What are some of the greatest discoveries that the world learned from the Soviet and subsequent Russian Space program? The easy ones are “the firsts” things like proving dogs and then humans could orbit the earth and return safely. Did we learn anything major from any of their unmanned missions, such as probes that were sent out to other planets? Other discoveries from expirements on MIR?
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The Soviets had the Venus probe missions (the Venera’s).
One of those missions was able to conclude/prove plate-tectonics upon another planet. That was a first, I believe. Plenty of sciencey stuff was discovered about Venus from all the Venera missions.
The Soviets were also the first to return samples from the Moon via theLuna missions (robotic ‘landers’). Prior to that, they got the first close-up images of the lunar surface.
Of course, that has all been surpassed, by far. But for the times, they were pretty good and persistent at what at they were trying to do, IMHO, until Cold War stuff/politics began costing them too much to progress as fast as the US/others. Judgement call on what was the *greatest *result, I guess. I’m sure there’s more but that’s all I recall myself. I don’t know if the development of the still-in-use and rather dependable Soyuz really counts as a “discovery” (maybe in the specific engineering thereof?), but its a heck of an old(er) workhorse as far I am concerned.
To be clear, they were the first to return lunar soil via a robotic probe. Apollo 11 was still the first to return any lunar material period. In fact Armstrong had a small bag on his leg and the very first thing he was to do upon walking on the surface (after “…a giant leap”) was scoop up some dirt and fill it. It was referred to as the ‘contingency sample’, meaning in case the LM started falling over or their suits failed etc. they were to be absolutely sure to get at least some soil for return.
I would agree that the most important thing the Soviet/Russian Space Program showed is that once you have a reliable booster, stick with it*!* The Space Shuttle was the biggest, costliest (in money and lives) blunder in space history. There is no reason we shouldn’t, to this day, still be using the Saturn V/1B for heavy & medium lift LEO manned & unmanned missions. It would have been safer and cheaper (much safer & cheaper) than the Shuttle ever was.
Use a pencil.
Ok, it’s an urban legend, but the real story of the space pen is somewhat interesting:
Nice call … the USA has never landed a probe on the surface of Venus … the Russians landed 8.
They were the first to obtain images of the far side of the moon. I remember, at the time, how freaky it felt to see the side of the moon that no earth creature had ever seen.
Very true, and my bad. I was watching *Little Big Man *(one of my favorite movies) while typing at same time and criss-crossed my thoughts. Thx for correcting me/that 
A tangent question about the far-side images: Didn’t the Soviets withold those images until after the USA had their own, or had put US footprints upom the Moon? Or was it some other specific data/subject of “great discovery”? IIRC, there was some great Soviet stuff (not meaning eqpt-specs or such) they witheld to themselves for a period of time due to their politiking or whatever and just curious if this part of it…not wanting to derail, though.
I believe that their long-term space station and the long-term stays in orbit by a number of their astronauts provided a wealth of biomedical information about the effects of gravity (or lack thereof) on the human body.
Six of the Lunik 3 farside images were publicized contemporarily. Mind you they were not particularly good images – basically they took film photographs that were processed inside the probe then a TV image of the processed photograph transmitted down.
While I don’t argue with the conclusion, don’t you think that’s more of an engineering “discovery” rather than a scientific one as per the thread title?
Huh? Venus does not have plate tectonics, as far as we know. Perhaps someone thought it did back then.
I guess I fought my ignorance in mentioning the Soyuz. According toBoston University College of Engineering, engineering is not science, per se, nor a subset of science. I’d say it might be arguable at certain levels (IANAEng and IANASci) but there it is - a credible cite regarding the subject of engineering -v- science and thread’s subject/title.
Perhaps (probably??) some science itself was involved in some concepts/ideas used in R & D of the Soyuz itself, overall, in regards to the OP’s title of “What are the greatest scientific…”, but that, to me, might be a debate of opinions of degrees of greatness rather than a subject pertaining to this GQ-located* thread.
And to JRDelirious - thx for that info!
Good catch - I should have said just “tectonics”, as stated in the link; not plate tectonics. My bad with the terms being so commonly used together re: Earth. Mea culpa, etc… Thx for the correction!
From the wiki article’s Scientific Findings section (w/ the cite listed that info based upon):
Good contributions @Ionizer. Although I wouldn’t consider the success of the Soyuz a scientific discovery in the same manner as one based upon a mission or series of missions. For example, through the Apollo landings we discovered what the composition of the moon was from samples brought back to earth.
I actually started another thread a couple years back about why the shuttle was retired without an immediate successor. Why was the space shuttle retired without an immediate successor? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
I really admire the shuttle but IMO it was just wayyy overcomplicated to be cost effective and safe. It was hardly reusable when you consider all the work that had to be done in-between flights
The Soviets shuttle and Energia heavy rocket system was a marvel of engineering as well. I would have loved if the program continued for a few more years so that they were able to actually “shuttle” cosmonauts to MIR. Then again maybe it’s better they cut their (financial) losses when they did. Guess we’ll never know… Anyhow keep the discussion going folks! There’s no right or wrong answers here.
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The hell it isn’t. I recall watching my professors in graduate school working on a problem medical scientists had asked them to measure aerosols.
Probably the biggest one was one we could have learned but didn’t until our own fatal accident. I’m speaking of course of the flammability of material in low pressure pure oxygen along with the issue of escape given the large pressure differential caused by a fire under those circumstances.
So scientists asked engineers to make measurements for them? Is that what you are saying? Sounds like two separate disciplines working there (to me).
I cited a College of Engineering stating otherwise. Plz fight my ignorance…plenty of Google hits state it is not a science in and of itself. A great meaningful quote from here:
I admit that site is not very authoritative, but that statement seems spot-on, right?
See here, too. When the Institue for Electrical and Electronic Engineers says its not, I’ll believe them:
Since this is kinda derailing, I’ll go no further on this myself since IANAS and IANAE.
I understand hindsight is 20/20, but…shouldn’t this hazard have been obvious?
Not really. During flight, the partial pressure of oxygen would have been similar to that of the earth’s atmosphere. It’s reasonable to think that any material that isn’t a huge fire risk on the ground would be OK to use in a low-pressure pure-oxygen environment. NASA got away with the same system for all Mercury and Gemini flights, and the risk was not fully understood until the Apollo 1 accident.
In terms of applied science, I think their most notable contribution was Luna 9 discovering the Moon was not covered in meters of dust. It sounds silly now but this was a concern back then.
In terms of pure science, I think they missed out on an obvious and important scientific discovery: the Van Allen radiation belt.
