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Proving a negative is of course always difficult outside of pure mathematics. The research which debunked the "dead cosmonauts" legend to most people's satisfaction was by James Oberg, and here is the relevant chapter from one of his books.

Russia does too - the TP-82

I believe the differences between the two is mostly to the "no nonsense" approach to the Russians, and the fact that they like re-using designs and equipment that work instead of constantly re-inventing the wheel.

Except... they don't re-use designs and equipment. The current mark of the Soyuz (capsule) has almost nothing in common with the early ones other than a reasonably similar moldline. Soyuz has been modified and updated multiple times, not the least as it evolved from a general purpose Earth orbiter into a very specialized station taxi.
 

Sure, their spacecraft may look "ugly" (or at least, "uglier") than western or American ones, but they get the job done and they are reliable workhorses.

Reliable... is a very shaky claim given the number of near failures and almost disasters suffered by Soyuz over the years. It hasn't killed anyone in a long time, but it's come uncomfortably close an uncomfortably significant percentage of it's flights.[1] And speaking of flights and workhorses... even though it started flying over a decade earlier, it won't match the number of Shuttle flights until somewhere around the end of this decade at the current flight rate. (Last time I looked, I haven't calculated in a while.) In the same vein, while Shuttle suffered two LOCV accidents, it had zero complete mission failures and only one partial mission failure due to an abort-to-orbit placing it in too low of an orbit. Meanwhile, Soyuz had one pad abort, one failure to orbit, and at least two complete mission failures due to an inability to dock with a space station. (As well as several instances of either the orbital module or the re-entry module failing to separate properly.)
 
All of which is a roundabout way of saying the comparison isn't really as black-and-white as people would like it to be once you compare the actual Shuttle against the actual Soyuz (as opposed the largely fictional Soyuz the actual Shuttle is commonly compared to) and look at the actual numbers.

[1] Here's three accounts just covering reentry and landing failures.

I believe the differences between the two is mostly to the "no nonsense" approach to the Russians, and the fact that they like re-using designs and equipment that work instead of constantly re-inventing the wheel.

Except... they don't re-use designs and equipment. The current mark of the Soyuz (capsule) has almost nothing in common with the early ones other than a reasonably similar moldline. Soyuz has been modified and updated multiple times, not the least as it evolved from a general purpose Earth orbiter into a very specialized station taxi.
 

Sure, their spacecraft may look "ugly" (or at least, "uglier") than western or American ones, but they get the job done and they are reliable workhorses.

Reliable... is a very shaky claim given the number of near failures and almost disasters suffered by Soyuz over the years. It hasn't killed anyone in a long time, but it's come uncomfortably close an uncomfortably significant percentage of it's flights.[1] And speaking of flights and workhorses... even though it started flying over a decade earlier, it won't match the number of Shuttle flights until somewhere around the end of this decade at the current flight rate. (Last time I looked, I haven't calculated in a while.) In the same vein, while Shuttle suffered two LOCV accidents, it had zero complete mission failures and only one partial mission failure due to an abort-to-orbit placing it in too low of an orbit. Meanwhile, Soyuz had one pad abort, one failure to orbit, and at least two complete mission failures due to an inability to dock with a space station. (As well as several instances of either the orbital module or the re-entry module failing to separate properly.)
 
All of which is a roundabout way of saying the comparison isn't really as black-and-white as people would like it to be once you compare the actual Shuttle against the actual Soyuz (as opposed the largely fictional Soyuz the actual Shuttle is commonly compared to) and look at the actual numbers.

[1] Here's three accounts just covering reentry and landing failures.

There are already guns at the International Space Station. The Soyuz spaceships have a "survival gun" stored inside. http://www.jamesoberg.com/russiangun_tec.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP-82

You chose your 40-year window quite well. Komarov died in Soyuz 1 in 1967 when his parachutes failed to deploy, and Volkov, Dobrovolski and Patsayev died in Soyuz 11 of a depressurization event in 1971. Since then no other deaths, but there has been two other almost fatal problems with Soyuz capsules, most notably with Soyuz TM5 in 1988.

