Why does America still use Soyuz rockets to put its astronauts in space? | Hacker News Reader

Why does America still use Soyuz rockets to put its astronauts in space?

economist.com

63 pointsknown66 comments

I wish the article analysed the differences between the space programs in more depth. The US space program has had several new rocket and spacecraft designs where the Russians (and Soviets before) have concentrated on progressive refinement.

The Soyuz rocket is a refinement of the R7 ballistic missile - the world’s first - and the spacecraft has been continually refined since 1967. The first stage engines still use hydrogen peroxide to spin the turbopumps as they’re iterations on the V2’s engine.

I guess there might be something there with high tech analysis vs traditional iterative engineering.

Not quite accurate, the Russian space agenecy (and before that the Soviet) have tried several times to replace the Soyuz, without succeeding for various reason, but the main reason is lack of resources. Right now it looks like maybe the Soyuz 5 rocket and the Federation capsule may make it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_(spacecraft)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft)

Soyuz 5 is effectively a man rated Zenith. Zenith is made in Ukraine, and that's the end of story.

Its not, its a new design around a methane engine, its meant in certain configurations to replace Zenith and Proton, just like Angara, it greatly overlaps with Angara which makes many question that project.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz5.html

Nomenclature matters, the Soyuz 5 was a fatter Zenith integrated in Russia. The Soyuz 5.* line built around methane was originally a completely different project that was haphazardly renamed in order to conceal that the original Soyuz 5 programme went nowhere.

Buran was never intended as a replacement for Soyuz, I suppose. Buran + Energiya were more a replacement to Proton, and a Space Shuttle-like capability to build advanced weapons systems in space, which would require extensive human labor and maintenance.

The space crew for these systems were intended to be armed with laser pistols, with prototypes produced: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/a21527129/...

I'm not sure if Buran ever had any purpose apart from keeping up with Joneses. I mean, look at its shape. Shuttle's (comparatively) huge wings are there for polar-once-around that military asked for; why does Buran have the same? I've never ever heard of a polar-once-around requirement for Buran, despite the design considerations being more or less in the open now.

One of the Buran designers openly admitted that they were forced to copy Shuttle since it was 'already working'.

USSR/Russia did try new programs [somewhat] similar to US ones:

- lunar mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket) : utter failure in particular because of unability to build bigger engine (like F-1).

- Buran (similar to Shuttle) : technical success while somewhat unnecessary economically in much similar vain like Shuttle ... plus USSR collapse

- modular architecture (Falcon 9/Heavy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angara_(rocket_family) : 25+ years of development and still behind SpaceX

- Russia seems to currently have no program, although it had it 50 years ago (RD-270), similar to the SpaceX's currently being developed full flow engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_engine_family)

Flying and improving Soyuz (especially through the tough times of 199x and beginning of 200x) is definitely a success, albeit a kind of a forced one. Another great thing - refusal to sell warhead-less ICBMs to Musk in 2000 and thus forcing him to develop his own launcher :)

Going forward i think the iterative engineering wouldn't allow to compete even close with SpaceX truly high-tech game changing features like the first stage reuse and probably Dragon2 capsule reuse. And Musk/SpaceX seems to be just warming up :)

Put hold on your optimism.

Launch vehicles make only a minor part of the whole space programme, invariably of whether it is privately or publicly run.

Rockets are an industry with financial model not unlike latest generation microelectronics, or jet engines. It may sound surprising, but just look at digits.

It is also very similar in that regard, that it is near impossible for a newcomer to kickstart a business. You can be nearly 99% sure that there will be no company that will deliver GE9X competitor tomorrow in case of jet engines, or 7HPC process in case of semiconductor. The "added value" (really hate the term) on top of the basic piece of metal is many many times bigger than its material value.

In that regard, the Soyuz being still relatively cheap, and being launched by regular engineers, rather than by 1000+ people with postdocs is a real advantage.

My own prognosis is that China will eventually take lead in small payloads with cheap as dirt solid fuel LVs. And for anything else, it will still be a niche for nation-state backed heavy launcher programs.

