It's hard to decline when you have always had a lot of problems. Take for example the common refrain that successfully landing on Mars is very difficult. If you look at the following graph it was the Soviets (/Russians) who had most of the hard time:

https://flowingdata.com/wp-...

Even while the USSR struggled in space science, they were the dominant military space power. My article reminds everyone not to underestimate the military aspects of Russian space power.

You haven't shown that they are still dominant. Launch rate is not a relevant measure here due to spacecraft lifetime. Something that doesn't change is the number of missile warning satellites. How many do they have operating now? Same with imaging. We know the military hasn't used a Proton in awhile.

I measure military capabilities: Similar to Scientific Achievement, this index is based on whether a state is thought to have certain military capabilities in space like direct ascent ASAT or electronic warfare capabilities.

this index is based on whether a state is thought to have certain military capabilities in space like direct ascent ASAT or electronic warfare capabilities.

I think the more sophisticated and *vastly* proliferated U.S. military and commercial networks counteracts a lot of those capabilities: Just look at how the Russians have struggled to counteract even Starlink in Ukraine over the past 18 months. And now, just today, we learn that SDA has ordered yet another tranche of 72 satellites. The U.S. can overwhelm with sheer quantity now.

I am not saying that the Russians do not have significant capabilities in these respects you name. I am saying that the game is rapidly changing, in ways that reduce the salience of these capabilities.

No, you are not measuring space related military capabilities with your examples.
a. direct ascent ASAT is not a space capability. A country can do a direct ascent ASAT without a space launch capability because it used a suborbital rocket.
b. The bulk of electronic warfare capabilities has little to do with space flight capability.

The capabilities are from the Secure World Foundations Global Counterspace Capabilities report. You can find it here: https://swfound.org/counter...

Counterspace is a small portion of military space capabilities.

Based on whether a state is "thought" to have capabilities? What kind of BS is that? I "think" the Russians have sharks with lasers on their heads so that makes them a power?

It's based on the secure world foundations space threat assessment. Counter space capabilities are often highly classified, therefore unknowable by the general public. Experts make estimations based on the best available evidence, hence: "thought"

"they were the dominant military space power" <-- Now there's a baseless assertion. What figure of merit are you using which you think is dispositive?

I think the Space Power Index is a reasonable stab at this question, but I think Duchaine needs to offer us (even with a link to a proprietary website, if not in the text of this essay) a detailed breakdown of how everything he looks at is quantified.

"Cumulative orbital launches" is easy. You can just count those, by number or payload mass. The other factors are a lot trickier to quantify.

"Cumulative orbital launches" is pretty meaningless if the great mass of those launches were decades ago and have long since ceased to function/reentered the atmosphere. It's the old "what have you done for me lately" question that matters most. The British Royal Navy once ruled the waves but that was long ago.

"Cumulative orbital launches" is pretty meaningless if the great mass of those launches were decades ago

Oh, absolutely.

Consider 2023 launch statistics to date:

57 SpaceX
36 China
11 Russia

(The U.S. has 65 launches total right now, which is six times what Russia has.)

The Russians are, I am afraid, a pale shadow the launch juggernaut they once were.

It's also a misleading statistic because of the reason they had so many launches--since the Soviets were very late to developing electronic image transmission for recon sats, they had to keep launching disposable film-based modules long after the US moved to a smaller, longer-lasting fleet of KH-11s. So their higher number of launches was actually, at least partially, a symptom of less power.

Yeah, perhaps. In terms of technological advances, the US should get a credit for developing the CCD for imaging without film.

But the sheer number of launches was still an accomplishment, for both sides. The world did not pass the 1966-67 level of total launches until very recently.

I measure military capabilities: Similar to Scientific Achievement, this index is based on whether a state is thought to have certain military capabilities in space like direct ascent ASAT or electronic warfare capabilities.

Then I would argue Russia has very little in the way of space based military capabilities.

This graph must be old.

I wonder if you used a similar sort of index to measure NASA, how the preeminent space agency would fare? They dont seem to actually be able to design or build anything anymore.

