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Quote:

It’s been half a century since the United States finally dusted Russia in the space race, as NASA’s Gemini program ticked off an unprecedented series of long-duration flights, spacewalks, and in-space rendezvous to put America firmly on course to the Moon.

It's very questionable. USSR launched 2 Sputniks first, then the first man. Regarding Apollo mission: USSR didn't participate in manned lunar mission race.

Moreover the goal of the space race was not about a manned mission to the Moon, but about the supremacy in space, so things are more complicated. Russians had Voskhod programme, US had Gemini. USSR more focused on Venus, US - on Mars, etc.

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Your overall point is completely correct, but the USSR absolutely did participate in the manned lunar mission race. They just fell flat on their face at the starting line, and so badly that they tried to pretend they didn't even try.

They got as far as building their own moon rocket, the N1. It was comparable in size to a Saturn V, and with an even more powerful first stage. They built six, and launched four. All four exploded or crashed during the launch, by which point it was clear that the race was lost to the Americans and the N1 wasn't practical, so it was canceled.

The legacy from the Soviet manned moon program lives on. The Soyuz spacecraft still used by the Russians was originally designed to be their lunar spacecraft. Engines originally built for the N1 were stored for decades, then purchased by Orbital Sciences for use on their Antares rocket. Unfortunately, the fifth Antares launch crashed due to an engine failure and Antares is now being redesigned to use a different engine.

To be fair, the Soviet attempt to get to the moon largely failed due to lack of interest. As wikipedia[0] notes:

> N1-L3 was underfunded and undertested, and started development in October 1965, almost four years after the Saturn V. The project was badly derailed by the death of its chief designer Sergei Korolev in 1966. [...]

In any case, Soviets certainly had plenty of successes too[1]. It would be hard to claim that USA won the "space race" just because they were the first with that milestone, especially since landing on the moon was perhaps the least useful achievement of all space programs; we still have satellites, space stations, ICBMs and manned spacecraft (all pioneered by Soviets), but no one has bother to go to the moon again.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_%28rocket%29 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_program#Notable_f...

Hmmm... Sound like Chekov from Star Trek: http://youtu.be/IC6W8J0j8Co

I'm sort of disappointed, I'd somehow hoped for a bunch of places where Chekov was able to correct the rest of the crew.

Also seeing as it's the Russians that are still launching humans into space--with no US spacecraft in sight--Russia seems to have won the space-marathon.

The US retiring the Space Shuttle was a cost saving choice. It's cheaper to pay the Russians for transport while we are developing a replacement that's meant for longer range manned missions (Mars and the Moon).[1]

[1]http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2011-05-15...

Understood but we've been "developing a replacement" for as long as I've been alive and near as I can tell we're farther from having a replacement than when we started.

That's correct and even the private companies are not as far along as they predicted in 2011 when the article I linked was published. They said they'd be ready in 3 years for people. I get the feeling NASA isnt concerned with getting people in LEO anymore and they are developing something stronger.

>Q: Is there any other way to get into space?

A: Not from U.S. soil once the shuttles retire. NASA could eventually use the commercial rockets and capsules being developed by private companies. Two companies predict they could fly astronauts to the space station within three years. NASA is under orders to build a giant rocket to go beyond Earth orbit.

NASA's concerns aren't really relevant. Their priorities are set by the geniuses in Congress. Said geniuses think NASA should prioritize using spare Shuttle parts to build a massive rocket that will cost $2 billion/launch and fly once every couple of years, so that's what NASA is doing, even though it's stupid.

And they still try to do everything in their power to sneak in some real progress in the Senate Launch System project and hide it from changing political winds. I feel both saddened by this situation and impressed by NASA engineers.

I would think that the budgets show that NASA doesn't quite have the funding.

https://leadingspace.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/budget1.png

What strikes me is the area under this curve: funding was very high in the space race, but total dollars spent from 1980-2010 are huge too even after inflation.

However, % of federal budget paints a grimmer picture on what the feds value. http://c85c7a.medialib.glogster.com/paulsoma/media/e8/e87670...

And also a life-saving one.

There are two US spacecraft in sight: SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 Starliner. That's what the article is about.

(Well, there is a third US human spacecraft in sight, but I suspect it will be irrelevant compared with the other two.)

>It's very questionable. USSR launched 2 Sputniks first,

> then the first man. Regarding Apollo mission: USSR

> didn't participate in manned lunar mission race.

Huh? Yes, the Soviets had a (huge) head start, but they definitely participated in the race to the moon, and lost. Secretly[1].

