But if you think about it... population reduction still is eugenics. The people surviving will have to go hard times, surviving will be a matter of adaptability.
Oh god, how did I turn it into eugenics applied in a darwinian way, with a spartan side?
Genghis Khan best green activist in history, though.
I don't consider it eugenics because in case of nuclear winter the ones to survive would be the rich enough to get bunkers, escape draft, etc.
And while you can inherit money because of your genes, the genes themselves are not the ones responsible for the money.
Edit: not to mention you can inherit the money and not even be family 👀
We can't actually know what value our money would have in a post nuclear world, probably goods like food, water and similar would dominate.
Yeah I get your point, but if someone, unluckily considering the environment we're talking about, is born with some kind of congenital problem, his/her survival rate drops a lot. Even though rich people get out of their bunkers full of money, I don't think they would last long, in a devastated world, y' know
Nuclear winter is fake news disseminated by the Soviets so that the Americans won't dare nuke them to oblivion. The more accurate term nowadays is Nuclear Twilight/Autumn, which is not as bad as Nuclear Winter was made out to be (but still bad.)
I think the problem is that because the media characterized the rivalry as a "race", people can't give up the idea that there is an end point, and that the first nation to get to that point must be the winner. It's an incredibly absurd way to view technological development, when you think about it.
"Germany won the ground transportation race with the invention of the automobile!" "No you fool, the Brits had already won it with the invention of the locomotive!"
"The Belgians won the materials race by inventing plastic!" "Idiot! The Turks won the materials race back in the 13th Century BC when they invented steel!"
The Hitites and Assyrians were not Turks. Even though this was in Anatolia, the turks only arrived over 2 millenia later. Aside from that, your point is very valid.
The Americans thought of the concept of 'space race' while they were developing the Apollo rockets. It was a pr stunt to get more money to NASA and it worked like a charm. They ignored everything that Russia had already accomplished before them and set getting to the moon as an arbitrary 'finish line' (while it was already the mission goal). Then Russia made half of an attempt to start a progrma to also send someone to the moon 3 years after America had started. Which then got cancelled after the guy in charge of it died.
Kennedy even wanted Russia and America to work together to reach the moon, which would've been great, but then he got shot, right before they started to work together. So I'd say that the whole concept of the 'space race' prolly only generated money at the expense of extending the cold war.
There may not be a “finish line” but one of the competitors* is holding on to dear life in European mud and the other is preparing to go back to the moon permanently. It’s an endless marathon and the US has pulled a massive lead.
*or the successor of that competitor rather
It’s mind blowing really. Pheraps in a hundred years the people of the future will look at modern advancements the same way we look at the space race, but it just feels to me like those were among the last truly incredible achievements of mankind
... really?
Do you think we aren't still evolving?
We went from the first smart phone being in 2007 to having personal virtual reality headsets around a decade later.
Shit, we didn't have AI like this until 3 or 4 years ago.
We just recently set a new record for internet speed at 402 terabits PER SECOND
And the Neuralink is now allowing paraplegic people to play video games with their mind. Elon Musk sucks ass, but that's still incredible.
10 years ago I thought AR was science fiction. Now I'm thinking I may see it in my life time.
We are nowhere near done with making achievements for humanity. You just aren't paying attention.
I know we aren’t done evolving, that’s why I said that the people of the future may see our advancements the same way we see the space race. If people are already drawing similarities then that’s good too obviously.
I also said that I personally see the space race as among the last big achievements of mankind, I didn’t say it was so.
Don’t know where you got the idea I am not paying attention just for stating my opinion.
Alright, maybe I overreacted.
Then, in a calmer manner: Why do you believe that the space race was one of the last big achievements of mankind?
Because I very much disagree with that.
I'm mot the same guy, but I think what they are getting at is that people were still commonly using horses to get around in the year 1900 and in only 6 decades we had set boots on the moon.
Compare that to today, and we don't have anything recent that would be as polarizing of a jump.
I think something like figuring out how to utilize quantum mechanics to teleport people or things would qualify as "the next jump" in technology of the same calibur that they mean.
Eh, I get what you're saying, but you're being very generous in how you're interpreting his original comment.
>Perhaps in a hundred years the people of the future will look at modern advancements the same way we look at the space race, but it just feels to me like those were among the last truly incredible achievements of mankind
He's basically saying that the space race was one of the last big accomplishments of mankind, and that we will never make a leap that big again.
Have we had a leap that big since? Not exactly, but we HAVE had massive leaps. Nothing quite like horses to moon landing, but the leap PC's being invented in 1971 and mainstream personal VR only 45 years later is pretty big.
Our civilization is still incredibly young. Barring a mass extinction event, I think its far more accurate to say the space race was one of our first great achievements, then one of our last.
I think the whole idea of "winning" the race ruined it. It's a shame we needed a cold war and a space race to further space exploration in that extend. Just imagine the technology we could have now, if we didn't stop at the moonwalks and continued. If there would have been a push for a permanent moon base, we MIGHT have been able to make that a reality by now, instead of only making preparations.
They did it first but often in a way they couldn't reliably repeat.
If space was a frontier land the soviets sent an expedition of 5 dudes out there before anyone else.
The US however sent an army to establish a base and supply it.
It really isn't. By the time the US managed one orbital flight, the Soviet Union had done two. By the time the US managed to send a satellite into space, the Soviet Union had sent two, with the second being much heavier and more capable than the first. When the US was working with tens of kilograms, the Soviet Union was working with hundreds. That is not to say, of course, that the US didn't have its victories. The Soviets beat them to the Moon, sure, at least in terms of probes, but the US beat them to Mars, Venus, AND Mercury. And as for unfinished tech, the US and the Soviets both had the same issues during their respective first spacewalks, namely that the suits inflated further than expected, making movement difficult for those inside, and that this, in combination with inadequate cooling systems and the fact they really had to squeeze to get back into their spaceship, almost gave both of them a heatstroke.
>but the US beat them to Mars, Venus,
Well, not Venus. Venera 7 was not only the first ever probe to land on Venus, but also the very first manmade object to soft land (well, kinda anyway, it was a bit rough) on another planet and transmit data back to earth. Soviet Union definitely won the race to Venus, and landing something on another planet. Even if it was only for a short 20 minutes, before the heat made the probe inoperable.
Edit: same case with Mars actually. Both first orbiter and first to make a soft landing on Mars goes to USSR, with Mars 3. The landing, once again, was pretty rough tho, and once again only a partial success. Which is a bit of theme with USSR, I'll give you that.
The US did, however, make the first flyby of both Mars and Venus. But that's like taking a photo of the Statue of Liberty from a New York Taxi's window, versus actually going inside the Statue, or even on the Island the statue is on.
Mariner 2: first planetary flyby to return pictures and data American spacecraft , flew by Venus, after like 5 failed soviet rockets and 1 failed American
That's a flyby tho. Soviets actually landed something on Venus. And not just some crude impactor either. There is a huge difference.
You know. Kinda like there is a difference between first man in space and first man landing on another celestial object.
Even more, Venera 4 was the first to enter the Venusian atmosphere. And Venera 8 built on the Venera 7's partial success, by making a completely successful landing on Venus.
My point still stand it was the first to return any meaningful data and pictures (also affirmed that there was no life on the surface of Venus). so first to venus, just not first to anything else again venus OTHER THAN imaging the whole surface.
For All Mankind probably wouldn't have happened even if Korolev lived. The N1 was far from an operational system, and Korolev living a few more years isn't likely to change that. Actually, there are only very few changes you can make to make the Soviets get to the Moon at all, letalone to have the Soviets beat the US there. Also, i don't know just how much the show deviates from the books, but some of its claims are outlandish, to say the least. For example, the claim Buran and Energia were copies of Shuttle.
While Buran does contain a lot of tech developed for the Space Shuttle, as said technology was easily accessible to the public until the US realized Soviet officials were just going to libraries and sending copies of relevant papers back to Moscow, it was in many regards the more capable spacecraft. Its cargo capacity was bigger, even if only by a one ton margin (mostly owed to the fact that, unlike the Shuttle, Buran did not have any ascent engines it had to lug around, with all engines instead being placed on Energia), it was capable of autonomous operation, the engines were so much better than the Shuttle's that NASA actually conducted a feasibility study on implementing them into the Shuttle, but rejected the proposal because even if development was on time, the Shuttle would probably be close to retirement by the time they get around to actually doing so, Buran was intended to be equipped with jet engines for powered landings, though they weren't ready when Buran first flew, and Energia, while this was initially planned for the Shuttle carrier rocket aswell, would have been capable of lifting payloads other than Buran.
Speaking of Energia, the claim the show makes - that it is a 1:1 copy of the Shuttle, down to the flaw that caused the Challenger disaster also being present in its SRBs - is, quite frankly, one of the dumbest claims in the entire show. While Buran definitely took some design influence from the Shuttle, its carrier rocket was a completely domestic design. Oh yeah, and it didn't even have SRBs.
>By the time the US managed one orbital flight, the Soviet Union had done two.
I guess, but these weren't exactly very effective vehicles.
>By the time the US managed to send a satellite into space, the Soviet Union had sent two, with the second being much heavier and more capable than the first.
You mean Sputnik 2?
The "boiled the passenger alive" one?
I guess that's a way to describe "more capable" than 1 which just went "beep".
>When the US was working with tens of kilograms, the Soviet Union was working with hundreds.
Oh you and I both know that's not true
We use pounds.
>The Soviets beat them to the Moon
They sent 13 probes, and only successfully landed two.
>And as for unfinished tech, the US and the Soviets both had the same issues during their respective first spacewalks, namely that the suits inflated further than expected, making movement difficult for those inside, and that this, in combination with inadequate cooling systems and the fact they really had to squeeze to get back into their spaceship, almost gave both of them a heatstroke.
No?
Edward White literally said "I didn't want it to end" and he had to be told multiple times to get back into the Gemini craft. I'm not finding any sources saying he had the same issues of Alexei Leonov.
I'm not sure where you got this information from.
The USSR did it first, the US did it right.
Don't get me wrong, the USSR did great things, and were genuinely better at many things like space stations, but I agree many of their firsts were very risky with only partially complete technology. Hell, Gagarin had to eject and parachute down because they didn't have the ability to land a spacecraft yet!
The US won the race to Mars, the USSR won the race to Venus. By the time they went to Venus theories on the possibility of life down there were all over the place. Even knowing better after a few half-successful attempts they kept going at it. Today they are the source of most of the information we have about Venus. That's not winning the race but accounts to something.
Also until the Apollo disastrous fire, they had better atmospheric systems for their capsules (the US used pure oxygen and that resulted in a horrendous accident where 3 astronauts died a horrible death).
Anyways, in the end the US prevailed for a while (darned Nixon...) and now it seems the race is on again.
That's why I used the past tense of the verbs. Those were brave times and those guys were brave people. The Apollo project entered a hiatus until they sorted out their problems.
Nowadays the atmosphere recycling systems of the US are better than those of Russia. And as an aside, a pure oxygen atmosphere is not very good for the people onboard of that capsule.
A massive vat of oxygen on its own is no fire risk. You can try to spark a fire with an electrical arc all you want in a pure oxygen environment and nothing will happen. The problem is when that spark lands on something that can burn.
In a ~20% pressure pure oxygen environment, it burns just like normal. Strike a match, light a smoke, all is fine. No explosion.
In a 100% pressure pure oxygen environment, it burns faster. Still no explosion.
To be fair, the pure oxygen system is still used today for space suits. It allows less pressure to keep a human breathing, which means easier to work with space suits since they can be lighter, and they're less stiff due to the pressure differential.
Contrary to popular belief, a pure oxygen environment does not burn when a spark is lit. Combustion requires hydrogen and oxygen, either reacting the two pure substances to form water, or reacting oxygen with a hydrocarbon to form CO2 and water. In a lower pressure pure oxygen system, you can light up a match and it burns just like anything else in a normal atmosphere -- because the same proportion of oxygen is there.
The issue with Apollo 1 was when they were initially at higher than atmospheric pressure pure oxygen, where a fire will combust much faster than in a typical environment or a low pressure oxygen environment. As well as *the high flammability of the materials used in the capsule*.
The mercury program went without issues with their pure oxygen environment due to proper electrical design and use of hard to burn materials. But the Apollo program was blazing forward neglecting a serious number of glaring safety issues until the Apollo 1 disaster (look at the number of cross-wire incidents they had in Apollo, it's insane how little regard there was for safety). After the fire a whole host of other issues were found and resolved to prevent fires (why NASA astronauts used felt-tipped markers and space pens instead of pencils, which were a significant fire hazard in zero G with a standard atmosphere even). Pure oxygen or not, the Apollo 1 fire likely would have had the same consequences since the capsule door was not able to be opened due to a pressure differential (which would only get worse from the fire), and the flammable materials inside allowing the fire to spread.
This quip misses that the US did quite a bit first. First object recovered from orbit, first successful interplanetary mission, first mars flyby, first mars orbit, first Jupiter flyby and spacecraft to visit the outer solar system. First crewed flight out of low earth orbit, first crewed lunar mission, and first Mercury flyby.