> In that regard, the Soyuz being still relatively cheap, and being launched by regular engineers, rather than by 1000+ people with postdocs is a real advantage.

There are probably more people in accounting dept of OKB Khrunichev than in whole of SpaceX.

How probably it is?

Sorry, I cannot help but ask.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%83%D0%B4...

Number of people working (число работников): 45000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#Headquarters,_manufactu...

"Nevertheless, SpaceX still has over 3,000 suppliers with some 1,100 of those delivering to SpaceX nearly weekly."

I guess you have to have 15 workers working for average supplier to reach these pesky 45000 workers of OKBK.

These two companies have more or less similar structure and must have more or less similar number of workers. For US to have twice population of Russia it is quite possible to have more workers working (indirectly) with SpaceX, in my opinion.

Let's compare apples to apples. Krhunichev has its own massive supply chain, it doesn't make everything in house as well.

Spacex has 5k employees on payroll, Khrunichev 45K, a 9x difference.

One is a research institute with commercial launch business, another is a launch company, with own RnD, and production.

We have to compare apples to apples.

Khrunichev is a design and manufacturing facility, directly comparable to SpaceX. SpaceX also manages its own launches.

The whole idea that a post-Soviet state bureaucracy is not just comparable, but somehow more nimble than a new commercial upstart is ridiculous.

> Flying and improving Soyuz (especially through the tough times of 199x and beginning of 200x) is definitely a success

Let's not forget that they survived those 'tough times' with generous US financing.

Let's not forget that the US was buying up USSR tech as much as it could during those times. The US bought the designs for the YAK-141, which helped the development of the F-35. Oh, and the Russians invented stealth.

I was wondering why you were trying to prove your invalid point that the USSR did not lead in innovation in some, limited sectors - looks like the only thing your account does is hate on Russia.

Which is fine, but I am kind of interested in the why.

Yes, USSR invented stealth, internet, iphone, google and whatnot.

Ok, on the serious side - US obtained that design in joint agreement with a huge financial boon for YAK bureau to develop another plane for Russia.

Guess what - nothing from Yak design went into F-35 and nothing was produced in Russia by Yak.

Coincidence? I think not(c).

It is generally accepted that the USSR/Russia is more iterative in weapons development, while trying crazy one offs now and again (high speed, high depth, double-hull titanium submarines, supercavitating torpedoes, plasma stealth, 3D-thrust-vectoring on fighters, PESA radar on the MIG31, etc, etc). They keep what sticks, for example high off-bore, helmet queued IR-missile targeting on the MIG-29 (it took a while for the US AIM-9 to catch up), but go for the cheaper versions on everything else.

While it is a budgetary necessity now, it simply "worked" in the past.

The same can't really be said for their rockets though, Musk is going to "crush them" to quote our friend Khruschev, and then Russia has no technological lead left, at all. Maybe niches in cybersecurity and new nuclear power generators, but that seems to be about it. Tragic really.

There is one other area of their economy that has gotten interesting in the last decade. Thanks to a leap in modernization, their wheat production doubled over ~15 years and it looks set to continue expanding. They have the potential to be a considerable agriculture power.

Their oil industry, which used to be towering, is 'only' worth about the annual sales of Apple, or Google + Microsoft. With their current approach to political leadership, it's hard to imagine where the economic growth is going to come from to enable them to devote a lot more resources to their non-military space industry.

It's good to hear about wheat production - that wasn't exactly going well for them after losing Ukraine.

"Their oil industry, which used to be towering, is 'only' worth about the annual sales of Apple, or Google + Microsoft. "

This isn't a good thing though. There is no credit to be given here - it causes an over-reliance on oil prices, and any time there is a market crash, they slash budgets. Pretty horrible.

"With their current approach to political leadership, it's hard to imagine where the economic growth is going to come from to enable them to devote a lot more resources to their non-military space industry."

Yea, I actually think Putin did a good thing in cleaning up low level corruption. But for some delusional reason I thought he would invest in education, tech, and small business once he reduced some corruption at the low level. That never happened. Pretty disappointing.

> IR-missile targeting on the MIG-29 (it took a while for the US AIM-9 to catch up)

AIM-9L (first type with IR/Laser) started producing in 1977. First MiG-29 flight was in 1977 (and I highly doubt that they had IR-missile targeting at that time).

Where's 'took a while' actually?

The AIM-9 had way less off-bore capability and could not be helmet aimed like the missile of the MIG-29. The US did not catch up on helmet-queued missiles. US pilots were stunned by the MIG-29s ability to win dog fights when they tested the plane in Germany. Hopefully I gave you enough to google.

"From 1969 the SEAM was incorporated in the F-4J and enabled the missile to be locked on a target off boresight slaving the missile's seeker head to the aircraft radar. "

1969 was way before MiG-29 first flight.

If you google enough, you might also find that there were experimental elicopter models of targeting helmets as well. In the meantime, you might want to concede that the Russians had a better system in this regard.

Straight from Wikipedia:

VTAS received praise[by whom?] for its effectiveness in targeting off-boresight missiles, but the U.S. did not pursue fielding it except for integration into late-model Navy F-4 Phantoms equipped with the AIM-9 Sidewinder.[5] HMDs were also introduced in helicopters during this time.[citation needed] were fielded by the South African Air Force. After the South African system had been proven in combat, playing a role in downing Soviet aircraft over Angola, the Soviets embarked on a crash program to counter the technology. As a result, the MiG-29 was fielded in 1985 with an HMD and a high off-boresight weapon (R-73), giving them an advantage in close in maneuvering engagements.

Several nations[which?] responded with programs to counter the MiG-29/HMD/R-73 (and later Su-27) combination once its effectiveness was known, principally through access to former East German MiG-29s that were operated by the unified German Air Force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmet-mounted_display#ZSh-5_/...

So, in which conflict it was proved to be better?

The many technological areas where Russia is far behind the world include renewable energy, lithium-ion batteries, and electric vehicles. This is not surprising given that Putin's government is so closely tied to the fossil fuel industry.

On EV's, see this link, the answer to question 11 https://cleantechnica.com/2018/11/28/an-interview-with-the-m...

Korolev and von Braun are the most important pioneers of space flight. Korolev was brutalized and nearly beaten to death (he could not even turn his head to look to the side) in his stint in the gulags resulting from false accusations; and meanwhile the American efforts, like the Vanguard program and others, injected so much politics, beauracracy and corruption that we were actually losing the space race until Kennedy put a literal nazi--who had been rotting away with nothing to do in Texas--in charge of the Apollo program.

There's often an extreme ugliness to human history that we dont want to look at, and An Economist word salad can read relatively like a nursery rhyme. The reality is just that simply the main obstacle to what humanity can accomplish, and the answer to the article's question, is just people screwing things up.

Kennedy put a literal nazi--who had been rotting away with nothing to do in Texas--in charge of the Apollo program.

Who?

edit: Ah, this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

The USA put a lot of Nazi's to use after the war.

1,600 of them went off to be part of the CIA. We can see how successful that integration went ..

EDIT: Yes, I know, it makes you feel uncomfortable, Americans. But it is an uncomfortable truth that has to be confronted sooner or later - Nazi's helped build the CIA.

https://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/31/the_nazis_next_door_...

The rest of the Nazis mostly stayed in Germany, mostly unharassed and given jobs like running the foreign ministry.

Yes, but 1600 of them escaped to live the American dream, protected by America's military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex and they went on to create the society we have today: impervious to any reproach over its war crimes and crimes against humanity, the American empire rules us all and continues the effort to rid the world of unsavoury cultures deemed inferior by the hidden elite...

American's need to educate themselves about just how much their hallowed CIA was usurped by the Nazi elite. Its a sham to consider America free of their influence.

Post WWII (and even before the end) the US quickly pivoted towards the "cold war" with the Soviet Union. From the interview you linked:

"...Dulles was one of the intelligence titans of the 1950s, one of the original cold warriors. And he was someone who believed that there were, quote-unquote, “moderate Nazis,” his words, who the U.S. could use to its advantage in the Cold War. And he actively recruited them himself and, in a number of cases, intervened on their behalf when they were facing accusations about their past, about their involvement in Nazi war crimes. And he and J. Edgar Hoover were really the two linchpins in this, in developing this strategy of recruiting ex-Nazis as cold warriors, as anti-Soviet assets who, they believe, could gather intelligence for the U.S."

