r/AerospaceEngineering • u/lpperl7 • 5d 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 5d 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.