Overall the fatality rate in Soyuz is 1.75% and the one in the Shuttle is 2%. Not a statistically significant difference in my opinion.

Their new mission is not to recognized the contributions by Muslims to the fields of mathematics and physics, but to develop a new paradigm for approximating numbers.

  Just don't confuse metric with english units lest you miss Mars by a few 100,000 units of whatever

(oh, that's already been done: ref http://www.jamesoberg.com/mars/loss.html )

What? We're doing away with the zero?
It should be somthing like this then:
"Just don't confuse metric with english units lest you miss Mars by a few 1xx,xxx units of whatever"

Just don't confuse metric with english units lest you miss Mars by a few 100,000 units of whatever

(oh, that's already been done: ref http://www.jamesoberg.com/mars/loss.html )

Having a different inclination actually puts X37B out of reach of Endeavor or any Shuttle-ISS flight. These are completely different missions with no plans for any interaction between them.

Regarding your skepticism about the destruction of USA 193, I refer you to Jim Oberg's excellent summary here

The classic example of an imperial-metric snafu is the Mars Climate Orbiter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter which was lost because the software measured force in pounds while the thrusters gave results and throttled accordingly by newtons.

WRONG. The data was supplied to the mission analysts was in lb-seconds. The program they used to do the mission analysis expected the data in newton-seconds. And, once again, that particular error was far from the most damning part of the issue. With even the most basic due dilligence on the part of the mission analysis it would have been corrected. And in any case, the units WEREN'T SPECIFIED in the interface, and *all*, repeat, *ALL* the data associated with this thruster has been for decades and will continue to be in the future, in conventional units.

        Please read this : http://www.jamesoberg.com/mars/loss.html before spouting more tiresome drivel on this topic.

The existing Soyuz TMA capsules also have "soft-landing rockets", they're used just at the point of touchdown to cushion the landing. Of course, the TMAs also have a parachute, so it's less of a problem if the landing rockets fail.
Interestingly, the very first Soyuz TMA had all kinds of other problems, but the landing-rocket part actually worked.

FWIW, most of us English speakers are badly mispronouncing the word "Soyuz". James Oberg has an article on how to pronounce it and several other names associated with the Soviet/Russian space program.

The submitter is debunking an article written in IEEE Spectrum, a civilian magazine. To debunk an article written by a non-expert says very little about whether a shoot-down was actually warranted.

Except that James Oberg is an expert (or at least damn close to one, read the resumes linked off the second link.) - having been a mission controller for NASA and a professional space engineer, analyst, writer, and journalist for decades. Synchronicity at work - as part of a research project I'm working on, Jim's 1982 book Mission to Mars sits right beside my coffee cup even as I type this...
 
That being said - the debunking is full of errors as well. The AC provides us with a wonderful handwaving smoke and mirrors show, but fails to acknowledge the role of the structure of the tank itself (which is insulated and has to be accounted for before the Hydrazine starts to vaporize). He also fails to acknowledge the role the structure of the satellite plays, as it too will act as shielding (and a drag brake!) for the tank. (I know Jim is aware of these factors because I've discussed them with him.)
 
In short, what the AC claims is a debunking is actually closer to being a partial rationale for conducting the shootdown.
 
I don't know what 'field' the AC works in, but to this knowledgeable non expert he doesn't sound like an expert at all - but rather sounds like someone with an axe to grind. If he is an expert, he has allowed bias to supplant analysis.

The submitter is debunking an article written in IEEE Spectrum, a civilian magazine. To debunk an article written by a non-expert says very little about whether a shoot-down was actually warranted.

Except that James Oberg is an expert (or at least damn close to one, read the resumes linked off the second link.) - having been a mission controller for NASA and a professional space engineer, analyst, writer, and journalist for decades. Synchronicity at work - as part of a research project I'm working on, Jim's 1982 book Mission to Mars sits right beside my coffee cup even as I type this...
 
