# What Are The Greatest Scientific Discoveries Learned From the Soviet/Russian Space Program

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-greatest-scientific-discoveries-learned-from-the-soviet-russian-space-program/761071>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 27, 2016, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-greatest-scientific-discoveries-learned-from-the-soviet-russian-space-program/761071 "2016-07-27T23:34:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-greatest-scientific-discoveries-learned-from-the-soviet-russian-space-program/761071/21 "2016-07-29T18:07:39Z")

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> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> 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.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Bondarenko)

Well, the problem is that the Soviets kept this accident hidden. According to the Wikipedia article, news of that incident did not reach the West until 1980, and it was not made public to Soviet readers until 1986…

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**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-greatest-scientific-discoveries-learned-from-the-soviet-russian-space-program/761071/22 "2016-07-29T23:28:04Z")

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> [@Pixel\_Dent](#):
>
> 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?

Actually yeah. I kind of misinterpreted the OP to mean long-term lessons learned from the Soviet/Russian program.

> [@scr4](#):
>
> 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.

Well, yes and no. Using pure oxygen in orbit at low pressure wasn’t the danger. It was using pure oxygen at 16 psi in tests on the ground (like Apollo 1) that was dangerous. But yes, NASA obviously knew this, but they had gotten complacent about it and let ‘go-fever’ take over (both the managers and the astronauts). Had we have heard (and seen photos) about the gory details of the Russian accident of a high pressure, pure oxygen fire inside a manned capsule it might have gone a long way to thinking twice about its safety.

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