Space, the final frontier

[sylla]

In what currency do you calculate 'national morale' ?

In any currency, under the "please select the least expensive option" heading. Edited June 19, 2009 by sylla

[Kosmo]

The soviets usually led in the "space race" from the beginning to the end. Even if it did not came cheap they got some benefits from national pride (russians are suckers for it) to their superpower image.

It had also a bad side for the government when people started thinking "you can send a space station in orbit but you can't give me hot water in the summmer? boooo!!! "

[Formosus Viriustus]

What is usually being ignored is that in 1917 the USA was already an industrial superpower while Russia was still living in the middle ages, so to speak. It was by far the most backward and least developed country in Europe. And only 40 years later they were the first to send a man into space ! Not to mention that in the mean time they had beaten off the biggest invasion ever launched in human history at tremendous cost. That is an exceptional achievement, under whatever political system they did it.

 

I think it is hard to overestimate the effect that had on the selfconfidence of the Russian / soviet people. Despite all the Western propaganda to the contrary I have no doubt that the vast majority of the soviet citizens at the time were just as proud of their country as the Americans were and that they just as much believed that they lived in the best country in the world.

 

That they led the space race until the end is not true I think : once the Apollo program got underway the soviets knew they were not going to get a man on the moon first. Hence they pretended never to have been really interested.

I'm a bit hesitant to lay the link, but that was around the same time that the mentality in the SU started to change.

 

I don't believe too much in the theory that the SU was brought down 'financially'. That is the American way of thinking. I fully agree with you on your last point, Kosmo : it was indeed the lack of hot water, to put it simplistically, more than anything else that brought the SU down. People started to see that Utopia was not being realised, was not going to be realised, and they lost faith in the system.

 

Having a braindeath zombie as a leader for the best part of 18 years didn't really help either.

 

F rmosus

[sylla]

It had also a bad side for the government when people started thinking "you can send a space station in orbit but you can't give me hot water in the summmer? boooo!!! "

That's an excellent point that should still be valid today.

[sylla]

What is usually being ignored is that in 1917 the USA was already an industrial superpower while Russia was still living in the middle ages, so to speak. It was by far the most backward and least developed country in Europe. And only 40 years later they were the first to send a man into space ! Not to mention that in the mean time they had beaten off the biggest invasion ever launched in human history at tremendous cost. That is an exceptional achievement, under whatever political system they did it.

 

I think it is hard to overestimate the effect that had on the selfconfidence of the Russian / soviet people. Despite all the Western propaganda to the contrary I have no doubt that the vast majority of the soviet citizens at the time were just as proud of their country as the Americans were and that they just as much believed that they lived in the best country in the world.

 

That they led the space race until the end is not true I think : once the Apollo program got underway the soviets knew they were not going to get a man on the moon first. Hence they pretended never to have been really interested.

I'm a bit hesitant to lay the link, but that was around the same time that the mentality in the SU started to change.

 

I don't believe too much in the theory that the SU was brought down 'financially'. That is the American way of thinking. I fully agree with you on your last point, Kosmo : it was indeed the lack of hot water, to put it simplistically, more than anything else that brought the SU down. People started to see that Utopia was not being realised, was not going to be realised, and they lost faith in the system.

 

Having a braindeath zombie as a leader for the best part of 18 years didn't really help either.

 

F rmosus

And why do you think did the Soviets lack hot water? To put it simplistically, because they were "finantially down".

[Kosmo]

And why do you think did the Soviets lack hot water?

 

Because the rulers did not give a damn about the people.

The system fell down when they tried to improve it, to give hot water all the time. Gorby did not realized that the if he shakes the system it will fall down. It was not the catatonic leadership that brought down the system but the young, bright and energetic reformer. I'll love him for ever for his fortunate idealist error.

If the financial problem was the only one the SU would still be around. And the space program was cheap compared with the size of the Army and KGB, the war in Afghanistan, stupid foreign policy (at one point SU was supporting both sides in an Ethiopia-Somalia war), excessive donations that kept alive entire states (Cuba, N. Korea, Vietnam etc) insurgents (almost around the world) and parties (even in richer countries).

And as N Korea reminded us space technology started with V2. Sending a satellite in orbit it's the same like sending an ICBM. Large parts of the costs for all space programs were and are supported or done directly by the military.

The Apollo programs were the only time when the Americans beat the SU in the space race. After that they started the failed shuttle program that was much more expensive then rockets, so the soviets recovered the spotlight with the Salyut and Mir space stations. It took 30 years and several accidents for NASA to admit the failure of the shuttles while the soviets were so accustomed to copy the US that they made their own shuttle, Buran, that had just 1 flight but took off and landed without crew.

