Didn't the Russians use a lot of steel in their Space Age era rockets? It always seemed to me like we went too high tech too quickly and the Soviets were practical to a fault, and the truth should be something in between.
Soyouz is simple.
Soyouz is reliable.
Soyouz is cheap.
Soyouz is in use for 50+
Soyouz is still there while NASA has no launcher available nowadays, despite decades of « on the edge innovation ».
Soyouz is great. Its an engineering marvel.
And Starship is likely to become even greater.
Only in relation to other single-use rockets.
SpaceX has been eating russian's (and other countries') space business for years now, simply because they are cheaper.
His nuclear cruise missile program is so lame by comparison.
Building a dynamic, innovative organisation capable of developing a re-usable architecture would be very expensive, and unless they can not just equal but handily beat SpaceX, there's just no money in it. Their current launch systems already meet their military needs, so there's no political support from that quarter either.
Their war chest is not looking too healthy though, the hit to oil prices in the last 5 years depleted a lot of their reserves. Thanks for the correction.