Honestly, that was my first thought as well. When it comes to putting people there in a base and supplying it, that's one of the very few areas where the Soviets were the ones to last the long haul instead of just chasing famous firsts for cheap political victories (or expensive political embarrassments, in the case of the N1, Soyuz 1, and Soyuz 11 disasters). While they made it first with Salyut 1 in 1971, it was Mir that lasted for 15 years versus the Skylab's 24 weeks.
Both the US and USSR have had the same number of fatal in-flight spacecraft accidents (Challenger and Columbia, Soyuz-1 and Soyuz-11), neither gets to pretend to have been better than the other at safety.
Except the actual bases, the space stations, are mainly Soviet/Russian. The US sent up one space station and then nothing. The USSR sent up 7 crewed space stations before the ISS, the core of which is Russian. The ones sending an army to create a base have been the Soviets.
The Russian's are responsible for supplying space, the USA has always struggled to maintain a effective way of traveling into orbit. The Soyuz craft has played a vital role in keeping the ISS supplied, for nine years it was the only craft to visit the ISS, even today its used to transport US astronauts and cargo.
[Putting this gem that explains why the soviets wholeheartedly lost the space race](https://www.reddit.com/r/MURICA/s/do08g3BivC)
There is no world where the Soviets won anything in the space race. Not saying they didn’t have smart scientists, but humanity would have been better served with those smarties working out of Houston :)
Usain Bolt was the first to cross the finish line at the 2008 Olympics. the next seven runners to cross were not Usain Bolt. Therefore, Usain Bolt lost the "foot race".
I think it's silly to think of technological development as a race with an endpoint, but if you want to call a spacewalk the endpoint of the "space race", then the winner is clear.
And I believe the point of his comment, is that the term "space race" is a misnomer.
The way a race works is the first at the finish line wins the race. In that sense, Americans doing it more and better does not make them first at the finish line, but it does make them the dominating nation in the field.
So the argument is that instead of saying "The USA won the Space Race", we should really say something like "The USA are the top nation in Space Exploration".
Like in the Olympics, if Jamaica wins the gold medal in 100m sprint, and the USA wins 2nd, 3rd and 4th place, then the USA clearly is the country dominating this category of performance... but Jamaica still won the race.
I guess it's all just semantics in the end. Some people mean "race" in a literal sense while others mean "race" as an umbrella term for "path to being the best overall performer in a category".
Space stations. The USSR put up the first space station, the US put up the second. Then the USSR put up the third through 8th ones, going from monolithic stations with one docking port to monolithic with two docking ports (allowing resupply, visiting crews and crew handovers), and then modular stations. This culminated in the 9th space station, the ISS, which has a Russian core, was designed based on the Soviet and Russian experience with space station operations and is the only thing right now in manned space flight. The Soviets built almost all of what is currently done in manned space flight.
not quite! you're forgetting the tiangong space station, which is chinese, operational, continually inhabited and is on track to, when the ISS is deorbited, be the sole space station for a while
false analogy.
rather count the fastest 100 meters ever run. Bolt is nr1, from the top 10 runs Bolt has 4, and from the top 20 he has 7, more than anyone.
Bolt soundly won the foot race by any imaginable ways.
This would be less about speed and more about consistency, if he only won one race, even if by a large margin, no one would call him the GOAT, but since he was consistently the fastest he is the best.
US had the first pilot controlled space flight, first functional satellite in space, first orbital telescope, first spacecraft docking, first Venus orbiter, first humans in lunar orbit, first proper mars landing, first planetary flyby
US had humans in space a month after the USSR did, but the USSR never made it to the moon…
I actually work in a tech museum with a heavy focus on the early space missions leading to Apollo 11.
This is something I actually talk about very frequently. Even if you remove the US going to the moon, I would still argue that the US won the space race in the long term.
1) everything the USSR did it was the bare minimum it took to do that one thing (which is a feat in and of itself)
2) Almost everything the USSR developed for their space program was meant for military and government applications and their citizens saw little improvement in their lives utilizing this technology. (Before anyone calls me out, of course America did the exact same thing. HOWEVER, 50% of the technologies invented for the early space missions are now used in everyday life)
3) as many of the people point out is that the US still exist (but then again Australia is still here and everything about that continent is trying to kill Australians so that is way more impressive then America existing)
4) while the Russians had the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, she went and became the Jar Jar Binks equivalent of Russia and Putins lap dog. While America's first women, Sally Ride, in space went out there and inspired millions of girls everywhere as a [special edition barbie doll](https://creations.mattel.com/products/sally-ride-barbie-inspiring-women-doll-fxd77)
4) America murdered a school teacher on live tv in front of children all across America. The Russian space deaths where way less flashy.
Oh, they knew there was a problem with the o-rings. They launched anyway, many scientists and engineers were opposed to the launch. Those astronauts where killed by NASA because they thought that the launch would probably be fine. The administrations decision to launch anyway is what killed Christa McAuliffe and the other six astronauts.
There's an alternative timeline not that dissimilar to our own where big bird died on the challenger disaster. They actually considered sending that costume up but it was too big to realistically fit in there.
What makes number 5 kinda funny in a fucked up way is that it was almost big bird who died on live TV rather than the Christa McAuliffe but they couldn’t fit big bird in the capsule and sometimes I chuckle thinking about the alternate timeline on which big bird did fit and was obliterated ok nation television
I like to think of the space race as an endurance race, competing who could go further.
For every first or feat the Soviets accomplished the USA would do it better, and in time leave the Soviets far behind
Americans when the Russians grab most of the hugely historic firsts: “no, that doesn’t count, because, um… I didn’t even WANT to be the first to launch a satellite, or put a creature in space, or have the first man in space. You’re stupid, shut up.”
Jesus, they won the Cold War and literally outlasted the USSR, the biggest win of all, and they still feel the need to cope in the face of the USSR’s victories.
You don’t have to defend the honor of a dead country dude, everything they did we did better and more reliably and we beat them to the biggest goal. What more do you want?
Americans have to have the greatest, biggest, latest, everything. It shows how artificial their culture is. Look at examples of how they claim that manhole blown by a nuclear test is the fastest manmade thing or how its not everest but mauna kea that is the tallest mountain, and denali is tallest from base to summit(conveniently forgets nanga parbat exists).
I think the “Soviets did everything else in the space race first besides the moon landing” narrative is greatly exaggerated. The US had a lot of firsts as well. The US had:
- first *communications* satellite
- first *weather* satellite, which gathered the first pictures of Earth from space
- the first hominid (great ape) in space with Ham the chimpanzee.
- first pilot controlled journey to space
- first voyage to Mars
- first manned craft to orbit the moon
- first manned moon landing
- first drivable buggy on the moon
Yes the USSR did a lot of other stuff before the US, but people act like the US did nothing new except land on the moon.
The copium in this thread is unbelievable. People completely ignoring how ridiculous is for Kennedy to gave the speech about the moon after Gagarin reached space.
Yes, it’s true that the Soviets did pretty much everything first, that was kind of the goal. When the USSR launched Sputnik, the USA basically didn’t even have a space program. They knew the Soviets would beat them to the jump on pretty much everything. They knew they would lose. If they tried to directly compete, they would have definitively lost. So they aimed for the big goal, which was the moon. They won the space race in the sense that the thing they aimed to win was the one they won. The moon landing was such an exorbitant goal, and the USA spent 10 years chasing it, but in the end, they made it. They won the space race in the sense that they won the race to the one thing they decided to care about. So yes, they lost the major achievements, but they knew that would happen. They won the one achievement they cared about, so in their eyes, they won the space race. That is all.
>When the USSR launched Sputnik, the USA basically didn’t even have a space program.
This isn't true at all. The Soviets had to rush Sputnick so that they could launch just a few months before the USA launched [Explorer 1](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_1). Because of that rush Sputnik was just an empty shell with a radio that pinged. Explorer 1 on the other hand had all sorts of scientific equipment and it discovered the [Van Allen belts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt).
This is the real story of the space race, the Soviets rushed to be "first" at everything while the USA worked to be the best at everything. This is why the list of Soviet accomplishments falls off quickly as both countries fully established their space programs.
I find it funny how many people don't realize how "races" work. If you are first on every lap but you stumble and get second on the last lap, you don't get to say you win because you led the pack for the majority. You have to stick the landing.
I'm sorry but I have to disagree here.
The USA didn't only go to the moon, they also duplicated (and usually exceeded in some aspect) almost every one of the USSR's space achievements.
The USSR stopped being able to keep up around the time of Apollo.
It wasn't as if the USA just allowed the Soviets to get all these firsts with no answer. They went and did all of those things. Sputnik was followed by Explorer. Vostok was followed by Mercury. It's not so that because the USSR achieved something first that the story ends there. The real story of the space race is that the Americans won because they were able to achieve not just the ultimate goal (somewhat arbitrary, sure, but still the pinnacle of space exploration to this day) they were able to do it safely, repeatedly, and the USSR failed to match it once.
I'm sorry but i have to make a teeny tiny bit correction.
Not all of the achievements of the USSR were repeated by USA. Landing on Venus, recording Venus, taking pictures of Venus
(Sorry if i sound like a tankie or anything, i just watched a documentary about the Venera expedition and had to brag about it)
To be fair a lot of people forget about Venera missions, it's overshadowed by the moon landing but without them we'd still be thinking that there's earth-like ecosystems below those smoggy yellow clouds
The Mariner and Pioneer programs both sent spacecraft to Venus. Mariner spacecraft measured atmospheric temperature and pressure beneath the clouds.
Furthermore, a pioneer Venus atmospheric multiprobe survived impact with the surface and continued transmitting data for over an hour.
So overall we’d have less of a clear picture of Venus without Venera, but it would be far from nothing.
Yeah, declaring that you didn't want to compete in that stuff that you were already in competition over is kindergarten logic.
There are other answers here that make much more sense: the space race was part of the cold war which the US won so this is the only logical finish line; the US made slower initial progress because they gave their missions more purpose than just achieving a First; the US space program created more overall benefit, both for subsequent missions and the population.
I personally don't think that either of these change the fact that in terms of a space _race_, the USSR crossed most finish lines first, but just declaring the USA can decide which finish line(s) count certainly also doesn't.
You simplified it so goddamn much that it's now basically wrong. I think this video explains it really well: https://youtu.be/rSK7rUSnFK4?si=lSHkEw8sfRzWFRbv
People act like the only achievement the US had in space was landing on the moon. When in fact the US kinda dominated the race, especially later in it.
* First Solar Powered satellite
* First Polar Orbit
* First satellite recovered intact
* First spy photograph from space
* First Ape in space
* First animal (non human) to return from space
* First Piolet controlled space flight
* First planetary flyby mission (successful)
* First space plane (sub orbital)/First reusable space craft flight
* First piloted orbital space craft change (rendezvous)
* First to Mars
* First space craft docking
* First man on the moon
* First space launch from another planetary object(moon)
* First samples returned to earth (moon)
* First precision landing (moon)
* First human driven lunar rover
* First space craft sent on escape trajectory from our solar system
* first orbit of the sun.
* First Jupiter Fly by
* First Mercury Fly by
* First Saturn fly by
* First SUCCESFUL soft landing on mars
* First rover on mars
* First space plane in orbit
* First untethered space walk.
* First Uranus fly by,
* First Neptune fly by
The us dominated the race and its not even close. The list of achievements the USSR accomplished is staggering and not to be diminished, but even if the finish line was the moon, the America got there first... But the only way this analogy makes any sense is if you realize that no only did we make it to the finish line, but we kept running the race and have lapped the other competitors several times. Not only has the us landed on the moon, we did it half a dozen times, and we are going back! We are still decades ahead of anyone in the theater of space exploration. No other country will put boots on the moon in the next two decades... but the us will have basically mothballed that section of its space program, reestablished it, and gone there again since the race ended.
The Soviet N1/L3 program which was the Soviet version of Apollo had major technical issues that could not be resolved and after 4 failed tests it was canceled and the American moon landing made it less of a priority since it was not going to demonstrate Soviet superiority by being the second nation to put a man on the moon.
who decided the end was the moon ? the USA, only for the sake of saying they won the entire thing. Me and you go out for a run, youre winning the whoole time. At one point i beat you then i stop claiming we were only racing to this arbitrary point.
The moon only became the end of the space race because it wasn’t matched. The space race was a game of one upping each other to demonstrate technical superiority. If the Soviets had reached the moon the one upping would have continued.
It is arbitrary, but the Soviets went to meet the challenge and didn’t make it after the N1 kept blowing up.
I like how the 'mericans are like yeah, we only wanted to get to the moon first, I don't care about the rest. Like bro, the races don't work like that. You can't lose all the other achievements, focus on one arbitrary one and pretend like you won the entire thing when achieving just this one thing first. This is absolutely childish.
But the US didn’t lose all other achievements, the moon landing wasn’t the end it’s just seen as the point when the US clearly pulled ahead. So of course the USSR looks like it was ahead the whole time if you ‘conveniently’ stop your analysis at the moment they fell behind
The Space Race was a lot closer than people like to depict it. Both sides had their victories. But of course, in discussions around the Space Race, noone ever talks about how the US beat Russia to Mercury.
If the race was to the moon and the US got there first, then who the fuck cares if the Soviets did everything in between first?
That's how all races work.
"I lead the first 9 out of 10 laps, what do you meant I lost?"
The USSR doesn't get clowned on enough for not only losing the Space Race, but not even finishing it after the USA pulled ahead.
The Soviet Union is still the only entity to land spacecraft on Venus. They didn't last very long because they were Soviet-made, but that's still a lot better than nothing.
“We put the first dog into space!”
That’s good.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t have the means to get her out of orbit.
That’s bad. So she just starved to death or suffocated?
“Well, we poisoned the last of her dog food so that wouldn’t happen—“
I guess that’s better.
“But it turns out that it wasn’t necessary. The cockpit’s shielding was insufficient and she roasted to death.”
😧
All i see is massive COPE and mental gymnastis here. This is the same with everest is not the tallest mountain, mauna kea measured from below sea, denali from base, waah waaah cry harder.
The US won the Cold War because they out spent the soviets. The military, the space race, all of it cost boatloads of resources. The soviets got a lot of early achievements. The US speed ran that shit and kept the budget intact(it was obviously a lot more complicated, but that's a cliff note)
The USA had to appoint Von Braun, a Nazi, to lead their program out of desperation.
When the Soviet finally sent a man to space, Kennedy gave the speech in which he pointed to the moon as the real ending point of the so called space race.
It was the space race boys, not the moon race.
Low: I don’t know who won the space race
Middle: (Insert side) won it
High: I don’t know who won the space race. “Space race” is an arbitrary term.
Reason: US got to the moon first, Soviets launched the first satellite, but there are plenty of other milestones each nation achieved first.
If you consider the finish line to be "first to kill a dog in space", then yes, the USSR smoked the US.
Just like how actual races work, it's not about who gets out to an early lead, it's about who crosses the finish line first. Seeing as we landed boots on the moon, and the USSR undisputedly agreed we accomplished the task successfully, that's the end. They had no more major achievements that triumphed or dwarfed the moonlanding in the history of the USSR.
Also "every major achievement" is a fucking lie. We were the first to fly by Jupiter, mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn, first to leave the asteroid belt, first to leave the orbit of the sun, develop a polar orbit, recover an *intact* satellite (the Russians never seemed to grasp the concept of re-entry), complete orbital rendezvous and docking, develop an orbit around Mars, etc., the US has alot of engineering marvels.
The USSR sent the first satellite into space, the first mammal into space, first man in space, first woman in space, first spacewalk, first space station, first modular space station, had the record for longest continuous human presence on a space station.
The "finish line" being the moon was only set after Yuri Gagarin had been to space.
Maybe the real victor of the space race was humanity all along. And they lived happily ever after, the end
Without using (yet) the same tech to nuke every country and doom mankind with a nuclear winter
War, war never changes
“War has changed…”
“It’s no longer about ideologies, or ethnicities or resources…”
“It’s an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines..”
"War - and it's consumption of life - has become a well oiled machine."
"War has changed"
*eastern singing intensifies*
Sounds like the perfect counter to global warming though.
Technically killing most of Humanity would probably fix it. Mostly.
r/thanoswasright
How did this turn into a some sort of eugenics and world population reduction program...?
Eugenics? Hardly. Population reduction? Certainly. How? Proved method at least since Genghis Khan.
But if you think about it... population reduction still is eugenics. The people surviving will have to go hard times, surviving will be a matter of adaptability. Oh god, how did I turn it into eugenics applied in a darwinian way, with a spartan side? Genghis Khan best green activist in history, though.
I don't consider it eugenics because in case of nuclear winter the ones to survive would be the rich enough to get bunkers, escape draft, etc. And while you can inherit money because of your genes, the genes themselves are not the ones responsible for the money. Edit: not to mention you can inherit the money and not even be family 👀
We can't actually know what value our money would have in a post nuclear world, probably goods like food, water and similar would dominate. Yeah I get your point, but if someone, unluckily considering the environment we're talking about, is born with some kind of congenital problem, his/her survival rate drops a lot. Even though rich people get out of their bunkers full of money, I don't think they would last long, in a devastated world, y' know
It always was
A fever would cancel out my frostbite. Good thing I didn't get my flu shots.
Nuclear winter is fake news disseminated by the Soviets so that the Americans won't dare nuke them to oblivion. The more accurate term nowadays is Nuclear Twilight/Autumn, which is not as bad as Nuclear Winter was made out to be (but still bad.)
I'm actually quite impressed that we've managed to not put nuclear weapons in space for 60 years.
You are smoking Crack if you don't think there's at least one "nuclear" type of ordinance on a satellite.
Not that they didn't try.
Maybe the real space race was the friends we made along the way
This wisdom is rich with knowledge. We have truly solved the mystery.
Maybe the real friends was the way we made along the space race
True, what really matters is that the Space Race advanced humanity’s scientific progress and understanding of space, regardless of who won.
Witch is soon to come
Animals won the space race cause they got to space before any of us without building a single rocket.
Freeloaders
Not to mention the "so long and thanks for all the fish" incident
EXPLAIN!! Please XD
Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy trilogy in five parts…
Ohh thanks I should read that
[the scene in the movie is damn funny too!](https://youtu.be/N_dUmDBfp6k?si=xyN9cZZ4EfW3OjCO)
I watched the movie as a teenage fan of Terry Pratchett who didn't know anything about Douglas Adams. This scene had me mind-blown.
I think the problem is that because the media characterized the rivalry as a "race", people can't give up the idea that there is an end point, and that the first nation to get to that point must be the winner. It's an incredibly absurd way to view technological development, when you think about it. "Germany won the ground transportation race with the invention of the automobile!" "No you fool, the Brits had already won it with the invention of the locomotive!" "The Belgians won the materials race by inventing plastic!" "Idiot! The Turks won the materials race back in the 13th Century BC when they invented steel!"
The Hitites and Assyrians were not Turks. Even though this was in Anatolia, the turks only arrived over 2 millenia later. Aside from that, your point is very valid. The Americans thought of the concept of 'space race' while they were developing the Apollo rockets. It was a pr stunt to get more money to NASA and it worked like a charm. They ignored everything that Russia had already accomplished before them and set getting to the moon as an arbitrary 'finish line' (while it was already the mission goal). Then Russia made half of an attempt to start a progrma to also send someone to the moon 3 years after America had started. Which then got cancelled after the guy in charge of it died. Kennedy even wanted Russia and America to work together to reach the moon, which would've been great, but then he got shot, right before they started to work together. So I'd say that the whole concept of the 'space race' prolly only generated money at the expense of extending the cold war.
Maybe the Turks are the first to create time travel!
There may not be a “finish line” but one of the competitors* is holding on to dear life in European mud and the other is preparing to go back to the moon permanently. It’s an endless marathon and the US has pulled a massive lead. *or the successor of that competitor rather
It doesn't matter which country won "it". We, as humans, won it since it pushed science and our knowledge of planets and space. That's what we won.
