The Space Shuttle was better than Russian Spacecraft during the same period.

If an average Soyuz mission costs around $114 million, and an average shuttle mission costs $1.2 billion, what exactly is the advantage of the shuttle being reusable? The intention of building a reusable vehicle was to make a program that was easier and cheaper. Since it clearly failed to achieve these goals, the fact that it was reusable is neither here nor there. Note that this reusable space shuttle failed twice, meaning two of the units were completely lost to the ether. The result: only 3 orbiters left. Coupled with safety issues and difficulty in maintenance, this made the entire point of having a reusable craft, i.e. being able to send up a large number of frequent, cheap, routine flights, completely defunct. Also the shuttle wasn't completely reusable, only the orbiter was. The fuel tanks had to be rebuilt for each flight. While the shuttle may have been more comfortable for the astronauts on board, it also crucially killed more of the astronauts on board, as well as leaving astronauts waiting around for months due to large delays to virtually every scheduled flight. Again I would argue that since the comfortable shuttle failed to achieve most of its other intended objectives, the comfort level is irrelevant. Nobody would prefer a more comfortable trip if the cost was a reduction in safety and reliability. With regards to the payload I would make the same point. Since the failure rate was higher, as were fatalities, and since the payload capacity was largely used in the service of a useless, funds-swallowing monstrosity (the ISS), the payload capacity is to an extent irrelevant. Yes, the shuttle had a greater payload capacity, but not one that was put to particularly good use. Additionally, is the difference between 3.5 g and 5.0 g of force in re-entry really significant? The spacecraft that would have replaced the shuttle, Ares, would have reverted to the same re-entry procedure as the Soyuz uses. Hence NASA clearly do not see this minor difference as significant. My rebuttals to your rebuttals: 1) The ISS being a waste of money is not only my opinion, but the opinion of many professionals in the field, including NASA's Administrator, Michael Griffin. NASA has all but admitted that it was a mistake. If you take its intended mission to be primarily scientific, then it has produced outrageously poor value for money given its $100 billion price tag. No science has really come out of it at all; at least nothing that couldn't have been done under simulated conditions on Earth. I submit that if you disagree that the ISS is a waste of money, or at least, exceptionally poor value for money, then I challenge you to cite an example of good science that has come from it and we can decide together if it was worth $100 billion. NASA has a national budget of only $18 billion a year, and fully $2 billion of this is sucked up by keeping a mostly empty, incomplete space station in low earth orbit. Again I say this is crucial money that could be spent in ways that would yield far greater return in terms of science. The total cost of the immensely productive Cassini-Huygens mission stands at only $3.7 billion. How about putting a Cassini-style mission in orbit around Neptune for less than the cost of two years worth of ISS maintenance. http://www.guardian.co.uk... http://www.nasaspaceflight.com... http://www.infowars.com... 2) Your point about the size of the shuttle's payload is well taken. But given that this payload capacity has not been used to its full potential somewhat negates the benefit, given the fact that a shuttle mission is more expensive by literally an order of magnitude. If 10 Soyuz missions can be sent for the cost of a single shuttle mission, you can put more payload into orbit with Soyuz for the same amount of money (and more safely). 3) Since 1967 there have been 101 Soyuz flights to date, and 4 failures. 2 fatal, 2 non-fatal. This a 3.96% failure rate. There have been 135 shuttle launches to date, with 3 failures. 2 fatal, 1 non-fatal. 2.22% failure rate. So, in the totality of Soyuz's lifetime (1967 to present) there has been a slightly higher failure rate than the totality of the shuttle's lifetime, although I say again with a lower overall fatality rate. However the title of this debate is "The Space Shuttle was better than Russian Spacecraft during the same period." The notion that because the two programs start and finish at different times means we aren't comparing them over the same period is somewhat contradicted by your own proposition. According to your own proposition, we are clearly comparing the two spacecraft over the time period of the shuttle. If we compare the operation of the shuttle and Soyuz for the period 1981-2011, the Soyuz had only 1 failure, Soyuz T-10A in 1983, and this was Non-Fatal. There were 77 manned Soyuz flights during this period, hence a 1.3% failure rate, and a 0.00% fatality rate. I point out that it is somewhat unfair of you to decide at this point that we aren't comparing the Soyuz and the shuttle over the same period, as this is what the proposition clearly states. This isn't a debate about Soyuz versus Shuttle, but shuttle versus Russian spacecraft over the same period. Note that Soyuz is not a single craft as it has been modified many times. Soyuz is more the name of a program. To be fair, if we were comparing Soyuz to US spaceflight over the entirety of its life we would have to go back further than the shuttle's lifetime in terms of US manned space flight also, i.e. right back to 1967. But as I'm sure you agree, this would be a different debate. You state clearly in your opening post: "However, I feel that it was safer, more technologically advanced and more reliable than Russian spacecraft that operated during the same period as the space shuttle did." Which, put simply, it wasn't. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov... http://www.space.com... http://www.space.com...