Dulles was not a perfect man, and holds much of the blame when it comes to US/corporate colonialism but to suggest the CIA was "built with" Nazis is taking it too far. To suggest that the Nazi legacy of the CIA somehow is connected to current day abuses of power is an even further leap of logic. Dulles saw former Nazis as valuable tools in his war/wars - there's not much else to it.

Recommended reading if you're curious about the CIA and it's origins, and how it effected/effects US policy: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Foster-Dulles-Allen-Secret/d...

>To suggest that the Nazi legacy of the CIA somehow is connected to current day abuses of power is an even further leap of logic.

On the contrary: MK ULTRA. Agent Orange. Secret torture sites.

Torture and abhorrent behavior is not exclusive to Nazis. How many other intelligence agencies have used barbaric tactics to extract information to keep their homeland safe? I just don't see the direct connection - doesn't make it any less wrong, I just don't see the evidence that it's directly influenced by this connection.

I had the opportunity to speak with a woman who works in mission control, monitoring the electrical systems and solar panels for the ISS. She said in her opinion, canceling the shuttle program was the right thing to do because using a space shuttle to fly to the ISS was the equivalent of using a mercedes to drive to the end of your driveway to get mail.

So the space shuttle couldn't even replace the Soyuz for taking people to the space station and back. The Soyuz capsule stays at the space station for the duration people are there so it can be used to get everyone back if needed.

The space shuttle has a maximum mission length of 16 days so it could not fill that same role, while the Soyuz capsule can go about 6 months.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/extend_dur...

The shuttle was kind of a solution in search of a problem; the design never really made a lot of sense in the first place. The US would almost certainly have been better pursue a scaled-down Apollo-derivative (ie a Soyuz clone).

>The shuttle was kind of a solution in search of a problem;

I don't think that's entirely fair. At the time, when it appeared space may become weaponized, it made a lot of sense. A craft that could potentially fly up to space, take someone else's satellite and bring it home? Worth the cost and then some many times over.

> fly up to space, take someone else's satellite and bring it home

(NB. Provided that it was in an accessible low earth orbit and that very simple countermeasures weren't used)

I mean, realistically, putting a small bomb in each sensitive satellite would be enough to dissuade anyone from trying this, and most sensitive satellites wouldn't be in orbits that the shuttle could make anyway. The military applications always seemed like the most fantastical part of the concept.

>fly up to space, take someone else's satellite and bring it home

Except the only country with satellites we would really want to do that to was the USSR, and how many SS launches would the US get to do if there was a nuclear war going on(with Cape Canaveral as one of the first targets)?

Obligatory link: "A Rocket To Nowhere" (2005) http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm (most popular HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12411416 | 83 points | Sept 2, 2016 | 30 comments)

This article is from October. A recent unmanned launch of Soyuz went well and the next manned launch with ISS crew is scheduled for December 3rd.

Roscosmos must be pushing hard in order to pull this off. If they can't make their launch, the current crew will still need to depart on time. Should this happen, it'll be the first time in 18 (I think) years that the ISS has been unmanned. The Soyuz's hydrogen peroxide supply slowly denatures, so the spacecraft literally has an expiration date.

Roscosmos where very quick figuring out what went wrong and everything is business as usual now.

https://www.space.com/42319-soyuz-launch-abort-russia-identi...

All very good comments from fellow HN-ers (the ones regarding the Economist's accuracy).

My first thought on the title of the article was "if it ain't broken, don't fix it". As it goes for 'commuting' people back and forth to ISS (and previously to Mir - Mir means both 'World' and 'Peace' in Russian language) Soyuz was the favorite means of transportation. I am not against upgrading, but if it does the job, leave it alone :)

As an aside to your comment about the naming of MIR, I have been saying for a while that, completely ignoring any science or technology benefits, the ISS and other combined space programs have paid for themselves many times over by giving the USA and Russia something really tricky and high level to coordinate over that is nothing to do with where the nukes are pointing today. Is the best back-channel going.

