Manindra
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If you can afford it. The problem with Sovietunion was senseless mega projects. Best example for this madness was the russian supersonic airplane Tu 144. We europeans build the Concorde and the soviets wanted a supersonic aircraft too.
At the end you had two technological wonders, Concorde and the TU-144 but a problem occured. The supersonic market was a luxury market. Concorde was profitable only on special routes. London - New York, Bahamas, Paris - New York. The TU-144 simply had only one destination: moscow - alma ata. The amount of rich people who want go Alma Ata is...zero. So while Concorde served 27 years and made a profit the russian TU-144 was stopped after just 100 flights. 16 TU-144 build, billions put into R&D. And for what? Nothing.
Same goes for Buran. Nobody denie that Buran is masterwork. But it did only one time enter space and was then stored...never fly again.
Nobody can afford a big project without commercial back up. Soviet failed because their most research work focus on military.
Take example, Despite being robust earth moving technology they fail to stand in car, earth moving vehicles & rail engine in world market. They fail to design a commercial plane which can compete in world market if I exclude Sukhoi 100 Super jet which design with help of Boeing & Airbus.
People goes gaga over India import 70% of their defence equipment but they fail to see that India save more than 20 time in civilian commodity.
So, that US & EU who commercialise their technology & find financial back up for other R& D project.