undefined | Better HN

0 pointspimmen8y ago0 comments

And yet they didn't produce that much stuff that people actually wanted. If you went to a grocery store in Moscow in the 80s the shelves were empty unless you knew when the store would buy the allotted inventory.

Not saying the USSR didn't produce a lot of good research and science but they weren't the best at transferring that research into technology the people really wanted. Because of the free market the US and Europe could try all different kinds of hardware and software ideas that lead to the ecosystem we have today, for example. Same thing with finance.

0 comments

watwut8y ago

> Not saying the USSR didn't produce a lot of good research and science but they weren't the best at transferring that research into technology the people really wanted

They did not cared, in the first place through. They were not capitalist. They actual failure is that they did not achieved world domination and that they did not managed to build that new superior human they wanted. Those were the ideological goals.

They also did monernized Russia after they came to power, monarchy they replaced was very behind the technology of the time.

digikata8y ago

Ironically though, many rockets built by companies specializing in the US defense are dependent on Russian rocket engines to send their vehicles into space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180#Replacement_for_the_RD-...

gandhium8y ago

Yes, those engines (and ISS parts) were specifically ordered by US to keep Soviet rocket production busy and to avoid their migration to North Korea or Iran.

Bendingo8y ago

I've not heard this idea before. Why wouldn't US simply allow the Soviet rocket production to just die?

Please do you have a reference for it?

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse