I know what some people are going to say. "You Commie Bastard! I knew someone who has meetings in their pool is rooting for the other team!" The fact of the matter is NASA and the European Space Agency have partnered with Roscosmos (Russian Space Agency) for a long time and it has been a very good partnership.
This topic is going to be broken down into multiple parts. For this first post on the subject I want to focus on the Soyuz. This is one of the most reliable spacecraft ever built.
History Of The Soyuz
So one thing I want to mention up front which can be confusing is that Soyuz ("Union") is the name of both the booster and the three man spacecraft. The spacecraft was originally developed to go to the moon. The Russians / Soviet Union were going to fly two men to the moon in comparison to the Apollo Program which was designed to send three men to the moon. The Russian design was to leave one Cosmonaut in Lunar orbit while another one went down to the surface in a lander. It ultimately wasn't successful because they couldn't get their N-1 rocket to work. Personally I wish they wouldn't have given up and got everything figured out and went as well even if it would have been long after NASA successfully sent nine total missions to the moon. Six of which landed successfully and three which also came back safely but didn't land on the surface.
1967 was the first mission for the Soyuz. It unfortunately ended in disaster when the parachute didn't open when the decent module reentered the atmosphere causing the capsule to slam into the ground. That killed the one cosmonaut on board. The only other disaster the Soyuz had was in 1971 when the cabin depressurized prematurely just before reentry. That killed the three cosmonauts on board. I'm not sure why they didn't have their space suits on. It might not have been protocol at that time upon reentry. I'm not sure.
Launch
The Soyuz is launched out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan. Here is a picture of the system on the launch pad. Again one thing that is confusing when talking about the Soyuz is that the rocket and the spacecraft are both called Soyuz.
Here is a picture of the rocket after launch on the way to the International Space Station.
Basic Design
I ended up drawing a picture to illustrate the three modules of the Soyuz. 
There are three main modules to the Soyuz.
- Orbital Module
- Descent Module
- Service Module
The Orbital Module is mainly used to dock to space stations. Mir when it was in orbit and the International Space Station currently. Most of the communication hardware is also attached to that module and there is extra room in that module if the Soyuz isn't going to dock immediately to the space station. It isn't uncommon for the Soyuz to do a two day "orbital chase" to finally catch up to the space station. The occupants can't really just stay in their seats in the descent module for that amount of time.
The Descent Module is the center module and that is where the crew sits when they launch and also when they reenter the Earth's Atmosphere. This is the only module that can survive reentry. The other modules don't have heat shielding and are separated from the decent module before reentry and ultimately burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.
The Service Module is where the fuel tanks are and where the solar panels are connected. On the bottom of the Service Module is where the thrusters are to propel the Soyuz once in space.
If it isn't broken don't fix it!
The Soyuz has been extremely dependable and the same basic design is being utilized from the 1960's. Some things have been upgraded like the computer systems inside but the same basic principle is the same.
They also use almost the same design for the progress resupply ship. It is almost exactly like the Soyuz but isn't designed to carry people. It is just designed to carry supplies up to the International space station.
Here is a picture of the Soyuz and the Progress docked to the International Space Station.
Can you tell which one is the Soyuz and which one is the Progress?
The Soyuz is the one closest to us in the picture and the Progress is the one further away. The main way you can quickly visually tell the difference is that the Soyuz has a "tighter" connection between the Orbital Module and the Decent Module. Kind of like a woman with a corset on. Sounds silly and I'm not going to go through all the differences but that is the quick way to tell.
Here is a 20 minute long but excellent video about the Soyuz from time in orbit to docking to the International Space Station.
Back To Earth
Once again the three modules of the Soyuz separate and only the Descent Module survives reentry. The parachute is deployed and the capsule lands on land opposed to landing in the water like Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft. The Soyuz descent capsule fires retro rockets right before it hits the ground but I guess the impact is still very noticeable to the crew.
Conclusion
For years I have been sick of the American media acting like Russian hardware is sub par. We have also seen that depicted in movies like Armageddon where the Russian Cosmonaut started beating the modified Space Shuttle with a wrench like he would do on the Mir Space Station to fix things. That is just how things always seem to be depicted.
The truth of the matter is the Soyuz is an excellent design and has a stellar track record. After the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster happened the Soyuz was our only ticket for manned space flight until we got the remaining Shuttles flying again. It has also became our only ticket now that the Shuttles have been retired. Really when it boils down to it I see the Soyuz continuing to be a vital piece to manned space flight for the foreseeable future.
Thank you for viewing my post!
(Images Credited to NASA. Video Credited to the ESA.)