/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7900245
indeed. Russia knows how to make a manly rocket.

>>7564626

>>7007177
>"Russian much more successful"
>pic of Energia than only launched twice, Russia's second least successful space program

but I know what you mean. Assuming you mean "higher launch rate" by successful, the answer is that they settled on launch solutions that were good enough and then used the heck out of them. Kosmos-3M for light payloads, Soyuz/Molniya for medium and crew, Proton for heavy. US also did lots of launches, but they are spread over more rocket designs so had more teething pains.

But another way to look at it is from the demand side. Russia had to launch more often because their satellites didn't last as long.

For manned launch, the Soyuz is just an inherently better design than the Shuttle. Cheaper, safer, shared production/infrastructure with unmanned launches. Same reason all the Commercial Crew entrants hope to reap savings (and why SLS will be as fucking expensive as the Shuttle).