[sylla]

And the space program was cheap compared with the size of the Army and KGB, the war in Afghanistan, stupid foreign policy (at one point SU was supporting both sides in an Ethiopia-Somalia war), excessive donations that kept alive entire states (Cuba, N. Korea, Vietnam etc) insurgents (almost around the world) and parties (even in richer countries).

According to the US Department of Defense, the Soviet Space Program budget for 1984 was 35 billion dollars, almost the double of the American equivalent for the same year.

Have you any figures on the other expeditures mentioned above for that year? (Naturally, for comparative purposes).

 

And as N Korea reminded us space technology started with V2. Sending a satellite in orbit it's the same like sending an ICBM.

Actually, the North Koreans are literally right; outer space begins technically at 100 km (the Karman line) and the A-4 missile (aka V2) reached up to 206 km of altitude.

Just for the record; the A-4 program was a significant contributor to the collapse of the III Reich, because it was by far their most expensive military project (more than 600 million Reichsmarks) but also the less efficient (in fact, more deaths were caused by its production than by its deployment).

The required money was cut down from far more promising (but less romantic) programs, ie jet fighters, radar systems, anti-aircraft guns and even the Fi 106 program (aka V-1).

The F

Edited June 20, 2009 by sylla

[Formosus Viriustus]

According to the US Department of Defense, the Soviet Space Program budget for 1984 was 35 billion dollars, almost the double of the American equivalent for the same year.

Have you any figures on the other expeditures mentioned above for that year? (Naturally, for comparative purposes).

 

Trouble is, the soviets didn't use dollars. They used rubles.

Joking aside, is that the same Departement of Defense that calculated the cost of the soviet military expenditure by reckoning that a soviet conscript cost as much as a professional US soldier ? A soviet soldier only cost the food you had to give him, a cheap barrack, some cigarettes and chewing gum and a few kopeks so he could get drunk on friday night.

A superpower won't be brought down by bookkeeping. But conscripting all young males for two years into an army that is much too oversized anyway is a huge drain on your productive capacity.

 

Saying that the soviet people didn't get any hot water because there wasn't any 'money in the bank' ?

Money is not a 'real' thing you know, since we got rid of gold and silver coins. Money is just paper. Or better said mostly just digits in some computer memory somewhere nowadays. It's just a way of keeping accounts of who owes which and how many goods or services to whom. And it doesn't 'disappear'. It just moves around (virtually). Maybe you should read Adam Smith on that since the whole American economic thinking is based on his ideas.

 

I fully agree with Kosmo on this : fossilisation at the top was a major factor in the downfall of the SU : they just didn't care about the needs of the people. The people had done so long without hot water and gone through much worse things all for the Motherland, right ? What's the hurry ?

It's too complex a subject, but I think that the Afghan war was also one of the major causes. Not because of the financial cost but because it was seen by most soviet citizens as an unjust war in which many of their people were being killed needlessly.

 

After 1969 however, the space race was essentially over, I think. By 1973 people had gotten bored with men playing golf on the moon. And it was realised that the military importance of space domination had been far overrated. The US still had a bit of a glory moment with the Shuttle which, until one blew up, was propaganda wise a big succes, but the enthousisasm for space that there was in the 60s never really came back. Not in the US and not in the SU either I believe.

 

 

F rmosus

[sylla]

According to the US Department of Defense, the Soviet Space Program budget for 1984 was 35 billion dollars, almost the double of the American equivalent for the same year. Have you any figures on the other expeditures mentioned above for that year? (Naturally, for comparative purposes).

is that the same Departement of Defense that calculated the cost of the soviet military expenditure by reckoning that a soviet conscript cost as much as a professional US soldier ? A soviet soldier only cost the food you had to give him, a cheap barrack, some cigarettes and chewing gum and a few kopeks so he could get drunk on friday night.

It's the same US Departement of Defense that is regularly considered the standard source for the Soviet financial data; if you know any better source, please don't keep it for yourself.

Money is not a 'real' thing you know, since we got rid of gold and silver coins. Money is just paper. Or better said mostly just digits in some computer memory somewhere nowadays. It's just a way of keeping accounts of who owes which and how many goods or services to whom. And it doesn't 'disappear'. It just moves around (virtually). Maybe you should read Adam Smith on that since the whole American economic thinking is based on his ideas.

Adam and I fully agree that money is all and all is money, hot water included.

I fully agree with Kosmo on this : fossilisation at the top was a major factor in the downfall of the SU : they just didn't care about the needs of the people. The people had done so long without hot water and gone through much worse things all for the Motherland, right ? What's the hurry ?

