Talk:Soviet space program

  This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Doff1298.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

This article needs more balanced coverage, and I'm soliciting comments before making changes.

What's omitted is the circumstances behind many of the "firsts". For example, while it's true that the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, it's also true the United States *could* have launched a satellite two years earlier, and in fact had the satellite in storage. ("Wernher von Braun: Crusader for Space") Another example is that while it's true the Voskhod 1 had the first three person crew, it's also true that to do so, the crew had to wear no spacesuits! The "Buran" section makes no mention that the Soviet Shuttle was so widely recognized to be a tardy copy of the American shuttle, there were jokes and cartoons.

What's omitted in the article is a sense of perspective. Reading the "Notable firsts" section, a reader might get the impression that the Soviet Union was ahead in all areas, whereas many of the scientifically significant missions have been American, almost right from the start.

Some mention of the context of these "firsts" needs to be added. After all, Wikipedia is not a "Guinness Book of World Records". Or at least, I remember reading that somewhere in the guidelines.

Leptus Froggi (talk) 15:28, 31 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

On the topic of the Buran, the lack of comparison to the U.S also prevents mention of the fact that in many ways (to my knowledge at least, I need to doublecheck my sources) the Buran was more flexible, and capable than the Shuttle. Jemhop (talk) 15:37, 22 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Whether or not the USA could of/would have/should have launched the first artificial Earth satellite, is immaterial to the fact that they didn't, and that the USSR did. It's no more biased then saying the USA was first to have a crew go to the Moon even though the USSR was well on their way. As most space enthusiasts know, the effort was abandoned after the N1 disaster, and knowledge that the USA had won that race. --Kerbyki (talk) 14:47, 3 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm currently working on replacing unnecessarily negative language from this page, but I (obviously) don't feel comfortable removing an entire section. It seems to reveal a large amount of bias that this page has a section of this sort while that of NASA does not. Its more complete to have a section of this sort, but should it stay if there is none on the NASA page?--Jemhop (talk) 15:59, 22 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Looking in the archives of the NASA Talk page their use to be a Criticism section on the NASA page that was worked into the text as per the recommendations of the Wikipedia:Criticism sections. Note that a fair bit of the text were moved to other relevant pages, for example, the Alleged alcohol use was moved to Lisa Nowak#Reactions. Would suggest the same could apply to this page. Ilenart626 (talk) 08:11, 17 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like a good way to go.--Jack Upland (talk) 11:04, 17 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Strong dissent The encyclopedia is never well-served by the removal of factual information. There is no undue weight problem caused by admitting the Soviet failures, as long as the same is admitted for NASA who also had some fatalities and setbacks. This is significant because of the importance of the Cold War and Space Race which founded the world space programs, and deserves more weight than "other space organizations". This is not unfair to the poor Soviet Union, boo-hoo. Not to make personal attacks, but I don't think you "citizens of the world" quite appreciate that if you weren't alive prior to 1992.

I would much rather see a comparable Setbacks and failures section in NASA. With the exception of Apollo 1 and Apollo 13 and the Shuttles Challenger and Columbia, NASA did not have nearly as many serious failures (e.g. Nedelin catastrophe) as the Soviets. Also no fair focusing on NASA alcoholism / marital infidelities, etc. The Soviet section has none of this, and concentrates exclusively on technical failures.

In fact, the article is already making some apologies for the Soviet program by disguising some failures as "canceled programs". Buran was an engineering failure (attempt to steal US technology protected by disinfo, failed to replicate a reusable heat shield); also Polyus (single flight test was a failure, and became a Cold War "white elephant"). Also, how can Energia be both a "completed project" and a canceled project (another white elephant without the Buran payload)? JustinTime55 (talk) 12:19, 17 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

One more thing: notice this article's infobox is strongly tied to the "Incidents, failures, and setbacks" section because it contains wikilinks to several article sections. And this article and NASA are inconsistently classified by infobox: this is a "Space program by country" while NASA is a "Space agency". JustinTime55 (talk) 14:16, 17 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Quite frankly your whole post is POV pushing ie “ This is not unfair to the poor Soviet Union, boo-hoo”, what sort of comment is that? And I also note how you dismiss “With the exception of Apollo 1 and Apollo 13 and the Shuttles Challenger and Columbia, NASA did not have nearly as many serious failures…”, lets just dismiss disasters that killed 17 people. If you want the facts go look at List of spaceflight-related accidents and incidents which highlight 24 US fatalities and 6 Soviet fatalities, which means the US record is far worse than the Soviets. Finally your suggestion of "...rather see a comparable Setbacks and failures section in NASA." goes against the Wikipedia policy detailed in Wikipedia:Criticism sections. Suggest you read it and hopefully you can understand why Jimbo Wales (one of the founders of Wikipedia) strongly endorses this policy, ie "sections dedicated to negative material may violate the NPOV policy and may be a troll magnet, which can be harmful if it leads to users with strong opinions dominating the article". Ilenart626 (talk) 22:59, 17 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Over the last couple of months I have been working on updates to the ‘Origins’ section, including new articles about Gas Dynamics Laboratory, Reactive Scientific Research Institute and German influence on the Soviet space program and a major update to the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion. I’m planning to now work on the rest of the article, however I think the article is now a lot more balanced with sufficient references to remove the NPOV and additional citation templates. Comments / thoughts? Ilenart626 (talk) 00:34, 4 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