From what I know, the article's characterization of the tide having turned by the time of the Gemini program is spot on. Gemini has been largely forgotten, but was hugely successful, methodically testing one concept after another and paving the way for Apollo.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_manned_lunar_programs

Soviets definitely lost the race to the Moon - that's at least the overall feeling prevailing now in Russian space circles.

However USSR did participate in that race - even though they denied that for long time. USSR did a lot on that path; I'd say roughly 80% of the road to success.

That includes N-1 rocket, which in fourth flight almost completed successfully the first stage burn. Upper stages were better tested on Earth and had higher chances of working right in early flights. Also from the way first N-1 flew one can see that engineers were systematically eliminating problems. The Achilles' heel of the N-1 rocket was engines of the first stage - NK-15, which were due to be replaced in the next flight with much better NK-33. The next flight N-1 could already be significantly more successful; but the program was cancelled.

That also includes hardware like Soyuz spacecraft, which with a lot of modifications still flies today, and D stage, which is used on Protons and Zenits to boost satellites to the geostationary orbit. NK-33 engines flew on Antares rocket and on Soyuz 2-1v Russian rocket.

That also includes lunar landing ship, which was successfully tested on Earth orbit in three flights.

Additionally USSR had a good program for exploring the Moon with robots, including Lunokhods, lunar orbital spacecrafts and automatic sample return vehicles - Luna-16, Luna-20 and Luna-24. And also Zond program - with first circumlunar flights by a spacecraft which later returned to Earth with living animals onboard.

USSR had rather good lunar program - and that was way less expensive than American one - but lost the race to send a human to the Moon itself.

However, from Russian point of view, that was just a - big, but not final - episode in space. 1970-s were the decade of first space stations, and USSR achieved a number of impressive firsts there. Losing to America with reusable spacecraft - Buran flew only once, later than Shuttle, and that was still better than no landing at all in the Moon race - Russia kept perfecting orbital space stations, and Mir was the world class orbital laboratory - some features of which were surpassed by ISS only many years later.

At the end, Russia still has a unique combination of abilities to do things in space - even though it can't match USSR's pace.

Yeah, I'm sure if the USSR had won the Cold War, students would be taught the the Soviets dusted America in the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik.

Both US and USSR lost. Look at predictions, there was supposed to be lunar colony by now.

I would say human race lost to itself by preferring consumerism to space romantics and progress. I cannot remember a great quote from some sci-fi classic writer about it.

Or we're going the roundabout way towards it. First perfect the art of indoor culture, then send the thousand year traveling seedships (and not have them collapse under a massive psychological problem). First de-sensitize humans as a species to survive inside artificial cubes, to be culturally indoctrinated to communication and co-ordination through tiny screens - then, when the entire planet is basically psychologically fit to survive inside sealed containers doing nothing but eating processed foodstuffs and play multiplayer online games for a thousand generations then pack the hardiest of them inside containers and chug the towards the nearest star with an earth like world.

Why is a lunar colony inherently more noble than other tech..?

It may not be, but lunar colony involves a lot different types of technology. It's what you see in the "space romantics and progress" stories, which I agree would be a better focus than what we have now (i.e. absolutely none, just random walking along incentive structures generated by market economy).

It's difficult to miss what hasn't been invented, but real life developments like the internet and gene sequencing/editing seem rather more [potentially] significant for humanity than obvious priorities of lunar colonies like more efficient rockets. Many of the challenges associated with a lunar colony also apply to our existing orbital space station (though granted, a moon base could be a reason for more innovation in foodstuffs)

Please try to consider the possible context of space tech development. A lunar base would mark a start of humanity as a space-faring species but that is just part of the story. A functioning outer space settlement could be an indicator of humanity's commitment to long-term infrastructural projects signalling consensus and coordination of stakeholders in the public interest.

That's an extraordinarily expensive way to send a signal.

Expensive signals tend to be strong and self-reinforcing. Also, I think GP meant that it would be a proof, not the cause, of global coordination.

well, US didn't win anything (= lost it all to CCCP) in "space race", apart from sending manned mission to moon, in which it was alone in the "race" :) (to be fair, that was much harder than just shooting 1 guy to orbit few hundred kms above).

but try to sell that loss to general US public desperate to feel superior and "winning" in sixties, hence the current "opinion", aka self-lie regardless of facts.

Your post is hilarious -- the USSR didn't lose because it didn't try, but the US lost because it didn't try.

Do you see the amusing double-speak whereby the Russians are excused from "losing", but the Americans are not?

>aka self-lie regardless of facts.

No different than your protection of the Russian public's desperation to not feel inferior to the capitalist West, causing them to "not even try to compete".

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