Soyuz does the job alright, but its a complex system that could be simplified with what we know today, for example the Soyuz launcher have 20 main engines in a complex arrangement that was the cause of the last accident.

I thought it had five main engines, four with six chambers and the fifth with eight?

True, Sloppy nomenclature of me, it have 5 "engine" assemblies, with in total of 20 main chambers and 12 vernier chambers, a complex setup, Falcon 9 have, well, 9, all the same.

Ref RD-107: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-107#/media/File:RD-107_Vost...

>"if it ain't broken, don't fix it"

Cost is always an inseparable part of the equation however. Going to space for $10000/kg vs $5000/kg vs $1000/kg vs $500/kg all mean very different things for what missions become feasible and the safety factor and performance of said missions too (since the latter both have mass costs). SpaceX or BO ultimately doing the job much more cheaply, carrying more mass, with simpler designs made possible by modernized ME and knowledge, and that are more adaptable to other missions (methalox for example is a favorable compromise fuel for Mars surface launches and orbital refueling), doesn't mean Soyuz would be "broken" sure but it will make it obsolete for most of the world. Ground manufacturing capability and best practices change too. Long term standing still isn't a great idea.

It all depends if you own the whole space programme. Even the $10000 vs $500 per kg difference you named will make a small difference for the cost of a whole programme. The LV cost for a manned mission is 1/10th of the whole launch cost.

> My first thought on the title of the article was "if it ain't broken, don't fix it"

Problem is - it's broke already. In all means - sloppy quality, price hikes, political bullshit with 'russkiy mir'...

Interesting that USA launched people on LOX-ethanol (Mercury Redstone), LOX-kerosene (Mercury Atlas), N2O4-Aerozine (Gemini), LOX-kerosene-LH2 (Apollo), solids-LOX-LH2 (Shuttle) - and Russia (previously USSR) always actually used R-7 LOX-kerosene with almost the same launch pad...

> Russia’s willingness to ferry passengers—including space tourists—gave NASA and other agencies a useful fallback option

Remember how much NASA opposed the Dennis Tito flight. Doesn't look like a useful fallback.

> the date by which the three astronauts presently on the ISS must use a Soyuz descent vehicle before its corrosive fuel renders the craft unusable

I believe it's the fuel itself which deteriorates, not the craft. Peroxide is slowly self-decomposing.

kind of a disappointing article from the economist. Click-baity title with the obvious answer in the first line of the article. They fail to directly compare the cost per flight for shuttle v soyuz. No follow up sentence on the possibility of actual sabotage on the soyuz return lander.

The economist is opinion, filled with motivated reasoning, that pretends to be news. It also confuses breadth for depth and proudly touts it’s meh international coverage.

When I want to cancel, I did it via my credit card company. They’re surprisingly anti free market when it comes to taking your money, they add as much friction to exiting the subscription. You have to have at least two magazines labels so you can compare them looking for the subscriber id, then call them. Signing up is a trivial webform though.

> They fail to directly compare the cost per flight for shuttle v soyuz.

That would be a difficult but interesting comparison: You'd have to compare a single SpaceShuttle launch with the cost for launches of 1) Soyuz crew launches and 2) cargo launches that could be covered with the SpaceShuttle's 16t payload capacity.

And not to mention the article does mention cost problems with the shuttle without going into such detail--which the editors may have cut out.

> Click-baity title with the obvious answer in the first line of the article

Is this just a complaint about the title rather than the article? Conditional on click-bait title, having the answer on the first line is the best outcome. Teasing an answer would make it a bad article.

"because trillions of dollars still doesn't beat russian technology"

Does anyone have a workaround for the paywall?

NoScript.

Thanks!

http://archive.is/SVTpf

You can enter the link URL into this service that extracts the text of the article and has the side-effect of bypassing the paywall.

https://outline.com

Reply on news.ycombinator.com