Soyuz or space shuttle?

[NTP2]

I was wondering which one is the most popular. (For me it’s Soyuz)

Edit originally it was in the watering hole (I didn’t know I should go here) but for some reason the poll did not come with it so just comment your answer.

 

[Antares JS]

The Soyuz is an LEO taxi of extremely limited capability, vs. the STS was an astonishingly versatile platform for working in LEO. It's really no contest.

 

[Art Upton]

They called the STS the Space Pickup Truck

 

[goose_in_co]

My college professor said about the Shuttle back in the early 80's, "You know those cars that are half car and half pickup? The shuttle is like that, except the front half is a bicycle." Obviously, he was not a fan.

 

[NTP2]

The Soyuz is an LEO taxi of extremely limited capability, vs. the STS was an astonishingly versatile platform for working in LEO. It's really no contest.

The Soyuz has a mass to LEO of 8,500kg to the 23,000kg of STS, so the Soyuz has less mass capacity but the cost is way cheaper. The STS had a cost per launch of 1.6 billion dollars to the Soyuz of 53 million, so now they seem fairly evenly matched but if you add reliability into the equation the Soyuz almost never scrubs the STS scrubed almost every launch.

 

[Antares JS]

The Soyuz has a mass to LEO of 8,500kg to the 23,000kg of STS, so the Soyuz has less mass capacity but the cost is way cheaper. The STS had a cost per launch of 1.6 billion dollars to the Soyuz of 53 million, so now they seem fairly evenly matched but if you add reliability into the equation the Soyuz almost never scrubs the STS scrubed almost every launch.

Capability costs money. If all you need is to bring 3 people into LEO, then yeah, Soyuz is a more practical choice. Anything more than that, you need the STS.

 

[NTP2]

Capability costs money. If all you need is to bring 3 people into LEO, then yeah, Soyuz is a more practical choice. Anything more than that, you need the STS.

Or if you need a medium sized payload and you need it now.
Also you don’t often need more than than the Soyuz can offer, if you look at the launch’s of the STS than it looks like a lot of the time you could have done it with a Soyuz. We would have been better off with 2 launch vehicles 1 like the Soyuz 1 heavy lift with repair capability.

 

[kuririn]

Also you don’t often need more than than the Soyuz can offer

The ISS would never have been built if the Soyuz was all that was available.

 

[Jeff Lassahn]

I'm on team Shuttle.

The Soyuz is a very practical, effective design that solves a particular problem.
The shuttle is a giant overdesigned mess that tries to do too much.
But it's such a glorious mess!

and also I'm grumpy at Russia for unrelated reasons right now.

 

[cls]

More fatalities from STS.

 

[NTP2]

The ISS would never have been built if the Soyuz was all that was available.

No just the US section would not exist remember the iss is freedom plus mir.

 

[NTP2]

I'm on team Shuttle.

The Soyuz is a very practical, effective design that solves a particular problem.
The shuttle is a giant overdesigned mess that tries to do too much.
But it's such a glorious mess!

and also I'm grumpy at Russia for unrelated reasons right now.

That is a good reason for liking it

 

[Antares JS]

Thinking about it, this question is like asking whether you like sports cars or pickup trucks.

Shuttle and Soyuz are two very different things for two very different missions whose only real commonality is bringing things to space. It's not really fair to compare them.

 

[kuririn]

No just the US section would not exist remember the iss is freedom plus mir.

Freedom was never constructed.
Mir was a different and smaller Russian space station.
Most of the larger modules of the ISS were lifted by the Shuttle and the Proton rocket.

 

[NTP2]

Freedom was never constructed.
Mir was a different and smaller Russian space station.
Most of the larger modules of the ISS were lifted by the Shuttle and the Proton rocket.

Yeah it basically both put together.

 

[NTP2]

Thinking about it, this question is like asking whether you like sports cars or pickup trucks.

Shuttle and Soyuz are two very different things for two very different missions whose only real commonality is bringing things to space. It's not really fair to compare them.

True but I like pickup trucks.

 

[mjennings]

They are very different systems as said above. The shuttle had a lot of design comprises forced by NASA needing USAF money for the program. However if you ask any Astronaut or Cosmonaut who's landed in both it is probably a very safe bet that they would all pick a STS landing!

 

[Antares JS]

They are very different systems as said above. The shuttle had a lot of design comprises forced by NASA needing USAF money for the program. However if you ask any Astronaut or Cosmonaut who's landed in both it is probably a very safe bet that they would all pick a STS landing!

