Bart's 5:1 Russian superiority claim

[Jason Thompson]

I doubt this is the first time someone's done this, but I thought I'd tell you all anyway. I e-mailed Mr Sibrel yesterday to enquire about his claim that the Russians had a five-to-one superiority in manned hours in space. Specifically, I asked him at what time this superiority was held.

His answer was very succinct: it was prior to Apollo, he said. Now this is not very helpful, since Project Apollo was announced by NASA prior to Kennedy's announcement in 1961. It only became such a huge and well known project after Kennedy committed the US to landing before the end of the decade. The early launches of Saturn boosters as part of the Apollo program took place during Project Mercury. I assume that he is referring to manned Apollo flights, so I did some number crunching. I have looked at the durations of the various flights before Apollo 11. Here is a summary of what I have found. Times are given to the nearest hour.

Project Mercury: total flight time 54 hours.

Vostok: total flight time 382 hours.

Voskhod: total flight time 40 hours.

Vostok gave the Russians about 7 times more flight time than NASA. The addition of Voskhod gave them almost exactly eight times more hours in space than NASA.

If we divide the time by the number of people who flew (six for NASA, one on each Mercury capsule, and 11 for Russia, one in each Vostok, three in Voskhod and two in Voskhod 2) then we find NASA has 9 hours per man and Russia just over 39 hours per man. Even this does not equate to a five to one superiority.

But of course, we are all forgetting Project Gemini. By the time Project Gemini closed NASA had racked up 1024 hours in space. But Russia had not sent one more man into space during all the time Gemini was operational.

One more man flew on a Russian vehicle prior to Apollo 7 lifting off, and that was Vladimir Komarov, who spent the last day of his life orbiting the Earth before plummeting back to it and being killed when his parachutes failed.

So, total times in space by the time Apollo started manned flights:

NASA: 1024 hours. 26 crewmembers, 19 different astronauts, so either 39 or 54 hours per man, depending on how you want to calculate it.

USSR: 460 hours, 12 crewmembers, 11 different men, so either 38 or 42 hours per man, depending on how you want to calculate it.

In short, by the time Apollo put the first of its crew into orbit America had the lead in manned hours of spaceflight, however you look at it. The five to one superiority is simply wrong.

I replied to Sibrel and asked if his figures included the flights of Project Gemini, so I'll see what he says, if anything, on that score. I'll keep you posted.

[JayUtah]

The word "Gemini" never escapes Sibrel's lips. If he mentioned that project, he would have to point out that by the beginning of 1969 the gap had reversed, to 3-1 in favor of the United States. He would have to admit further that the types of activities undertaken in Gemini were the stepping stones to Apollo. That would undermine both his "Soviet superiority" argument and his "suddenly successful Apollo" argument.

[LunarOrbit]

Also, some of the things that Sibrel cites as examples of the Soviet lead were publicity stunts (ie. putting the first woman into orbit) and were totally irrelevant to whether or not Apollo could have succeeded.

[gwiz]

BS's attribution of the first rendezvous to the Soviets is also wrong. The Vostok 3/4 and 5/6 missions were designed to give this impression, but in each case the second launch merely put the spacecraft in the roughly the same bit of space as the first launch. They were still a few kilometres apart and without any means of matching velocity and position. The first real rendezvous was the Gemini 6/7 mission, where Gemini 6 manoeuvred to within a metre of Gemini 7 and stayed within a few metres for several hours.

[rocketdad]

Also keep in mind they had a lot of catching up to do. We inherited the entire German rocket program, complete with plans, personnel and prototypes.

I'm not up on the minutia of the history, but somebody else here surely can compare numbers of dead astronauts and failed missions?

Also, sheer numerical difference does not equal "superiority." A 16 year old kid in my area just got his driver's license this summer, and I've had one since the mid 80's. Yet, he drives a Legend racecar and I don't. If I went head-to-head with him in any vehicle on any road, he would probably drive my sox off.

[JayUtah]

www.clavius.org/techsoviet.html

This might help.