That being said - the debunking is full of errors as well. The AC provides us with a wonderful handwaving smoke and mirrors show, but fails to acknowledge the role of the structure of the tank itself (which is insulated and has to be accounted for before the Hydrazine starts to vaporize). He also fails to acknowledge the role the structure of the satellite plays, as it too will act as shielding (and a drag brake!) for the tank. (I know Jim is aware of these factors because I've discussed them with him.)
 
In short, what the AC claims is a debunking is actually closer to being a partial rationale for conducting the shootdown.
 
I don't know what 'field' the AC works in, but to this knowledgeable non expert he doesn't sound like an expert at all - but rather sounds like someone with an axe to grind. If he is an expert, he has allowed bias to supplant analysis.

Still suits? The whole station is a suit. This has been done since Salyut and Mir. The stilling is done by environmental control. Elektron oxygen generators then generate oxygen by splitting it from water.

That they have their unit conversions worked out correctly.

The fact that they survived the experience is amazing. Say what you want about Soviet technology, this was a very, very neat trick.

Addendum:

According to this link: http://www.astronautix.com/flights/mireo23.htm the landing rockets failed anyway, which resulted in a hard, but survivable landing.

And according to this: http://www.jamesoberg.com/soyuz.html the crew has no control over the parachute deployment. (This is written in entry 6 B under "Special Questions)

BS. Using misleading statistics to prove a point does not prove a point. The Soyuz has a lower fatality rate than the Shuttle and that's going back to the 60s.

It has a flawless fatality record for longer than the shuttle has even existed.

Now consider that the Soyuz is likely flown/managed by people whose attention to safety would give NASA managers heart attacks and just how much of a fuck up the shuttle is become evident.

You're already in trouble if you need open heart surgery. The risks are "acceptable", considering the alternatives.

The mars scenario, on the other hand - the idea of scanning someone and waiting for advice won't work. Even if they could be scanned in zero seconds, and a diagnostic reached in zero seconds, the time delay is between 10 and 50 minutes..Heck, look what happens with only a 4 minute delay http://www.jamesoberg.com/2004marsconquest.html

Well, to be fair, I did enjoy Oberg's piece where he debunks dead cosmonaut rumours, I found it quite interesting and I seems to me that, considering it was written by an American during the cold war, it is rather objective and well balanced.

I think he's generally considered a reference on Soviet (and so presumably modern Russian) space exploration. Now TFA is quite disappointing, I must agree.

Solar power and zero gee sex.

In Soviet Russia, Red Star orbits planet.

Judging by his site, http://www.jamesoberg.com/, it seems like J. Oberg is a 22 year old Cold Warrior.

His obsession with "beating the Soviets" seems to underpin both the space weapon story and the agglomeration of stories on his site.

Or is it that he never grow out of playing with his Star Wars toys?

C'mon Jimmy, admit it, they look really neat hangin' over your bed like that, especially when you turn on the batteries at night...

Lastly, safety. The important thing to note here is that you can say that the numbers ie individual deaths per person flown are similar - ie similar death rates, but you have to look at the developmental stages of the vehicles involved - half of the shuttle deaths have occured in the last 3 years and the rest in the last 20. Soyuz have not experienced a fatality for _35_ years.

They ironed the bugs out. It is solid Russian engineering - 'built like a brick shithouse' (australian slang).

However ... Sojuz seems a lot more reliable to me...

Mostly it seems so because it's numerous failures and problems (with the exception of Soyuz 1 and 11) are little known outside of Russian space program. (During the Soviet era they told niether the US, nor their own people.) However an account of just the re-entry and landing problems makes for frightening reading - and leaves out the two launch accidents and multiple loss-of-mission accidents/incidents.

The next argument people make is usually the same one that you did, "Soyuz hasn't killed anyone... lately". Let's put that in perspective shall we? Between STS-26 (Return To Flight post Challenger) and STS-107 (the loss of Columbia) the Space Shuttle flew more flights than the Soyuz has in it's entire history.

Finally, we have the current Soyuz model, the TMA. It's flown eight missions to date, with accidents or serious incidents on four of those eight flights.