The ISS and Gateway were/are mainly designed and built in foreign countries. Even most "US" modules were built in Europe. NASA paid Boeing for the FGB module. Boeing bought it from Russia. Then they stuck an American flag decal on the side. It didnt fool anyone. The SLS rocket is mainly Shuttle hand-me-downs and is launched so infrequently that there is not much of a mass to space annually. Everything else that launches stuff for NASA is built by commercial outfits. The entire Artemis program meeting their goal of a woman on the Moon is solely dependent on how Space X plans and hardware come together.

For some reason, NASA likes to feign responsiblity by having their Mission Control and theirPublic Affairs people speaking, yet its Space X in control.

If you look upon it from the standpoint of ability to meet program goals, NASA hardware is superfluous because none of it actually accomplishes the stated goals. The program requires the Space X Starship. Orion and SLS help to orbit astronauts, but the program could do everything required without them.

Yet NASA seems to outspend everyone else put together. Overall it does not give me a warm feeling.

I dont think an index based mainly on events and technologies half a century old is entirely legitimate.or useful. When the Russians build things they often build them by the dozens. Luna 25 looks like it was resurrected from the leftovers of the early 1970s.

The R7 style rocket was the first ICBM in 1956. They are built.like sausages with relatively minor updates and are used for lots of launches, including Soyus and Luna 25. The core and 4 side stages are similar and so the Russians have the advantage of 5 similar builds for every rocket. They are great, economical 1950s technology. They are not modern.

Most of.the Russian modules of ISS are based on modules developed for Salyut and Almaz. In fact the module.shells were most likely manufactured in the 1970s and only interior outfitting was upgraded more recently.

The biggest downfall of these methods is the failure to provide new experiences for new or old engineers. In a space program this is a serious liability and that score needs to ne subtracted from any positives resulting from mass launched into orbit.

Declining? Maybe not.

Declined, yes.

It is accomplished!

That Baikal could have been the first fly-back...but no....

Not true. It was never going to happen and design hasn't been validated. Just let go of everything Russian.

I was just being diplomatic...:)

One other point that struck me in this essay:

This index may seem subjective, and it is. Great power status is inherently subjective. It depends on whether the other international systems consider your country as a great power.

Perceptions are, to be sure, part of the equation in geopolitics - even when they do not reflect actual reality (which is, to be sure, often the case!). And the fact is that even in the 1980s, there was a lot in the way of popular perception that the Soviets were not merely on a level playing field in space with the United States, but perhaps even ahead in some ways. Its science missions may not have been as numerous or sexy, but it certainly had a good deal more lift capability, and and it had humans pretty constantly in space via a series of space stations, and this led a lot of observers to overestimate what the Soviets were doing, or could do, in space. I think this was of a piece with how the outward facade of Soviet power remained robust almost right to the very end in 1989.

I recall some of this kind of perception having been alive at the time, like this issue of National Geographic from October 1986, which caused me as a wee lad a good deal of Cold War anxiety at the time, post-Challenger...

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Is Charles Vick still with us?

Wiki indicates he's still alive.

Glad to hear that. My history of the V2 which I wrote in the early-mid 90's is now available at academia. I hope you all enjoy reading it, as it will make a lot of things clear for you.

Moving on to the topics at hand, the new Russian launch complex has still not been completed, to my knowledge. The Russian launchers are so far behind SpaceX's that the are only sufficient for military uses. I have no idea how the competition between their launcher firms is going.

I note the lack of coverage of China's space station. They have announced their own re-usable launchers.

Before I go, I see where 70% of the US taxpayers think that the finding the next asteroid or comet piece headed our way well before it hits is NASA's highest priority. So no more Chelyabinsk's.

"Moving on to the topics at hand, the new Russian launch complex has still not been completed, to my knowledge."

Do you mean Vostochny?

I seem to remember that was the name given.

Thanks to Daniel Duchaine for an interesting discussion of the very on-topic question of Russian space-capabilities.

That said:

This past decade Russia has steadily increased its share of objects launched, maintained its share of scientific achievements, but most importantly has reestablished its lead as the preeminent military space power.

1. I would ask Daniel to clarify how he quantifies his claim that Russia "maintained its share of scientific achievements" given the decline in technical education in Russia and the accompanying brain drain of much of their best talent (which only accelerated after the outbreak of war in Ukraine).