Interestingly, I've heard that some American astronauts preferred launching aboard the Soyuz because the all-liquid system gave a smoother ride.

 

[mjennings]

Interestingly, I've heard that some American astronauts preferred launching aboard the Soyuz because the all-liquid system gave a smoother ride.

Up is a different story. But a steep but aircraft like landing, verse what I believe I've heard referred to as barely controlled car crash. I forgot who made the crash statement though.

 

[Alan15578]

Up is a different story. But a steep but aircraft like landing, verse what I believe I've heard referred to as barely controlled car crash. I forgot who made the crash statement though.

Despite the dead-stick landing, nobody ever died on landing. However, the Enterprise was sufficiently bent on landing that it was not refurbished onto a launch vehicle.

 

[mjennings]

True but I always heard there was a lot more that went into that decision of retrofit Enterprise versus Challenger.

 

[Antares JS]

True but I always heard there was a lot more that went into that decision of retrofit Enterprise versus Challenger.

What I was told when working at Space Camp was that Challenger was stripped down in the process of its testing, so it was easier to rebuild it into a spaceworthy orbiter than it was for Enterprise, which was not stripped down.

I am not sure how true this is.

 

[Rob Caswell]

Soyuz certainly had a smaller body count.....

 

[Antares JS]

Soyuz certainly had a smaller body count.....

Only because it had a smaller crew. It had the same number of LOC events.

 

[techrat]

Soyuz is 1960's tech that doesn't have much payload capability. The shuttle was 1970's tech that was a terrible compromise when all the other projects that surrounded the Apollo replacement program were cancelled.

The shuttle was supposed to be a taxicab that literally "shuttled" crews to a space station that was supposed to have been launched by Nova or some other heavy-lift vehicle. As originally designed, the shuttle had a small or no payload bay, the entire launch system was to be 100% reusable, and was supposed to be a vehicle that could launch again 1 week after returning from space. It was supposed to be essentially an X-20 Dyna Soar, that was launched by a larger space-plane type vehicle.

But all these plans fell apart when Nixon cancelled everything except the shuttle. The Air Force stepped in to "save" the program, but at the cost of a small, cheap, re-usable vehicle, and they added the large payload bay for their military projects, because they needed something to lift all those spy satellites. Gone was the re-usable, piloted launch vehicle, and what we ended up with was... well, whatever scraps were left.

Soyuz was a design with purpose, but a very limited purpose. The shuttle we got was a wide-mission-scope boondoggle that was trying to be all things to various branches of government AND be a NASA space vehicle. That it was able to fulfill even most of the roles it was tasked with is a miracle when you consider what a hack job it was versus what it was meant to be.

This is not even an Apples to Oranges comparison. It's an Apples to Chicken comparison.

 

[Rob Caswell]

Only because it had a smaller crew. It had the same number of LOC events.

True.... but human lives aren't usually reduced to a per capita count.

 

[NTP2]

This is not even an Apples to Oranges comparison. It's an Apples to Chicken comparison.

by homer hickums definition of a great rocket the STS was the worst rocket ever built, by a personal definition it is a glorious rocket.

 

[Bravo52]

True.... but human lives aren't usually reduced to a per capita count.

Unless it's beneficial to do so. If they were trying to cancel the program is sure would have been. NASA had a number in mind but that never materialized. Statistically that number we much higher than the eventual 14 that were lost. Considering there have been 833 astronauts flown that is a pretty good number. Less than 2% loss considered to be wildly successful. Of course you have a much greater chance of dying in a car crash...(yes, there are millions more car uses than shuttle flights in a year, but you can see how playing with numbers can be stupid).

But...back to the question in the OP. Space Shuttle every day and twice on Sunday.

 

[NTP2]

But...back to the question in the OP. Space Shuttle every day and twice on Sunday.

But then it is a car so I recommend buckling up.

 

[icyclops]

My college professor said about the Shuttle back in the early 80's, "You know those cars that are half car and half pickup? The shuttle is like that, except the front half is a bicycle." Obviously, he was not a fan.

Like many of our space program vehicles, they were built to explore and test many new ideas….thus the obvious progression from mercury to Gemini to Apollo then Shuttle…all were building blocks for the bigger picture. Some professors should kept their biased opinions to themselves as it just makes them appear ignorant. I illustrated technical drawings for Space shuttle manuals many many years ago and I can definitely tell you it was no bicycle by any means.