[Bob B.]

jasonthompson said:

Specifically, I asked him at what time this superiority was held.

His answer was very succinct: it was prior to Apollo, he said.

As best as I recall, Sirbel worded his 5-to-1 Soviet superiority quote to mean accumlative manhours in space. The only time this ratio occured was immediately following John Glenn's flight (Mercury-Atlas 6) when the US had 5.4 manhours in space and the USSR 27.1 manhours.

Below is a list I've compiled listing every manned flight prior to Apollo 7. First column is the mission name, second colmun is the number of crew members, next is mission duration in days:hours:minutes, and the last two columns are total accumlative manhours in space by the USA and USSR after completion of the listed mission. Prior to Apollo 7, the USA held a 3.7-to-1 advantage.


Mission……………...Crew…...Duration.…..US MH….USSR MH

Vostok 1…..……………1…….00:01:48…….0000.0…….001.8
Mercury-Redstone 3…..1…….00:00:15…….0000.3…….001.8
Mercury-Redstone 4…..1…….00:00:15…….0000.5…….001.8
Vostok 2…………..……1…….01:01:18…….0000.5…….027.1
Mercury-Atlas 6…........1…….00:04:55…….0005.4…….027.1
Mercury-Atlas 7…........1…….00:04:56…….0010.4…….027.1
Vostok 3………..………1…….03:22:22…….0010.4…….121.5
Vostok 4……..…………1…….02:22:57…….0010.4…….192.4
Mercury-Atlas 8…........1…….00:09:13…….0019.6…….192.4
Mercury-Atlas 9…........1…….01:10:20…….0053.9…….192.4
Vostok 5….…..………..1…….04:23:08…….0053.9…….311.5
Vostok 6….….….……..1…….02:22:57…….0053.9…….382.4
Voskhod 1………….…..3…….01:00:17…….0053.9…….455.3
Voskhod 2………….…..2…….01:02:02…….0053.9…….507.3
Gemini 3………….…….2…….00:04:53…….0063.7…….507.3
Gemini 4………….…….2…….04:01:56…….0259.5…….507.3
Gemini 5………….…….2…….07:22:55…….0641.4…….507.3
Gemini 7………….…….2…….13:18:35…….1302.6…….507.3
Gemini 6………….…….2…….01:01:51…….1354.3…….507.3
Gemini 8………….…….2…….00:10:41…….1375.7…….507.3
Gemini 9………….…….2…….03:00:21…….1520.3…….507.3
Gemini 10..………….….2…….02:22:47…….1661.9…….507.3
Gemini 11..………….….2…….02:23:17…….1804.5…….507.3
Gemini 12..…….……….2…….03:22:35…….1993.6…….507.3
Soyuz 1…..…………….1…….01:02:48…….1993.6…….534.1

Edit to add:

If you were to do the same type of table for EVA experience, the USA held something like a 30-to-1 advantage in EVA manhours prior to Apollo. The Soviets may have done the first spacewalk in 1965, but they wouldn't do another until 1969.

[Jason Thompson]

OK, I asked Sibrel if his figure included Project Gemini. His answer was very simple:

Yes.

Now, with vast amounts of data readily available to provide flight durations it is very easy to show he is wrong. I wonder how he'd react if I came back to him in a couple of days asking him to explain why my research disagrees with his. I'm guessing he'd be rude and dismissive.

[Bob B.]

jasonthompson said:

OK, I asked Sibrel if his figure included Project Gemini. His answer was very simple:

Yes.

There is no way he can jusitify that claim. Sibrel's exact quote is "The Soviets had a five-to-one superiority to the U.S. in manned hours in space". I can interpret this to mean only one of two possibilities: (1) total elapsed mission time in space regardless of crew size, or (2) total manhours in space, i.e. mission duration times crew size. In either case, the USA held a large advantage over the USSR by the time of Apollo. The table in my previous post is for the second case, in which the USA had 1,993.6 manhours in space versus 534.1 for the Soviets. In the first case the USA still leads by a 1,023.8 to 459.5 hours advantage.