2. But it is even more difficult to square the claim about Russia's preeminence as a military power, given the much greater capabilities and sheer quantity of U.S. assets in space, which at this point I have to think includes Starlink, too. And that being the case, if the Soviets had most orbital launches in the 70's and 80's (and they did!) there is no question who has the most now:

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

1. I see now that “maintained” its share of scientific achievement was incorrect of me to say. I meant they maintained their past scientific achievements though it’s true their shares decreased as a result of new space powers.

2. It’s a space power index, it measures power in space. That is why I chose to measure counterspace capabilities instead or terrestrial military capabilities that come from space. The U.S. does have much more orbital launches today, the main reason the U.S. remains the strongest of the space powers!

That is why I chose to measure counterspace capabilities instead or terrestrial military capabilities that come from space.

Thank you for the reply!

I suppose one obvious difficulty is: Do we even have enough information, in terms of access to what is actually declassified, for us to make much in the way of concrete assessments of what the counterspace capabilities of the U.S., Russia, and China actually *are*?

But the larger issue, which I have hinted at in my other comments here, is that this seems to be an inadequate way of measuring whatever we might call space power. The proliferation and sophistication of satellite networks, especially in low earth orbit, are unfolding so rapidly now that we may have to rethink how we think of "space power," in ways that were not true even a decade ago, let alone during the Cold War.

You are overselling counterspace and underselling the "terrestrial military capabilities that come from space." Counterspace is a small part of the milspace portfolio for this time and age.

Credit for past achievements only has meaning in that it shows a decline because of the lack of newer achievements.

"maintained its share of scientific achievements, How can this be true when it hasn't launched a successful planetary mission since 1984? And the issues with MLM-L (Nauka) module?

Part of it is the nature of the scientific achievements variable in the space index. Russia doesn't lose their past achievements just because they aren't accomplishing new things. You are right that they did decline in this variable due to the success of the other great powers like Japan and Europe in their scientific missions.

Not accomplishing new scientific achievements is a major decline.

"In the mid-1990s, the US surpassed Russia as the dominant space power".
What data supports that claim? It was more like the mid-1960's. US space systems could do more than the Soviets (the Challenger accident caused a blip but that was it).

Have to think it depends on how you define "dominant."

How does Daniel Duchaine define it? He offers up the "Space Power Index," which attempts to measure raw "Cumulative Orbital Launches," and adds a couple other activities, "Scientific Achievements" (how do you define that?) and "military capabilities." He adds, strikingly, "In the 1970s and ’80s, the US caught up in scientific achievements, but the USSR continued to lead in objects launched, military capabilities..." What is less clear is just how he quantifies some of these, though....

1. OK. You have to grant him "orbital launches." (See graph in my follow-up post below.) The Soviets just launched a lot more stuff in the 1970's and 80's. Mainly, they *had* to, because their military satellites were short-lived, so they had to launch more of 'em.

2. "Military capabilities" are still elusive to characterize, given how much of what was launched even back in the 1970's and 1980's remains classified: the USSR definitely launched more milsat payloads, but the U.S. military does seem to have had considerably more sophisticated and capable platforms... At worst, I think they cancelled out.

3. I think "scientific achievements" is the hardest lift he has. Soviet science missions were not inconsiderable in that period, but the U.S. was at minimum on even playing field in 1965-75, by any comprehensive examination of what was being sent out. After 1975, the U.S. was clearly moving into a dominant position, starting with the Voyager and Vikings, and moving on from there to a series of more sophisticated space telescopes and planetary missions in the mid to late 1980's well beyond anything the Soviets could field.

So, all that said, I have to think that the Space Power Index, as he formulates it, somewhat overstates Soviet dominance of space in the 1970's and 1980s.

I do think he has a point about space stations, though. While Shuttle (and even Apollo) were more capable than Soyuz in overall capabilities, the Soviets were simply putting more man hours in space than NASA was throughout that entire period. Why? Because they almost always had a space station in orbit. The U.S. had nothing after Skylab.

Like said, number of orbital launches is meaning less since the US had more robust and longer lasting spacecraft. The US went to EO spysats earlier and the USSR relied on film a lot longer.
The US had more milcomsats covering more of the spectrum. And exploited the more of the RF spectrum with spysats.

The US missions overtook the Soviets earlier than the mid 70's. Lunar Orbiters and Mariners took more and higher resolution photos of the moon and Mars. Surveyor were better landers until the Lunar Module, of which Luna 15 and subs could not match.

