Comment Re:Strange quality problems (Score 2) 96
For decades launching these rockets was not a problem for Russia.
Actually, for several decades, they had just about as many problems as they do now... and their success ratio was more-or-less in the same range (.98-.99) as the Shuttle (or pretty much any other launcher*). The only things that have significantly changed is that until the fall of the Soviet Union you never heard about the failures in the first place, and in the last decade or so the failures have started being covered in the non-specialist/popular press. These changes have conspired to create the illusion of 'extremely reliable' Soviet/Russian boosters and a recent and unusual string of failures.
* Yes, essentially all boosters that end up in regular service pretty much end up in this narrow range. There's a few a hair lower, and few a bit higher, but they're outliers.