[ottawan]

The USSR regained their superiority in man-hours in space with the Salyuts & Mir post ASTP.

Prior to the shuttle manned space belonged to the Soviets for 6 years.

Not sure if it got to 5:1 though

[Mr Gorsky]

The USSR regained their superiority in man-hours in space with the Salyuts & Mir post ASTP.

Prior to the shuttle manned space belonged to the Soviets for 6 years.

Not sure if it got to 5:1 though

That's as maybe, but Sibrel's claim is that Apollo cannot possibly have succeeded because the USSR had a 5:1 advantage over the USA in manned hours in space, therefore the chances of the USA landing a man on the moon before them is just ludicrous.

Any redressing of the Americans' clear lead in this regard from missions post 20 July 1969 is beside the point. Surely even BS wouldn't try to use figures from years after Apollo ceased to justify his theory. Would he?

[Bob B.]

ottawan said:

The USSR regained their superiority in man-hours in space with the Salyuts & Mir post ASTP.

Prior to the shuttle manned space belonged to the Soviets for 6 years.

Not sure if it got to 5:1 though

By the end of the Skylab program the United States had nearly 22,000 manhours in space versus less than 4,900 for the Soviets. Of course, other than the ASTP, the US presence in space all but ceased until 1981 when the Space Shuttle got off the ground. As you say, Ottawan, the Soviets owned space during this time, but it wasn't until 1978 before they over took the USA in total time in space. With their long-stay missions they really started to accumulate manhours. The ratio peaked in their favor at about 3.5-to-1 in 1990.

Starting in 1995 things gets a little harder to keep track of because the USA and Russia started performing joint missions, and we now have people from so many different nations flying. Today it looks like the Russians/Soviets still hold about a 1.75-to-1 advantage over the United States.

[Al Johnston]

For the purposes of this argument we can simplify the post-1995 situation though, as only three nations have the capability to put humans into low Earth orbit, so

Anyone going up in a US launcher counts to the US total

Anyone going up in a Russian launcher adds to their total

Should the Chinese ever launch guests into orbit, that would add to their total.

I suppose time spent in the ISS could be divided up pro-rata between the nations that built it.

I seem to recall someone went up in a Soyuz and returned by Shuttle, or was it vice versa?

[gwiz]

alasdhair said:

I seem to recall someone went up in a Soyuz and returned by Shuttle, or was it vice versa?

Both, actually. The first US astronaut to Mir launched in a Soyuz and returned in a Shuttle, while the same Shuttle mission carried a Russian Mir crew who returned in a Soyuz, replacing a crew who launched in a Soyuz and returned in the Shuttle. The ISS crew at the time of the Columbia disaster had launched in a Shuttle, but had to return in a Soyuz.

Edit: I forgot the first long-duration ISS crew, up on a Soyuz, down on a Shuttle.

[Bob B.]

alasdhair said:

For the purposes of this argument we can simplify the post-1995 situation though, as only three nations have the capability to put humans into low Earth orbit, so

Anyone going up in a US launcher counts to the US total

Anyone going up in a Russian launcher adds to their total

The following formula was use to arrive at my 1.75-to-1 ratio:

* Any NASA astronaut, regardless of launch or return vehicle, counts toward USA total.

* Any Russian cosmonaut, regardless of launch or return vehicle, counts toward Russian total.

* Any non-NASA or non-Russian counts toward the nation that launched them.

Alternatively, I compared the total hours accumulated by NASA astronauts versus Russian cosmonauts, excluding persons of all other nationalities. In this case the ratio again came out to be 1.75-to-1.

If we go by Al's formula, i.e. giving full credit the the nation that launched them, then the Russian leads dwindles to 1.63-to-1.

None of the above figures includes the ISS Expedition 11 crew currently in orbit - one American and one Russian.

Just in case anyone is interested, there has been a total of 28,281.7 man-days acculumated in space by persons of all nations as of the time of this post (including Expedition 11).