The USSR had no outer planet probes or any to Mercury. Pioneers and Mariner 10 flew 71-74

I agree that what you see in the 70's and 80's is the Soviet Union compensating for considerably more primitive and short-lived military satellites vis-a-vis the U.S. by launch lots more of 'em. How to compare the two? It is not so easy. As I said, there is still a lot that remains classified. My gut says that by the 1980's, the U.S. had significantly better intel from orbit than the Soviets had, and likely better ability to interdict what the Soviets could do up there than vice versa. But it would be very hard to even try quantifying that.

And as I noted above, the U.S. was pretty clearly doing more in terms of space science, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Maybe we can debate about where the inflection point was, and it is frustrating that Daniel does not break that down here. I am tempted to agree that you could put it in the late 1960's rather than the mid-1970's. That said, the Soviets certainly had a reasonably robust science program throughout this period (unlike, well, what Russia has NOW), even if it had its limitations. In planetary science, the one place where the Soviets were doing more and better work was Venus. The U.S. was in the lead everywhere else.

Graph of orbital launches, by year, and by country:

[Yes, this graph only goes up to 2015, and obviously in the 8 years since, it looks dramatically different, because SpaceX has been literally launching most of what goes to orbit, world-wide. But I only post this because we are looking at launch activity in the 1970's and 1980's for this immediate discussion.]
https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

On the comments about space stations, now that the Chinese have established theirs as well, there is a bit more data for some speculation as to why NASA (US government) could not sustain even one Skylab. Juxtapose that with the several commercial installations that are quite likely to succeed in the coming years, seems to suggest that the very huge political will to spend on a space station would be near impossible in a democratic nation, especially when the fear of the Soviet boogeyman had lessened by then.

This ties in with the notion that the arguments in support of human spaceflight stands poorly against the robotic alternative. Only the authoritarian governments are able to push such initiatives forward with or without popular support.

Commercial action on the other hand, are powered by dreams and Grand Visions. Hence, the next space inflection point will be ushered in with the commissioning of the first Commercial LEO Destination.

there is a bit more data for some speculation as to why NASA (US government) could not sustain even one Skylab

In fairness, it has to be said, Skylab was never designed or intended to be sustainable! It was an experimental space station, with limited supplies, intended only to support a handful of crew missions. It was only later that a resource strapped JSC started trying to think of ways it could be revived and upgraded as a focus of early Shuttle operations in LEO.

The long U.S. space station gap between 1974 and 2000 was in part a reflection of a limited political will but also the result of specific policy choices made by NASA itself, too often based on overly optimistic readings of what level of funding support it could get from either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, through multiple administrations and congresses. It is not too difficult to posit scenarios where it could have gone quite differently, with different (plausible) leadership at NASA at critical points.

Not a declining space power? Seriously? They're still using 50 year old designs for space capsules and rockets. Their budget is peanuts and is falling in terms of purchasing power and real dollars.

Congratulations again on a well-considered and potentially very useful tool for assessing relative strengths of the various spacefaring countries. Supporting arguments with facts is always a good thing. We all have our preferred pet story or individual data points, though, so a combined index helps give us all some common ground to talk about.

How well the index is received depends partly on who is the target audience. I take research on "Space Governance" to mean something of use to policy makers and other stakeholders. On a very simplistic level, one group might value understanding of the past, the historians. The other group just wants to get to the future, and values the past for the last, say, 24 months, as in, what have you done for me lately? Between the two (simplistic) groups, one sees cumulative launches as very important, the others, not as much.

One compromise which might mildly annoy both groups is, instead of total cumulative launches for all time, consider using a rolling 10- or 20- year average.

I hope you are able to get good coverage of the index from a peer reviewed journal, and/or conference presentations.

thanks John, I appreciate the feedback and the suggestion.

great article Dan and the "Space Power Index" is a great metric for understanding how capabilities evolve over time. I agree that a failure in a high risk / high complexity mission is not indicative of a trend. Russia remains a force to be reckoned with, especially in the heavy lift / LEO regime. Current access to semiconductors and microelectronics remains a limiting factor however.

Russia remains a force to be reckoned with

They won't be, if Putin keeps cutting Roscosmos's budget, though.