The moral? When you have a spacecraft with an ongoing history of problems - it's not a safe spacecraft, no matter whose flag is on the side, and even if it hasn't killed anyone 'lately'.

I can't stand people that are ignorant enough to protest anything with the word "nuclear" attached to it. Blind ignorance is all that is. They don't even have the most basic understanding of what they are protetsting

Of the fifty odd launches of reactors or RTG's - no fewer than nine have resulted in the radioactive material being returned to earth. This article lists eight failures, but misses a ninth. It's not a pretty record - and it's only by luck that major contamination has been avoided.

Lemmings.

For what's it worth, these are the same guys who lost a $125 million Mars probe because they failed to do a conversion from imperial to metric units of measure. (Who in science and engineering still uses imperial anyway?) D'oh!

Did they ever come up with a replacement for the old Elektron oxygen generators? I mean something as good or better than those old Soviet relics, not just burning oxygen candles for air? I heard the only guy who could properly tune the Elektrons died with his tricks. Hence, the need for new tech.

Intresting.... http://www.jamesoberg.com/sex.html

I agree that Miles is the very best we've got, but in terms of enthusiasm and sheer geekiness there was no one better than his predecessor, the late great John Holloman. Loved it when John would say "I'm not sure, let me check" and then haul out his 4-inch-thick binder of the Shuttle Operations Manual. Hey vultures, I've got some MSNBC commentator's bones for you to pick!

Disclaimer: I'm part of JimO's volunteer fact checking/brain trust team - so I may be a bit biased.

[/me waves to any other of the 'clones' that may be reading.]

Oh, great, another time consuming argument with a Zubrin fanboy.

You haven't read his book

Outright wrong. Unlike you, I wouldn't be caught dead debating material I haven't read about.

Really? Please site.

The word is "cite". A "site" is a location. Here is your "cite": Goal #4 of the Apollo program was to "develop man's capability to work in the lunar environment.". Here's a Lunar Colony from 1969. Complete with a smelter. The concept of extracting resources from the moon continued with numerous R&D processes in the late 60s and early 70s; ton-quantities of regolith simulant were produced for the experiments. There was renewed interest in the 1980s with Reagan's call for lunar colonies by 2005.

Mining under most proposals was to be done simply on regolith, using a three drum slasher. Cutler and Krag proposed and investigated a carbothermal oxygen production plant that processed ilmenite desposits. Another 1985 study investigating an entire proposed colony ("Selenopolis"), was to produce 500,000 tons of oxygen per year.

And automatic mining equipment really isn't that complex.

That's bloody hilarious. *Manned* mining equipment produced where weight is no object (here on earth) is quite complex. Have you ever seen the work that goes into setting up, for example, a tunnel boring system? Mining equipment costs millions of dollars per piece, and it's not for no good reason. Add to that the ridiculous weight, the oxygen-requiring temperature-sensitive engines, etc, and you're stuck paying brand new R&D costs without the benefit of bulk sales and having to use things like lithium-aluminum to cut mass.

Also, Zubrin et al created a scale model of some of the oxygen mining gear. Worked great, needs to be tested.

We don't even know specifically where water ice is, yet! (we have some ideas). By the way, have you seen how well electryolysis devices as such perform in hostile environments, even with extensive testing and two decades of development? The US has nothing like it qualified for long term missions - Elektron is the best thing out there (we have some heavy short-term devices).

Loss of a critical component, and that's the end on Mars. No "repairs" being sent up on "the next flight", no massive backups to "tide you over" (this refers not only to oxygen, but to everything critical for life).

Apples to oranges comparison. And 100% WRONG. I honestly can't think of ONE of the missions which it could be claimed with any certainty would NOT have been saved without a human around to check things out.

That's because you've never read about the subject. I hate having to replace a textbook for people like you.

Mars 1960A: Failed to reach earth orbit due to catastrophic vehicle launch failure. Nothing humans could have done.

Mars 1960B: Same

Mars 1962A: Broke into pieces after being launched; pieces remained in Earth orbit for a few days. The equivalent of having more dead humans.

