General Electric Apollo Proposal Influence on Soyuz?

[drwayne]

Interesting comparison article over at astronautix:<br /><br />http://www.astronautix.com/articles/wastolen.htm <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[jatslo]

That link tried to load some crap on my computer

 

[nacnud]

I dobut it, a case of convergent engineering more like <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[drwayne]

Didn't do that to me.....hmmm....<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[jatslo]

Yeah, it tried to reconfigure office, but it didn't do it the second time, so maybe it is just a tricky popup from fastclick.com.

 

[nacnud]

nor me but I use adblock + firefox so it wouldn't anyway...

 

[wdobner]

Yeah, Mr. Wade always seems to be up on the latest in annoying popup technology. It's really too bad that Astronautix is loaded down with such obnoxious popups. I'm running Opera, set to supress popups, I have two popup blockers set to block pretty much everything and I STILL get popups on that site. I wonder if we should put together a collection so that he can go to nice, unobtrusive Google ads and we'll make up the difference between that and fastclick.com's garbage. His site is next to unusable thanks to all the popup crap on it. I realize webspace and such is not cheap, but there's gotta be a less annoying way of making up for the cost of your server than a popup which appears every time you click ANYWHERE on the page.<br /><br />But returning to the original topic, back when Astronautix was usable I read that article on the GE Apollo program's relation to Soyuz and was intrigued. I guess GE really does bring good things to life, since they've given rise to arguably the most successful spacecraft design of all time. One could argue that with the Shenzhou's resemblance to Soyuz, and with the potential for NASA's CEV to take a lesson from Soyuz you could say that by 2010 or so all manned spacecraft in operation will have taken a page from GE's original design. One thing I wasn't clear on was whether or not the similarity in designs was attributatible to similar engineering requirements resulting in a similar solution (as is so often claimed for why the MiG-15 and F-86 resemble each other, same thing for the Tu-144 and Concorde), or if it actually was espionage which made Russia rip off GE's spacecraft design. Anyone care to brave that site and see what conclusion Mr. Wade comes to on that issue?

 

[dobbins]

Let's make sure the right people get the "credit" for the popups on Wade's site.<br /><br />1. Wade for using Fastclick<br />2. Fastclick, the bottom feeders who found the way around popup blockers<br />3. Macromedia for having the hole in Flash that Fastclick exploits to open the popups.<br /><br />

 

[JonClarke]

This idea smacks of the cold war prejudice that the USSR was too dumb to think of anything themselves so anything good must have been stolen from the US. This mentality went hand in hand with the incompatible ideas that USSR was either so far ahead of the US in some key technological area that a top priority program was needed to catch up and that their designs were so poor that a smug self congratulation over US superiority was in order. The phrase "cognitive dissonance" was invented for the cold war.<br /><br />The suggestion that the Soyuz was cribbed from GE is disproved by the timeline in the article itself. The Korolev design bureau came up with the modular idea in October 1961, GE at the end of the year, by which time Korolev had chosen to the approach. <br /><br />The USSR had good intelligence but I doubt they had time travel. If the Korolev bureau were really cribbing Apollo concepts that closely they would have used a conical design. <br /><br />Of course once you have committed to a modular approach you have have to put the orbital model either in front, as in Soyuz/Shenzhou or behind, as in TKS/Big Gemini. There is no other choice possible. Each has its advantages as disadvantages.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[drwayne]

Probably true. <br /><br />There is however the example of Stalin basically ordering the TU-4 to be an *exact* copy of the captured B-29's - even to silly things like the patch on one of them - even though I have *no* doubt the Russians could have (and wanted to) built a better bomber from their own designs.<br /><br />So weird orders to copy things did come down.<br /><br />The Russians were, and are darn good. The boundary conditions for some of their designs may have led them to certain compormises that might look "simplistic" - but time has generally proven them to be excellent solutions.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[nacnud]

I don't get any problems with astronautix, I didn't even know there were ads on the site... Firefox + adblock + this filter. Sorry if this is off topic. This is what I see.

 

[drwayne]

"People who copied american plane were not stupid."<br /><br />We are in violent agreement. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[dobbins]

"There is however the example of Stalin basically ordering the TU-4 to be an *exact* copy of the captured B-29's - even to silly things like the patch on one of them - even though I have *no* doubt the Russians could have (and wanted to) built a better bomber from their own designs."<br /><br />I doubt if Stalin ordered copying a patch. It was more of a case of when you were following an order from Stalin you didn't take any chances, you blindly followed it. If he said copy it, then you copied it and didn't take a chance that he didn't mean copy that patch.<br /><br />Copying the B-29 made sense for the position the USSR was in at the end of the war. They needed something to haul the Atomic Bomb that they were also copying. They were facing the huge bomber fleet the USA came out of the war with so they also needed fighters that could shoot down American bombers. Copying the B-29 allowed them to divert more resources to developing the fighters that they needed even worse than a bomber. Stalin was an evil paranoid mass murderer, but he wasn't stupid.<br /><br />

 

[darkenfast]

A correction here: in this case, the Chinese did not steal the Soyuz. They openly purchased a Descent Module and some other technology (the suits, for example), and also sent people to Russia for training. They then re-did the whole design, creating a "Super-Soyuz" (although their spokespeople would probably choke on that term). Scaling up the Descent Module saved a lot of time and development (hypersonic wind-tunnels, etc.). It's similar in concept (but not degree) to the establishment of the Apollo CM mold line as a base requirement for the CEV. My take on the PRC is that they are not great innovators, but they are very good at taking technology and using it. Barring unforseen accidents, they have a good basic spacecraft in the Shenzhou.

 

[JonClarke]

I agree, the B29 was probably the most advanced large aircraft in the world at the time, copying such a windfall was an excellent idea. The Tu-4 wasn't a straight copy either, it incorporated a number of improvements, for example a much better defensive armament (20 mm cannon) rather than 0.5" MGs.<br /><br />The US wasn't above copying either. There are a number of similarities between the MiG 25 and the F15, and the X38 incorporated many features of the BOR.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[JonClarke]

Although there is a strong overal similarity between Soyuz and Shenzhou they are in detail very different spacecraft. Shenzhou is also 10% larger, and is no more a straight copy of Soyuz than ESAS is a copy of Apollo (not that that hasn't stopped people <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />)<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[nyarlathotep]

Comparisons arent really fair, since Shenzhou is actual working hardware. At this stage, ESAS is a copy of apollo. All contractors have done so far (until they get their development budgets next year) is take the last set of powerpoints and stretch them diagonally. <br /><br />As far as Soyuz and the GE apollo designs are concerned, I'd say it's just a case of form following function. Both parties set out to design the most mass efficient vehicle, so it's no surprise that both have ripped as much mass out of the capsule as they could, and placed it in jetisonable mission module. The obvious next step is to make the module reusable and leave it in orbit. I wonder what those crazy Russians are now planning with Kliper...

 

[nacnud]

...evactly that with the parom space tug <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />