Russia to stop ferrying US astronauts to ISS from April 2019

originally posted by: wildespace
a reply to: Devino
Great post, Devino, thanks for this rundown of historical facts. Yes, the Soviet Russia was quite incredible in early space exploration.

I should have prefaced it with my great admiration of NASA. I think they have done a truly remarkable job yet when I first stumbled upon those images of the surface of Venus I was blown away.

I didn't know anyone landed a craft on our closest neighbor let alone sent back pictures. I never liked the idea of a space race against nations. Too many secrets when we could learn from each other's mistakes.

a reply to: Devino

Much of the Russian space program was driven by trying to get "firsts" to be exploited for propaganda value

First artificial satellite - US actually had capability to launch a satellite year earlier using Von Braun's Jupiter C

Because of bureaucratic/political interests demanding a "pure" civilian program untainted by military applications
went with VANGUARD instead of Jupiter C . Von Braun was expressly ordered that there be no "accidental " satellites

Also for first man in space - it was excess of caution by Von Braun. Alan Shephard was scheduled to launched month earlier than Gagarin . Mishaps with Redstone booster put program behind schedule

First attempt in November 1960 with boilerplate capsule ended in failure when booster cut off at lift off because of faulty
plug.

Had to wait a month for another attempt using different booster. Flight with chimp "HAM" went awry when turbo pump
overspeed exhausted fuel too early triggering abort sequence . Von Braun insisted on another test in March 1961 to
proof booster, Otherwise Shephard would have launched then.

Spacewalk - Ed White on GEMINI 4 was supposed to open hatch and stand up in seat . Leonov stunt pushed up schedule
which was to conduct full spacewalk on GEMINI 5

The Voskhod spacecraft used for the fist multi person spacecraft in October 1964 and spacewalk was exceedingly dangerous and Soviets were lucky no fatal mishaps. The Voskhod 2 for Leonov flight had flight control system fail and missed first landing attempt and primary rerto rocket failed causing spacecraft to launch hundreds of miles off course
in Ural wilderness

If NASA had been willing to push envelope and assume more risk would have denied Soviets many firsts

Did this on Apollo 8 lunar orbital mission to beat Soviet attempt at lunar flight (ZOND probes)