To the Moon: How we built the technologies

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German Scientists

Actually, I'd have to say theirs were just as good as ours. Our priorities were set for the moon for a bunch of different reasons. Von Braun was a genius but he had many peers that went to Russia that were just as smart as he was. Von Braun was an excellent administrator and knew how to play politics, which probably gave us a huge advantage when he went to NASA. He fit right in.

The Russians/Soviets still hold huge records for manned spaceflight in terms of endurance and their rocket technology is fantastic, especially if you research into closed system rocket engines which the Russians pioneered. Their boosters are as the most well-heeled in existence and we learned a lot from them. We will probably be depending on them heavily until our own Ares and Orion systems are functional when the Shuttles are decommissioned.

The problem was that the Soviet economic model was not geared towards an effort like Apollo which required huge investment and coordination from private industry and a military industrial complex which could only exist under capitalism. There is no way the Russians could have accomplished it under a state-run economy.

I will say, however, that the Soviets made a lot of progress because their value on life and safety protocols was far below that of ours, which allowed them to make progress on their launch systems much faster than ours. When we had major accidents such as with Apollo 1 and the Shuttles we had congressional hearings that grounded us for years. The Russians and Soviets just sweep it under the rug and move on. Many cosmonauts died in the name of the motherland who we'll never know about.

Posted by: jperlow   Posted on: 07/07/09  (Edited: 07/07/2009 @ 10:13) You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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