The Soviet Union was winning the space race, the Soviets put the first satellite in space, Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space on Vostok I. So the Americans were playing catch up in what was an inherently dangerous business. The Russians were also leading the race to put a man on the moon, they had purposely crashed spacecraft on the moon’s surface to check the gravitational factors, lack of atmosphere and surface.

In what was ultimately communism v capitalism, it would initially appear the communist methodology was superior. Ironically, NASA was a government organisation; sure, they contracted out construction of modular components to aerospace corporations, but this was still led [and funded]. By a government organisation. As this was a competitive tender process, the astronauts could argue [they did] that they were riding on rockets built to the cheapest price and not the highest engineering standard.

We all know engineering design is influenced by factors such as functionality, weight, size and space considerations, conformity, minimum technical requirements and of course cost. Therefore, engineering design is a trade off between a number of conflicting factors. What we have seen with NASA’s Artamis program, the design is pretty close to the Saturn V rocket and Orion capsule is the four person equivalent to the Apollo command and service module. The engineers got it right in the 60s, their design influences still hold up today.

In the Mercury program, astronauts basically rode in a capsule mounted on top of a ballistic missile. These guys were pilots, they already had great experience pushing the limits of human endurance and the aircraft designs of the day. The Russians with their early ## rockets were impressive, this is 1950s technology, this would have been a wild ride on what was basically a converted missile as well. Plenty of bravery on both sides, there was mutual respect between astronauts and cosmonauts, they were both drawn from the same ##.

We all know of Yuri Gagarin in western nations and to my mind, whilst not as well known as American astronauts, this guy was a genuine hero. As we later found out, the Soviet space program was more advanced than the US program as far as achievements are concerned. However, their safety was non-existent, cosmonauts were basically expendable in pretty much the same way Laika the dog was. The Americans cannot judge, they were flying chimpanzees in their first missions.

The Soviet Union had some spectacular launch failures, either their rockets exploded on the launch pad or would get off the ground to explode after they cleared the launch tower. These cosmonauts were brave, they were risking their lives every mission, as we found out with Apollo 1, you could lose your life training in the capsule on the tower.

The Russian Space Agency has done a pretty good job, they are flying American astronauts to the International Space Station, since the Space Shuttle was retired, NASA had no vehicle to transport personnel into low orbit space. This has provided a boost to the cash strapped Russian Space Agency; they had previously resorted to taking ultra-high net-value space tourists into orbit with their payments supporting the agency.