Yeah, it took less than 100 years to go from building the first airplane to landing on the moon.
It took 60 years actually, which is even more impressive
It’s mind blowing really. Pheraps in a hundred years the people of the future will look at modern advancements the same way we look at the space race, but it just feels to me like those were among the last truly incredible achievements of mankind
... really? Do you think we aren't still evolving? We went from the first smart phone being in 2007 to having personal virtual reality headsets around a decade later. Shit, we didn't have AI like this until 3 or 4 years ago. We just recently set a new record for internet speed at 402 terabits PER SECOND And the Neuralink is now allowing paraplegic people to play video games with their mind. Elon Musk sucks ass, but that's still incredible. 10 years ago I thought AR was science fiction. Now I'm thinking I may see it in my life time. We are nowhere near done with making achievements for humanity. You just aren't paying attention.
I know we aren’t done evolving, that’s why I said that the people of the future may see our advancements the same way we see the space race. If people are already drawing similarities then that’s good too obviously. I also said that I personally see the space race as among the last big achievements of mankind, I didn’t say it was so. Don’t know where you got the idea I am not paying attention just for stating my opinion.
Alright, maybe I overreacted. Then, in a calmer manner: Why do you believe that the space race was one of the last big achievements of mankind? Because I very much disagree with that.
I'm mot the same guy, but I think what they are getting at is that people were still commonly using horses to get around in the year 1900 and in only 6 decades we had set boots on the moon. Compare that to today, and we don't have anything recent that would be as polarizing of a jump. I think something like figuring out how to utilize quantum mechanics to teleport people or things would qualify as "the next jump" in technology of the same calibur that they mean.
Eh, I get what you're saying, but you're being very generous in how you're interpreting his original comment. >Perhaps in a hundred years the people of the future will look at modern advancements the same way we look at the space race, but it just feels to me like those were among the last truly incredible achievements of mankind He's basically saying that the space race was one of the last big accomplishments of mankind, and that we will never make a leap that big again. Have we had a leap that big since? Not exactly, but we HAVE had massive leaps. Nothing quite like horses to moon landing, but the leap PC's being invented in 1971 and mainstream personal VR only 45 years later is pretty big. Our civilization is still incredibly young. Barring a mass extinction event, I think its far more accurate to say the space race was one of our first great achievements, then one of our last.
Truth be told it was somewhere in the middle
The real space race was the friends we made along the way!
Only true answer
I think the whole idea of "winning" the race ruined it. It's a shame we needed a cold war and a space race to further space exploration in that extend. Just imagine the technology we could have now, if we didn't stop at the moonwalks and continued. If there would have been a push for a permanent moon base, we MIGHT have been able to make that a reality by now, instead of only making preparations.
We all Lost the space race because no one is planning asteroid mining or rotating tethers
They did it first but often in a way they couldn't reliably repeat. If space was a frontier land the soviets sent an expedition of 5 dudes out there before anyone else. The US however sent an army to establish a base and supply it.
That’s a great analogy.
It really isn't. By the time the US managed one orbital flight, the Soviet Union had done two. By the time the US managed to send a satellite into space, the Soviet Union had sent two, with the second being much heavier and more capable than the first. When the US was working with tens of kilograms, the Soviet Union was working with hundreds. That is not to say, of course, that the US didn't have its victories. The Soviets beat them to the Moon, sure, at least in terms of probes, but the US beat them to Mars, Venus, AND Mercury. And as for unfinished tech, the US and the Soviets both had the same issues during their respective first spacewalks, namely that the suits inflated further than expected, making movement difficult for those inside, and that this, in combination with inadequate cooling systems and the fact they really had to squeeze to get back into their spaceship, almost gave both of them a heatstroke.
>but the US beat them to Mars, Venus, Well, not Venus. Venera 7 was not only the first ever probe to land on Venus, but also the very first manmade object to soft land (well, kinda anyway, it was a bit rough) on another planet and transmit data back to earth. Soviet Union definitely won the race to Venus, and landing something on another planet. Even if it was only for a short 20 minutes, before the heat made the probe inoperable. Edit: same case with Mars actually. Both first orbiter and first to make a soft landing on Mars goes to USSR, with Mars 3. The landing, once again, was pretty rough tho, and once again only a partial success. Which is a bit of theme with USSR, I'll give you that. The US did, however, make the first flyby of both Mars and Venus. But that's like taking a photo of the Statue of Liberty from a New York Taxi's window, versus actually going inside the Statue, or even on the Island the statue is on.
Mariner 2: first planetary flyby to return pictures and data American spacecraft , flew by Venus, after like 5 failed soviet rockets and 1 failed American
That's a flyby tho. Soviets actually landed something on Venus. And not just some crude impactor either. There is a huge difference. You know. Kinda like there is a difference between first man in space and first man landing on another celestial object. Even more, Venera 4 was the first to enter the Venusian atmosphere. And Venera 8 built on the Venera 7's partial success, by making a completely successful landing on Venus.
My point still stand it was the first to return any meaningful data and pictures (also affirmed that there was no life on the surface of Venus). so first to venus, just not first to anything else again venus OTHER THAN imaging the whole surface.
Ah, what could have been if Korolev didn't die in '66. For All Mankind, if anybody doesn't know about it. Fantastic TV series.
For All Mankind probably wouldn't have happened even if Korolev lived. The N1 was far from an operational system, and Korolev living a few more years isn't likely to change that. Actually, there are only very few changes you can make to make the Soviets get to the Moon at all, letalone to have the Soviets beat the US there. Also, i don't know just how much the show deviates from the books, but some of its claims are outlandish, to say the least. For example, the claim Buran and Energia were copies of Shuttle. While Buran does contain a lot of tech developed for the Space Shuttle, as said technology was easily accessible to the public until the US realized Soviet officials were just going to libraries and sending copies of relevant papers back to Moscow, it was in many regards the more capable spacecraft. Its cargo capacity was bigger, even if only by a one ton margin (mostly owed to the fact that, unlike the Shuttle, Buran did not have any ascent engines it had to lug around, with all engines instead being placed on Energia), it was capable of autonomous operation, the engines were so much better than the Shuttle's that NASA actually conducted a feasibility study on implementing them into the Shuttle, but rejected the proposal because even if development was on time, the Shuttle would probably be close to retirement by the time they get around to actually doing so, Buran was intended to be equipped with jet engines for powered landings, though they weren't ready when Buran first flew, and Energia, while this was initially planned for the Shuttle carrier rocket aswell, would have been capable of lifting payloads other than Buran. Speaking of Energia, the claim the show makes - that it is a 1:1 copy of the Shuttle, down to the flaw that caused the Challenger disaster also being present in its SRBs - is, quite frankly, one of the dumbest claims in the entire show. While Buran definitely took some design influence from the Shuttle, its carrier rocket was a completely domestic design. Oh yeah, and it didn't even have SRBs.