It's too complex a subject, but I think that the Afghan war was also one of the major causes. Not because of the financial cost but because it was seen by most soviet citizens as an unjust war in which many of their people were being killed needlessly.

The subject is indeed complex, and as we all mostly agree (even if not in full), I will just add a couple of remarks:

- If the Soviets fall just for not caring for the people, they wouldn't have lasted up to 1918.

- Needless killing has been quite common across History; powers and empires have consistently survived it.

It would be interesting to compare (joking aside) the other Soviet annual expenditures previously mentioned (for the 1980's) with their Space program's budget, which we already know.

[Formosus Viriustus]

Adam and I fully agree that money is all and all is money, hot water included.

 

Could you give me chapter and verse on that ?

 

If you read Smith (again) you'll see that he says exactly the opposite. Wealth consists of goods and services. Nothing else. Money is nothing but a convention, a bookkeeping tool, a mechanism to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. Not strictly necessary but very handy.

That certainly goes for paper money. But Smith even explains that the monetary value of precious metals is largely a convention : as materials precious metals aren't all that useful.

Since most people now, more than two hundred years later, still don't seem to accept the simple fact that paper or virtual money has no real intrinsic value at all. I'd say that was pretty revolutionary.

(Concluding from the fact that his books consist for a large part out of detailed financial calculations, preferably correct to the last farthing, that Smith thought money had any intrinsic value in itself is like concluding that a chemistry teacher thinks that there is actual water on the blackboard if he writes down the symbols H

Edited June 21, 2009 by Formosus Viriustus

[sylla]

From where I am, we couldn't agree more .

Wealth consists of goods and services. Nothing else.

Money is handy because it let wealth be measured; in fact, any measure of wealth is by definition money; your analogy with the chemical notation is apt.

Hot water is clearly one of those goods and services that Wealth consists of and are therefore measured by money.

The wealth measured by some millions of rubles or any other currency would undoubtedly have brought plenty of hot water to the Soviet citizens; that the Soviet economy worked right was an obvious requisite for such hypothetical scenario.

Clearly, their huge Space Program budget didn't help.

It's the same US Departement of Defense that is regularly considered the standard source for the Soviet financial data; if you know any better source, please don't keep it for yourself.

The US Department of Defense a trusthworthy source on Soviet expenditure ? Are you serious ? I wouldn't even trust those guys to give me the right time. I've already explained why their numbers are a complete fantasy, but if you think you can learn something from them, go ahead. I don't have them and I am not the least bit interested in them. They are probably even less trustworthy than the numbers the soviets themselves gave.

As any other quality, trustworthiness is relative, and I am deadly seriously stating the US Department of Defense is presumably the more trustworthy (or the less unreliable, if you like) source for the Soviet financial data available to us.

They are probably even less trustworthy than the numbers the soviets themselves gave.

Then you're most welcomed to quote such figures in this thread.

Figures would be handy for comparing the relative economic impact of the various economic factors ongoing when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Edited June 21, 2009 by sylla

[Kosmo]

There are many theories about the soviet collapse, Probably more then about the Fall of Rome. Today I found this one:

"Exhibit A: the Soviet Union. High oil prices in the 1970s suckered the Kremlin into propping up inefficient industries, overextending subsidies, postponing real economic reforms and invading Afghanistan. When oil prices collapsed to $15 a barrel in the late 1980s, the overextended, petrified Soviet Empire went bust.

In a 2006 speech entitled

[sylla]

Regarding financial data about the soviet economy I agree with FV that they are largely irrelevant unless very well collected and analysed.

Commies not only manipulated statistics but money are not relevant where there is no market. A communist economy it's like one big enterprise so if department A sends goods to department B the money are present only because the accounting wants to keep track or things. So, US can not know much about China's military budget despite China being much more open then SU was then, because the military expenditure can be hid (e.g. a state owned weapons maker can get his pay from the economy department, not the defense or it is asked to use the profits from a different activity to make weapons)

Now that is news to me; why can't the US Department of Defense measure the Commies' economies, like any other social variable around the World?

After all, the economic analysis is hardly restricted to the official statistics or the reported exchange rate.

The market is always there, irrespectively if the commies or any other animal farm ruler tries to deny it.

The Soviet Space Program budget was not just an abstraction; the expenditure was for real, and certainly big enough to have a global impact.

I used the Department of Defense stats because as far as I know it is currently considered the standard source for this topic not only by the American intelligence, but by the international scholar community as a whole.

If you know any other better source, please don't keep it for yourself; if you don't, then we don't have any other option.

Edited June 24, 2009 by sylla