Soviet Space Program
Discussions center on the Soviet Union's space achievements, risky launch practices, technological innovations like Buran and Soyuz, and comparisons to US programs such as the Space Shuttle and Apollo.
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It's well known that the Soviets advanced in the Space race because they neglected people's lives. Cosmonauts were launched in half-baked, hastily assembled spacecraft. It's a gruesome example of iteration.
the soviets had a pretty successful space program back in the day...
If the US had the space shuttle, the Soyuz, and common sense, they would also drop the space shuttle and fly the Soyuz. But apparently the US had neither the Soyuz nor common sense.The Buran only existed in order to send a message. And it was also technically better designed than the space shuttle.
As per the article, these rumours are unsubstantiated. There are also rumours that America never landed on the moon.The USSR was not making a habit of mindlessly sending cosmonauts on certain-to-be-doomed missions. They did have immense political pressure to make a launch on time, and hope for the best. Note that of the many design defects Soyuz-1 had, only one of them killed Komarov. Almost everything else worked out 'fine'. They wouldn't have sent him if he had no chance of r
This is how the Soviets beat us to orbit. They were less afraid to blow up a few rockets.
Are you sure that e.g. Zond-7 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zond_7 - wasn't doing it earlier?
Soviet rockets were more reliable because they did not throw away the good designs, after they were tested.I guess space exploration could be completely different, if Space Shuttle would launch and land without humans. Apollo could be used as 'lift' to Shuttle on orbit. Shuttle is excellent truck, but man-rating it for atmospheric flight was huge waste.
Couldn’t help but think of the Buran covered in bird feces while reading this article about how the Soviets thought the US-Americans were smarter than they were.https://www.boredpanda.com/abandoned-soviet-space-shuttle-pr...
The Soviets put a nuclear reactor in orbit!?
Flagging as "use original source" because large paragraphs are copy-and-pasted from here:https://sma.nasa.gov/docs/default-source/safety-messages/saf... (pdf)(e.g. the text starting at "The trouble with early Soviet missiles...").