they\'re not far apart in capability. Phobos-Grunt also isn\'t a Russian rocket. It\'s Russian, but it\'s a probe, the rocket itself worked fine. Sure, details, but this is about people favouring the Soyuz and such, not PG.

It\'s not as though Russians are the only ones screwing up either. After all, what was that other thing we were talking about? Oh, right. Hubble.

And while yes, public perception is important, prior to 2002 Soyuz had a long string of flawless launches (or nearly flawless, at least: no major failures). That, plus being cheaper, would generally be a good indication of its quality. 2011 has simply been an unlucky year for Russia.

thats my point. none of this is important...people bickering about two craft that were built for totaly different work loads. the shuttle has had two incidents with loss of life and the soyuz with lost of payload. either way they are way beyond there shelf life. as for the probe though as far as mission success the US has a better track record. Hubble was the bit that got left in space but that didnt matter to the public...it didnt work...just like Phobos-Grunt

Its hardly a spare hubble at that altitude, nor is it a cost the tax payer is aware off when there classified. the hubble was HUGE news..when it didnt work there was a massive outcry from congress that nasa was abusing public funds. The KH-11 was USAF and CIA funded. With only NASA subsidising half the launch cost.

My opinion is NASA screwed up from day one but made it work and work well doing missions no other craft could do and the Soyuz HAS worked reliably even in great volumes but its about time they move on before more lives are lost. I\'m still suprised that no one has mensioned ESA rockets. there are at the moment the only agency running 3 different rockets at a running cost equall to what spaceX are doing and havent had a lost of payload in years

[Reflector]

Point is, a manned vehicle has 'does not explode' as a much, much higher priority, since the insurance can\'t quite properly cover people. And, NASA has a much bigger budget to check a badly designed vehicle for flaws before launching, helping their reliability numbers by just using lots more money. The comparison is quite unfair, to say the least.

Hi, did you completely miss my post? Apparently numbers must lie or something.

You -do- realise that Russia were first impact and first soft landing on Mars, right?

...Please, enlighten us about the MANY FAILURES they had before that.

Ah, what did I say about fanboyism again?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/200811/truth-lies-and-self-deception

Right.

[Kryten]

...Please, enlighten us about the MANY FAILURES they had before that.

Why does that matter? It isn\'t the \'60s anymore. It would be like responding to your stuff about the space shuttle by pointing out how much of a failure Vanguard was.

[RichieD76]

i mean in all fairness the european ariane program (from 1979 onwards) was pretty good...: 201 launches, 9 failures. 43 successful in a row for Ariane V. And ESA in general...they have lauched the last 5 soyuz, hold the record for mass of payload at geo-orbit. who knows what the chinese will be doing in the next 10 yrs...only took 10 for the americans to crack it. With technology what it is today its feasable they could be on the moon by 2020 if they gave it a shot

[Iskierka]

Hi, did you completely miss my post? Apparently numbers must lie or something.

I saw your post. Your post that compared the shuttle (1981) with Soyuz (1966) and all other R7-derived (1957) rockets, thereby including all Russia\'s early failures, while allowing NASA to exclude early failures and gain fifteen to twenty-four years of technological advancement before they started clocking up flight time.

Perhaps you didn\'t see my post: no-one is providing anything that can be considered a valid comparison. And fewer Russians have died, despite having 2000 more hours of spaceflight.

...Please, enlighten us about the MANY FAILURES they had before that.

How about America\'s, too? That point was only to say that Russia -can- get to Mars, this problem would\'ve been capable of hitting anyone.

Ah, what did I say about fanboyism again?

I don\'t favour Russian rockets any more than US. (At least, no more than their better aesthetic qualities warrant. Both are impressive technologically, but with Russia doing simple and effective, where NASA have the top-notch but consequently slightly iffy equipment) You, however, are clearly biased in favour of US rockets. Or, at the very least, hugely in favour of the shuttle.

If I favoured anyone, it would be UK. It\'s just slightly problematic that until Skylon gets off the ground, so to speak, we have few rockets and few launches, all historical, though those we had were decent for their short testing lifetimes. Damn NASA, offering 'free' then going 'nope, full price.'

[Reflector]

Hours of spacetime means very little compared to number of launches. If by your stats, then space stations *obviously* prove that the ENTIRE PARTICIPATING WORLD has more reliable spacecraft than Russia and the US combined?

I love using invalid metrics, I should start finding stats on how many parts the Shuttles had as well as Saturn Vs and going 'LOL SATURN V HAS LAUNCH SUCCESS RATIO OF 100%, YOUR SOYUZ INFERIOR.' Oh wait, maybe the reason I don\'t is because I realize that all pieces of machinery can fail.

Ah, right, right. Engineering, could be important.

[Iskierka]

A) The ISS is primarily US and Russia anyway.

Spaceflight time is man-hours. Summed duration of space time for each human in the nation. A space station is not human.

C) The number of parts in the shuttle is absurd, compared to just about any launch vehicle before or since, experimental or otherwise, so that wouldn\'t win you much. (Though, I\'m really uncertain what exactly you\'re arguing.)

D) With less than 20 launches, there are quite large error margins in Saturn V\'s success rate.

E) There are more than enough American companies who openly admit Russia did a better job in many places, particularly RP-1 motors, but also in other areas. Engineering important, yes, and Russia can at least match the US.

[Kryten]

Again, you\'re conflating human and non-human spaceflight. Number of flights is pretty irrelevant to the former-a man-hour of work in space is a man-hour, regardless of the number of flights it requires. Human and non-human spaceflight requires very different priorities and vehicles-combining them gets you expensive, complex compromises like the shuttle.

[Reflector]

Looks like you took my sarcastic remark about 'bullshit metrics' as a serious statement.

I have nothing further to post now, looks like this will be effective as discourse with a brick wall.

[RichieD76]

What? So ur saying being stuck in the can with an oxygen tank is the hard part? There is NO fair way of comparison in the world you could use to for space activities. It\'s just to big a topic. Manned/Unmanned, lunar/LEO, relibility/mission success

I do think the differences show how when it comes to diversity. The US HAD a platform to build, retrieve, fix, dock, and rendezvous with multiple objects in orbit. No other craft can do that. The shuttle was always a compromise. It was there to explore just as much as throw satellites into orbit to make money like the R7 devived rockets. albeit puting a space station in space....MIR

On the TFNG astronaut core of 1979 has as there slogan...'we deliver'....problem is they knew the Russians did to.....but Russia really did just only deliver...hence the need to move on with the rest of the world. I swear to this day Russia will end its space program before they retire current rockets...no ex soviet engineers want to be the guy that spend billions on the new rocket that blew up and didn\'t work