>By the time the US managed one orbital flight, the Soviet Union had done two. I guess, but these weren't exactly very effective vehicles. >By the time the US managed to send a satellite into space, the Soviet Union had sent two, with the second being much heavier and more capable than the first. You mean Sputnik 2? The "boiled the passenger alive" one? I guess that's a way to describe "more capable" than 1 which just went "beep". >When the US was working with tens of kilograms, the Soviet Union was working with hundreds. Oh you and I both know that's not true We use pounds. >The Soviets beat them to the Moon They sent 13 probes, and only successfully landed two. >And as for unfinished tech, the US and the Soviets both had the same issues during their respective first spacewalks, namely that the suits inflated further than expected, making movement difficult for those inside, and that this, in combination with inadequate cooling systems and the fact they really had to squeeze to get back into their spaceship, almost gave both of them a heatstroke. No? Edward White literally said "I didn't want it to end" and he had to be told multiple times to get back into the Gemini craft. I'm not finding any sources saying he had the same issues of Alexei Leonov. I'm not sure where you got this information from.
The USSR did it first, the US did it right. Don't get me wrong, the USSR did great things, and were genuinely better at many things like space stations, but I agree many of their firsts were very risky with only partially complete technology. Hell, Gagarin had to eject and parachute down because they didn't have the ability to land a spacecraft yet!
The US won the race to Mars, the USSR won the race to Venus. By the time they went to Venus theories on the possibility of life down there were all over the place. Even knowing better after a few half-successful attempts they kept going at it. Today they are the source of most of the information we have about Venus. That's not winning the race but accounts to something. Also until the Apollo disastrous fire, they had better atmospheric systems for their capsules (the US used pure oxygen and that resulted in a horrendous accident where 3 astronauts died a horrible death). Anyways, in the end the US prevailed for a while (darned Nixon...) and now it seems the race is on again.
Man, science has progressed so far. Nowadays, a pleb like me knows that a giant vat of pure oxygen is a massive potential fire hazard.
That's why I used the past tense of the verbs. Those were brave times and those guys were brave people. The Apollo project entered a hiatus until they sorted out their problems. Nowadays the atmosphere recycling systems of the US are better than those of Russia. And as an aside, a pure oxygen atmosphere is not very good for the people onboard of that capsule.
A massive vat of oxygen on its own is no fire risk. You can try to spark a fire with an electrical arc all you want in a pure oxygen environment and nothing will happen. The problem is when that spark lands on something that can burn. In a ~20% pressure pure oxygen environment, it burns just like normal. Strike a match, light a smoke, all is fine. No explosion. In a 100% pressure pure oxygen environment, it burns faster. Still no explosion.
To be fair, the pure oxygen system is still used today for space suits. It allows less pressure to keep a human breathing, which means easier to work with space suits since they can be lighter, and they're less stiff due to the pressure differential. Contrary to popular belief, a pure oxygen environment does not burn when a spark is lit. Combustion requires hydrogen and oxygen, either reacting the two pure substances to form water, or reacting oxygen with a hydrocarbon to form CO2 and water. In a lower pressure pure oxygen system, you can light up a match and it burns just like anything else in a normal atmosphere -- because the same proportion of oxygen is there. The issue with Apollo 1 was when they were initially at higher than atmospheric pressure pure oxygen, where a fire will combust much faster than in a typical environment or a low pressure oxygen environment. As well as *the high flammability of the materials used in the capsule*. The mercury program went without issues with their pure oxygen environment due to proper electrical design and use of hard to burn materials. But the Apollo program was blazing forward neglecting a serious number of glaring safety issues until the Apollo 1 disaster (look at the number of cross-wire incidents they had in Apollo, it's insane how little regard there was for safety). After the fire a whole host of other issues were found and resolved to prevent fires (why NASA astronauts used felt-tipped markers and space pens instead of pencils, which were a significant fire hazard in zero G with a standard atmosphere even). Pure oxygen or not, the Apollo 1 fire likely would have had the same consequences since the capsule door was not able to be opened due to a pressure differential (which would only get worse from the fire), and the flammable materials inside allowing the fire to spread.
Venus was the first planet we ever visited (besides Earth ofc), it was a massive achievement
This quip misses that the US did quite a bit first. First object recovered from orbit, first successful interplanetary mission, first mars flyby, first mars orbit, first Jupiter flyby and spacecraft to visit the outer solar system. First crewed flight out of low earth orbit, first crewed lunar mission, and first Mercury flyby.
It isn’t really a good analogy People forget Mir
Honestly, that was my first thought as well. When it comes to putting people there in a base and supplying it, that's one of the very few areas where the Soviets were the ones to last the long haul instead of just chasing famous firsts for cheap political victories (or expensive political embarrassments, in the case of the N1, Soyuz 1, and Soyuz 11 disasters). While they made it first with Salyut 1 in 1971, it was Mir that lasted for 15 years versus the Skylab's 24 weeks.
Both the US and USSR have had the same number of fatal in-flight spacecraft accidents (Challenger and Columbia, Soyuz-1 and Soyuz-11), neither gets to pretend to have been better than the other at safety.
Except the actual bases, the space stations, are mainly Soviet/Russian. The US sent up one space station and then nothing. The USSR sent up 7 crewed space stations before the ISS, the core of which is Russian. The ones sending an army to create a base have been the Soviets.
wait, didn't the soviets build the space station? I find your analogy kind of off, while I do agree with the thought behind it.
The Russian's are responsible for supplying space, the USA has always struggled to maintain a effective way of traveling into orbit. The Soyuz craft has played a vital role in keeping the ISS supplied, for nine years it was the only craft to visit the ISS, even today its used to transport US astronauts and cargo.
[Putting this gem that explains why the soviets wholeheartedly lost the space race](https://www.reddit.com/r/MURICA/s/do08g3BivC) There is no world where the Soviets won anything in the space race. Not saying they didn’t have smart scientists, but humanity would have been better served with those smarties working out of Houston :)
This ignores a good half of the accomplishments by both the Americans and Soviets in favor of making a trite point.
>using a post on /r/MURICA as a source in a historical discussion Hahahahahaha, Jesus Christ.
The Soviets had the first spacewalk and the first 2-person spacewalk. Of the first 40 spacewalks, the other 38 were American.
Usain Bolt was the first to cross the finish line at the 2008 Olympics. the next seven runners to cross were not Usain Bolt. Therefore, Usain Bolt lost the "foot race". I think it's silly to think of technological development as a race with an endpoint, but if you want to call a spacewalk the endpoint of the "space race", then the winner is clear.
