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

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/10/16/why-does-america-still-use-soyuz-rockets-to-put-its-astronauts-in-space

by known • 8 years ago

63 65 8 years ago

economist.com

jpatokal• 8 years ago

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.

inamberclad• 8 years ago

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.

_lbaq5• 8 years ago

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...

habnds• 8 years ago

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.

ryanobjc• 8 years ago

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.

mikejb• 8 years ago

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.

wallace_f2• 8 years ago

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.

jessriedel• 8 years ago

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.

HenryBemis• 8 years ago

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 :)

starbeast• 8 years ago

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.

_lbaq5• 8 years ago

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.

proaralyst• 8 years ago

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

xoa• 8 years ago

"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.

baybal25• 8 years ago

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.

gandhium7• 8 years ago

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'...

wallace_f2• 8 years ago

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.

codeulike• 8 years ago

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

mmjaa3• 8 years ago

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_...

sitharus• 8 years ago

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.

_lbaq5• 8 years ago

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)

baybal25• 8 years ago

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

nine_k• 8 years ago

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/...

trhway• 8 years ago

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 :)

baybal25• 8 years ago

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.

gandhium7• 8 years ago

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.

madeuptempacct5• 8 years ago

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.

adventured• 8 years ago

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.

gandhium7• 8 years ago

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?

woodandsteel2• 8 years ago

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...

Delmania• 8 years ago

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.

sbradford26• 8 years ago

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...

rsynnott2• 8 years ago

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).

gus_massa• 8 years ago

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)

Sir_Cmpwn2• 8 years ago

Does anyone have a workaround for the paywall?

24gttghh• 8 years ago

NoScript.

Sir_Cmpwn2• 8 years ago

Thanks!

known• 8 years ago

http://archive.is/SVTpf

anshumanf• 8 years ago

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

avmich• 8 years ago

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.

vectorEQ• 8 years ago

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

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

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