I doubt the neutrality of your changes and deletions. Several arguments are provided in the talk to German influence on the Soviet space program. In Helmut Gröttrup I reverted some changes and added several explanations in the talk. Chertok is not a neutral source and incorrect in some areas, especially when it comes to the German contributions which were largely disclaimed during the Soviet era. Have a look on the similarities between the designs of the G-4 [1] (Gröttrup's team in 1948) and the Soviet R-7 [2] (Korolew's team in 1957 for launching the Sputnik) for the shape and size. Only major difference: The G-4 was designed with one swivel-mounted engine of 100 tons thrust while each R-7 booster used RD-107 with four combustion chambers, each with a similar size of the V2 engine but upgraded performance. --SchmiAlf (talk) 14:35, 25 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Refer my reply at Talk:German influence on the Soviet space program#Joint work of Korolev and Gröttrup from 1945 to 1950. Ilenart626 (talk) 14:05, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

For more information on this topic refer to the dispute Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#German influence on the Soviet space program. SchmiAlf (talk) 07:22, 16 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

The statement "However, after 1947 the Soviets made very little use of German specialists and their influence on the future Soviet rocket program was marginal." in this Soviet space program#German influence section is taken from the lead of German influence on the Soviet space program with four references (which do not support this statement). Following the dispute already mentioned above a survey Talk:German influence on the Soviet space program#Survey was opened by the moderator. Please participate in the survey and vote for your preferred option! SchmiAlf (talk) 15:46, 2 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I removed three references (Neufeld (2012), Mick (2000), Zak (2016)) from the disputed statement "However, after 1947 the Soviets made very little use of German specialists and their influence on the future Soviet rocket program was marginal." It is only Siddiqi (2000) who mentions it on p. 84 but out of context with his detailed view on page 81-83. It is not at all supported by the three other quoted sources. Comments should be added to RFC on last sentence of Lede with all pros and cons of the dispute. SchmiAlf (talk) 16:01, 16 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Under the heading "Origins: German influence", one finds this claim: "On 22 October 1946, 302 of the most capable German rocket scientists and engineers...were deported to the Soviet Union as part of Operation Osoaviakhim..." (emphasis added). Nothing is provided to explain what "the most capable" means in this context. The Russians did not get the top German rocket engineers; men like Wernher von Braun, Hermann Oberth, Walter Dornberger, Ludwig Roth and Arthur Rudolph, who were actual department heads and project leaders for the German rocket program, and who went to the US as part of Operation Paperclip. So what does "most capable" mean? Bricology (talk) 10:59, 7 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

I have removed this from the article.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:55, 7 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

The Internal competition and After Korolev sections need serious overhaul, virtually no citations are given and the language may violate style guidelines. 𝙏𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙢𝙖𝙣地形人 (talk) 13:46, 19 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I will try to list information missing in this article below, it's unacceptable to me that such an important topic has C-class...

- The role of ICBMs in rocket development

- Anti-Satellite developement

- Early Satellites and Kosmos

𝙏𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙢𝙖𝙣地形人 (talk) 00:50, 21 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

As explained in the talk on German influence on Soviet rocketry the statement "...after 1947 the Soviets made very little use of German specialists and their influence on the future Soviet rocket program was marginal" (in the Origins: German influence section) contains a biased view and should be modified as follows (for example): "Until the early 1950s, the captured German specialists designed concept studies which inspired and catalyzed essential features of Soviet rocketry." SchmiAlf (talk) 16:16, 12 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

You are probably correct that the Soviets used German specialists until the early 50's. What extent this influenced their work will have to reflect the specific analysis given by more than one source ideally.

Helmut Gröttrup and others captivity on Gorodomlya Island could be specifically mentioned in place of making a vague statement like you suggest.

In the American space programme, Von Braun was NASA director and is credited as being the mastermind of rocket development. However for the Soviets the 'mastermind' was Korolev. However insights from captured German specialists about aerodynamics and propulsion might have played a significant role I'm sure. Again however, this needs to be quoted from Multiple sources. 𝙏𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙢𝙖𝙣地形人 (talk) 16:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Note that this issue has been comprehensively discussed with Asif Siddiqi in December 2023 refer Discussion with Asif Siddiqi about German influence on the Soviet space program. Suggest Editors read Siddiqi’s comments prior to any edits being made to the article. Ilenart626 (talk) 12:20, 13 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

As can be seen from the diff in July 2022 there was detailed content on German influence. At this time, @Ilenart626 created (and linked) a new article, German influence on the Soviet space program, later renamed to German influence on Soviet rocketry. From the outset, he downplayed the German influence as "marginal after 1947". Several new sources which I provided during the later dispute led to nothing but blaming me for own research etc. Meanwhile I consolidated my findings in this peer-reviewed article German Contributions to Soviet Rocketry: New Light on a Disputed Topic for Quest, a science magazine which received the 2015 Ordway Award for Continued Excellence in Space History. It contains substantial material unknown to Asif Siddiqi and complements several episodes in Boris Chertok's Rockets and People. For the latest dispute see this talk. SchmiAlf (talk) 17:01, 18 December 2024 (UTC)Reply