Mars 1: Communication lost in transit for unknown reasons. Depending on the cause, humans may or may not have been able to salvage it.

Mars 1962B: Made it to earth orbit. Rocket fire for transfer orbit destroyed the craft. Humans would have perished.

Mariner 3: Protective shield from earth launch failed to detach. The extra weight prevented it from reaching Mars. As most manned Mars missions don't allow for EVA due to the difficulty and extra mass, at the

Shuttle is actually more than twice as dangerous than Soyuz (overall),

furthermore Soyuz hasn't had any deaths at all in about 30 years, and none with the current version that seats 3.

For those playing along at home, that's three serious failures in the five most recent missions.

The reason Soyuz is safer is because they had all the really deadly problems early on when they only risked small crews, whereas the Shuttle is more brittle, and kills at random (hence more likely to kill a large crew).

What I can't understand is, why didn't "management" come in and screw this all up?

Considering that the last screw up of a Mars probe involves not converting measurements correctly, "management" had a lot of incentive not to screw up this time around.

What I can't understand is, why didn't "management" come in and screw this all up?

Considering that the last screw up of a Mars probe involves not converting measurements correctly, "management" had a lot of incentive not to screw up this time around.

What I can't understand is, why didn't "management" come in and screw this all up?

Considering that the last screw up of a Mars probe involves not converting measurements correctly, "management" had a lot of incentive not to screw up this time around.

What I can't understand is, why didn't "management" come in and screw this all up?

Considering that the last screw up of a Mars probe involves not converting measurements correctly, "management" had a lot of incentive not to screw up this time around.

Ever wondered how oxygen generators work?

I hope for your sake you're not the gambling sort.

"[The Elektron] was developed and fabricated by a corporation called Niichimmash, also transliterated NIIKHIMMASH. In English, this means "Scientific-Experimental Institute of ChemicalMachine-Building," in Sergiyev Posad (Zagorsk), near Moscow. It also builds chemical rocket engines and other chemistry-related products, including for the Russian military."

See here for more information.

And I heartily suggest reading Dragonfly by Bryan Burrough if you want a good read about these kinds of issues onboard Mir.

The oxygen generator uses urine and other "waste" water, as well as the main water supply to produce oxygen, the link gives the details on how the Elektron O2 generator works

http://www.jamesoberg.com/elektron2_tec.html

Try measuring the TOTAL number of astronauts that have gone into space vs. the number that have died (including instances such as Apollo 1). To be fair, consider the Russian missions as well. It's a little harder to track them because the Russian/Soviet government has not always been forthcoming about their own losses. Now as China works on their own manned missions, one hopes that they learn from American and Russian mishaps.

"By no reasonable metric does the Soyuz have a better safety or reliability record than the Shuttle." care to elaborate?

(oh, and sure, the were recently "accidents" of Soyuz, mainly because some overhaul - but none of them fatal)

It's a grave fallacy to assume that because there were no fatalities an accident is insignificant. NASA made that assumption multiple times - and two Shuttles are dead because of it. Anyone who fails to hold the Russians to the same standard is delusional or dishonest.

"By no reasonable metric does the Soyuz have a better safety or reliability record than the Shuttle." care to elaborate?

(oh, and sure, the were recently "accidents" of Soyuz, mainly because some overhaul - but none of them fatal)

It's a grave fallacy to assume that because there were no fatalities an accident is insignificant. NASA made that assumption multiple times - and two Shuttles are dead because of it. Anyone who fails to hold the Russians to the same standard is delusional or dishonest.

No problem, so long as you understand that I neither said nor implied the US paid for the entirety, simply that we paid for the majority of the station as currently built, and will have paid for the large majority at core-complete. I already did it once tonight, might as well just repeat the post (which, for the record, got modded 0 Flamebait.)

