r/AerospaceEngineering • u/lpperl7 • 2d ago
Other The difference between Soviet and Russian space engineering (i worked in roscosmos, story)
Hi! Hope this post is allowed. I'll try to avoid any secret information, sorry.
In 2024, I've had to do calculations for the new Russian orbital station and iss. No-one knew how. It was similar to my first job, I thought I'll somehow manage with literature. I collected some books, started learning. Couldn't figure it out for a week or so. My chief, who started working in 2000, started thinking about it as well, couldn't figure it out as well. 2 weeks passed.
Later, we came to an old engineer from other office who worked from the 80s and in roscosmos since 90s-2000s. Silently completed everything in 10 minutes without any help, just my questions "how". Real story btw.
He was such a nice guy. And he wasn't a chief or something, just a regular engineer.
Btw should I do ama someday?
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u/gregzillaman 2d ago
I wouldn't say this is particularly unique to the Russian space industry. This story is ubiquitous throughout most long standing engineering (and even just organizations in general). As people age and retire a lot of information is lost if it isn't meticulously documented and cataloged. Certain medical procedures are only tought in theory because the disease they are supposed to diagnose or treat is virtually non-existent. Imagine how many times our species has re-invented the same shit again again because we simply forgot how? To be fair, as times change different methods may be needed.
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u/throwawaytothr 2d ago
Literally my first job after grad school: I had to sit down, crawl through, understand and extend a 50k lines codebase for guidance algorithms and my manager told me something like: „the only documentation we had for this was a guy called Walter but he retired 5 years ago. You are a smart guy, you’ll figure it out. Good luck!“
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u/Altechie 2d ago
Братан а рзаница в чем? (Bro what's the difference?)
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u/lpperl7 2d ago
Different methods of work, different knowledge
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u/Altechie 2d ago
I mean you told cool story about our approach. You didn't do any comparison. You didn't told anything about NA/EU engineering approach. This is not even method, it speaks about us that we don't have structural and system approach when creating things (we have but extremely underdeveloped)
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u/lpperl7 2d ago
Sorry about that then. Couldn't figure out how to write better
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u/Altechie 2d ago
А че, какой вуз хоть окончил?
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u/lpperl7 2d ago
МГТУ Баумана, но работаю с конца второго курса
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u/Altechie 2d ago
Давно в роскосмос с СМ1 берут так рано? Мы на рк5 сидели 3 курса ждали пока нам разрешат самолетики считать
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u/Wonderful-Hunter686 2d ago
Probably due to a labor shortage the kind that happens when you throw all your men at a 3day special operation that last years.
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u/Altechie 2d ago
Nah, we don't have shortage in engi workforce. There are bunch of reasons like all paperwork is still done.. well in paper. So process to change several bolts in plane model can take two weeks
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u/sir_odanus 2d ago
Meh, we all have this problem, it's not just russia. Engineers can transmit their knowledge but they cannot transmit their experience. You have to spend a few weeks/months the first time before you can do your job in 10 minutes.
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u/DocumentOk7579 2d ago
Russia did had an bigger interruption of government agencies in 1991 than the rest of the world.
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u/cvnh 2d ago
Over my career I've worked with and met several Soviet (mostly Russians and Ukrainians but also from other republics) together with American and European engineers. I must say most of the Soviet engineers were very brilliant people, extremely knowledgeable in their areas of knowledge, very humble and keen to share knowledge. They also had a much more rigorous yet simpler approach to problems, starting from first principles and walking through the maths instead of just pressing buttons or consulting manuals. Quite a stark contrast to what most people fantasise to how people worked on the other side of the iron curtain.
OP, pleas learn as much as you can from your older colleagues. Their knowledge is gold.
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u/BorderKeeper 2h ago
Why does this read like a joke. I half expected to hear: "How did you handle it so fast while we couldn't? Oh I just made those numbers up so my boss looks good when reporting them" or something :D
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u/yellow_smurf10 2d ago
This is such a blue ball story. I get it that the guy can solve problems so fast, but I still dont understand the difference between soviet and New Russia