Technologies by which the West has not been able to catch up with the USSR so far

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Was there a technological lag between the USSR and the West? That's a moot point. In some areas it was, of course. But not at all. And it is not at all hopeless, as we were told, in perestroika.

I sketched the list from memory, briefly backing it up with clarifications from the network. The list is not complete - because I have never been specifically interested in this issue.

You can say the list is not sorted in any way - as I remembered and something came to my mind - I entered it into the list.

Rocket engines

RD-180, RD-181, NK-33 and AJ-26 - American modification (Aerojet) of the NK-33 engine.

I think there will be specialists who will clarify everything on this issue and what about the launch vehicles themselves and so on

Buran

the whole complex, including unmanned automatic flight control and the main landing.

Orbital space station. World, now the ISS. yes, the Americans created Skylab. The Americans were able to create a space station, but to make it workable (just to work on it, so that we could not be ticked off, but simply work) - no. In fact, Skylab failed as an orbital STATION.

AND moon rover, certainly…

ekranoplanes

If about the Mi-26 they can also say that they say they don't need it (which is very, very controversial!), Then one cannot say for sure “they don’t need” about cargo / transport aircraft. Not even talking about the An-225 Mriya, they An-124 Ruslan could not be surpassed. Yes, the An-124 is very close to the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, but Ruslan is slightly better.) In terms of the payload / range ratio, the C-5 is inferior to him.

AGV-80:) Automatic gas water heater … Technically, the West can, of course, do it, but in practice - to crap! He can't do it now! Because they will go broke if they do things that work without replacement for 40 years.

as well as many other Soviet household appliances with a service life of more than 10-20 years.

efficient uranium enrichment technology (for nuclear power plants)

(Proof that turned up - the United States was unable to master its own technology for enriching uranium using gas centrifuges)

VEL (fuel cells) for Soviet nuclear reactors … We can do it for the Americans, but they can’t do it for ours (cost-effective!). They are no longer very good at their own - they began to buy from us.

deepest mine (on the Kola Peninsula). superdeep borehole

The rocket train and the intercontinental rocket itself to it. BRZhK

unfortunately, work on the resumption of its release and deployment - in Russia again curtailed (this fall). No money.

Space plane. "Spiral" by Lozino-Lozinsky … This project was not implemented in the USSR, but not for technological reasons. The United States has only recently begun to create such devices.

in the photo there is only the EPOS orbital plane itself.

Production of unique materials in space. Ultrapure vacuum and almost unlimited time weightlessness provide exceptional opportunities for the production of materials that are simply impossible to obtain on Earth. For example, growing silicon crystals (silicon monocrystals).

Flurry (on the effect of cavitation) - this, however, just recently, the Japanese and Germans seemed to be able to repeat.

my photo, from the exhibition

Soviet physics and mathematics school

just do not say that in the West people are mentally flawed and Soviet people are simply smarter in life.:)

Rare earth metal production. And alloys made of them (aluminum-scandium, for example). This is debatable. In the West, it also exists and there is technology. But given the specifics of the production of rare earth metals (depending on the deposit), I think that we had unique technologies.

Space mirror … Space experiments program "Banner". The tests were quite successful, but things did not come to tests in geostationary orbit.

And the final one.

all the same I will write it too

Clinical examination. Free housing. Inexpensive housing and communal services. and much more…

They will tell me that this is supposedly from another series. Hmm … why not include it here if they couldn't reproduce ?!

After all, we were charged that the USSR was technically backward because it bought pipes for gas pipelines and did not do any other things (mostly household).

That the point is not that the USSR considered that it would be more economically efficient for it to buy pipes for gas pipelines in the West, and not to create its own production.

So in the West, they still have not been able to create something similar to the Soviet system of medical examination. What is easier to organize the production of VCRs or medical examination?