We are funding, if not building, nearly all of the station, even the limited core-complete version that was the plan immediately prior to Columbia's loss. The new core-complete plan, as shown here , shows launch methods. Items funded by other countries:

JEM (Japanese Experiment Module, Japan funded)
Columbus (European Research Module, EU funded)
Zvezda (Service module, Russia funded)
RRM (Russian Research Module, Russia funded if it ever launches)

This page has an accurate image showing who funded what; that exact image is hanging over the desk of one of the shuttle payload integration managers, last I knew - the guy responsible for making sure that once something is launched and attached to ISS, it works properly. Of course, looking at that image, SPP is unlikely to ever be built at this point due to lack of funding (according to the Russians), and RRM is unlikely as well (same reason), so shrink the Russian contribution considerably.

Russia funds/funded around 2 percent of ISS; the remainder comes from the US and other Western countries. Japan funds 13%. ESA funds roughly 9%. CSA funds another 2%. And guess who funds the rest? That's right. The US. Roughly 70-75%, depending on how you interpret the numbers, and what year it is.

They are correct; we are funding, if not building, nearly all of the station, even the limited core-complete version that was the plan immediately prior to Columbia's loss. The new core-complete plan, as shown here, shows launch methods. Items funded by other countries:

JEM (Japanese Experiment Module, Japan funded)
Columbus (European Research Module, EU funded)
Zvezda (Service module, Russia funded)
RRM (Russian Research Module, Russia funded if it ever launches)

This page has an accurate image showing who funded what. Of course, SPP is unlikely to ever be built at this point (according to the Russians), and RRM is unlikely as well, so shrink the Russian contribution considerably.

Russia funds/funded around 2 percent of ISS; the remainder comes from the US and other Western countries. And guess who funds the majority of that? That's right. The US.

The man to discuss this with would be Jim Oberg. His books "Red Star In Orbit" and "Uncovering Soviet Disasters" are both great reads, covering lots of stuff Russia tried to hide from the West during the cold war. (They both predate the fall of the Soviet Union, though, so they're pretty out of date by now.)

Here's an interesting article on Russian Space Dogs
and some interesting facts? about the Russian Space Program.

For a while I've been hosting some of James Oberg's Space History items. One is titled Dead Cosmonauts -- he documents five definite deaths:

• Valentin Bondarenko, [died in training] March 23, 1961 -- a high-pressure oxygen fire similar to the Apollo 1 accident.
• In April 1967 cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when the parachute of his Soyuz 1 spacecraft failed during the return to Earth
• On June 30, 1971, the three cosmonauts of the Soyuz 1 1 crew perished on return to Earth.

The last two were publicly (if not fully) acknowledged at the time.

There were various rumours, but they have not stood up to investigatation, even after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The thing that makes Soyuz seem a lot safer to me is, ironically, the non-fatal accidents that Soyuz has had over the years.

If you look at the Shuttle, there are exactly two types of missions. There are the missions that go without any kind of flaw whatsoever, and there are the missions that end with the death of everyone onboard.

Soyuz, on the other hand, at least has a range of outcomes. There are missions of each kind listed above, of course. But then there are the accidents that don't result in the death of the entire crew. The explosion on the launch pad, where the escape tower correctly worked to pull the capsule to safety. (If the Shuttle had a similar accident, everyone inside would die.) And then there is the amazing story of Soyuz 5, where the craft reentered with various modules still attached, which were supposed to be ditched before reentry, and ended up flying backwards for a good portion of the reentry. Fuel tanks exploded, the capsule filled with smoke from various burning things, and it finally landed 2000km away from the intended landing point, but the one crew onboard survived. Contrast this with the Shuttle, where a small hit from a bit of foam results in, (surprise!) the instant death of the entire crew.

So yes, the historic accident rates are about the same. However, the Soyuz has been refined over a long time, and as you say, the recent models have (so far) a perfect record. And as I said, these non-fatal accidents actually increase my confidence in the vehicle, because it shows me that it is robust. It can take punishment and survive. Similar incidents during the Mercury, Gemeni, and Apollo programs (Apollo being particularly rife with spectacular but non-fatal incidents, like Apollo 13's big explosion, Apollo 12's lightning strike, and the Saturn V's continuous problems with near-disastrous resonance in the engines and structure) give me the distinct impression that capsules are inherently safer than the Shuttle, if not spaceplanes in general.