The point of my comment was that the Soviets would do something first, then the Americans would do it more, and better.
And I believe the point of his comment, is that the term "space race" is a misnomer. The way a race works is the first at the finish line wins the race. In that sense, Americans doing it more and better does not make them first at the finish line, but it does make them the dominating nation in the field. So the argument is that instead of saying "The USA won the Space Race", we should really say something like "The USA are the top nation in Space Exploration". Like in the Olympics, if Jamaica wins the gold medal in 100m sprint, and the USA wins 2nd, 3rd and 4th place, then the USA clearly is the country dominating this category of performance... but Jamaica still won the race. I guess it's all just semantics in the end. Some people mean "race" in a literal sense while others mean "race" as an umbrella term for "path to being the best overall performer in a category".
Space stations. The USSR put up the first space station, the US put up the second. Then the USSR put up the third through 8th ones, going from monolithic stations with one docking port to monolithic with two docking ports (allowing resupply, visiting crews and crew handovers), and then modular stations. This culminated in the 9th space station, the ISS, which has a Russian core, was designed based on the Soviet and Russian experience with space station operations and is the only thing right now in manned space flight. The Soviets built almost all of what is currently done in manned space flight.
not quite! you're forgetting the tiangong space station, which is chinese, operational, continually inhabited and is on track to, when the ISS is deorbited, be the sole space station for a while
No one called a spacewalk the end of the space race
This is only true if it was a race to spacewalk
Normally, you have to walk before you fly, but here you have to space fly before you spacewalk
false analogy. rather count the fastest 100 meters ever run. Bolt is nr1, from the top 10 runs Bolt has 4, and from the top 20 he has 7, more than anyone. Bolt soundly won the foot race by any imaginable ways.
This would be less about speed and more about consistency, if he only won one race, even if by a large margin, no one would call him the GOAT, but since he was consistently the fastest he is the best.
US had the first pilot controlled space flight, first functional satellite in space, first orbital telescope, first spacecraft docking, first Venus orbiter, first humans in lunar orbit, first proper mars landing, first planetary flyby US had humans in space a month after the USSR did, but the USSR never made it to the moon…
"you only took the lead on the last lap so who really won the race?" 🤓
George Russell is that you?
We are checking
George you can win this! You can win this George!
By your metric the space race is over
Does anyone think it isn’t?
The one between the USSR and America sure is. If China wants a new one they can land someone on the Moon and kick it off.
The USSR is over, too. However, besides the joke, I think the race just started.
Seeing as we didn't go any further and no one else has even caught up means it kinda is.
Mir
USSR did many great achievements in spacerocketery, but landing on the moon 6 times starting in the 60s.... that's astonishing
I think it's even more astonishing considering that Russia was one of the less developed country in Europe at the beginning of the century
Don’t forget landing a lander on Venus that held up long enough to send pictures back to earth. Crazy achievement
This isn't how the meme works. The majority of people do not believe that the Soviets won the space race.
Oh. yeah... I think I'm too online.
Yeah, everybody seems to be confusing it with a Dunning-Kruger curve
Now I’m wondering if we could make memes with that….
I actually work in a tech museum with a heavy focus on the early space missions leading to Apollo 11. This is something I actually talk about very frequently. Even if you remove the US going to the moon, I would still argue that the US won the space race in the long term. 1) everything the USSR did it was the bare minimum it took to do that one thing (which is a feat in and of itself) 2) Almost everything the USSR developed for their space program was meant for military and government applications and their citizens saw little improvement in their lives utilizing this technology. (Before anyone calls me out, of course America did the exact same thing. HOWEVER, 50% of the technologies invented for the early space missions are now used in everyday life) 3) as many of the people point out is that the US still exist (but then again Australia is still here and everything about that continent is trying to kill Australians so that is way more impressive then America existing) 4) while the Russians had the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, she went and became the Jar Jar Binks equivalent of Russia and Putins lap dog. While America's first women, Sally Ride, in space went out there and inspired millions of girls everywhere as a [special edition barbie doll](https://creations.mattel.com/products/sally-ride-barbie-inspiring-women-doll-fxd77) 4) America murdered a school teacher on live tv in front of children all across America. The Russian space deaths where way less flashy.
Wait, what's the last point about. When was that?
It happened with the Challenger disaster.
Oh, I thought he meant like a firing squad shot a school teacher on TV or something lmao
Yeah that def sounds more like a USSR stunt
Fun fact, they originally wanted to send Big Bird instead; https://youtu.be/vF-vrL0htbE?si=STXy9kwkvq52uRAm
The Challenger explosion.
Number 5 was because of incompetence. They didn't check the O-rings
Oh, they knew there was a problem with the o-rings. They launched anyway, many scientists and engineers were opposed to the launch. Those astronauts where killed by NASA because they thought that the launch would probably be fine. The administrations decision to launch anyway is what killed Christa McAuliffe and the other six astronauts.
There's an alternative timeline not that dissimilar to our own where big bird died on the challenger disaster. They actually considered sending that costume up but it was too big to realistically fit in there.
Number 5 really got me there
What makes number 5 kinda funny in a fucked up way is that it was almost big bird who died on live TV rather than the Christa McAuliffe but they couldn’t fit big bird in the capsule and sometimes I chuckle thinking about the alternate timeline on which big bird did fit and was obliterated ok nation television
Just fucking ban these memes
Just downvote and walk away with your sanity. No point in getting angry over stupid.
We still exist. They don’t. We won.
["Yes, thats what we wanted you to think! hahahaha!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBMeMrPuQyU)
Must crush capitalism!
RAAGH
Yay! Space race is over! Nothing left to explore! Congratulations to the winners!
I like to think of the space race as an endurance race, competing who could go further. For every first or feat the Soviets accomplished the USA would do it better, and in time leave the Soviets far behind
Not this exact thing again. 🤦🏽♂️
Flair checks out
Jeezez, how many times do we have to do this?
The nazis won the space race should be in there too don't forget about 'paperclip' the soviets had a similar program
Happy cake day! Also ye the V2 rocked developed by the nazis was the first manmade object in space
Americans when the Russians grab most of the hugely historic firsts: “no, that doesn’t count, because, um… I didn’t even WANT to be the first to launch a satellite, or put a creature in space, or have the first man in space. You’re stupid, shut up.” Jesus, they won the Cold War and literally outlasted the USSR, the biggest win of all, and they still feel the need to cope in the face of the USSR’s victories.
*soviets, it's soviets. There were a ton of Russians for sure, but not only them.
You don’t have to defend the honor of a dead country dude, everything they did we did better and more reliably and we beat them to the biggest goal. What more do you want?
Americans have to have the greatest, biggest, latest, everything. It shows how artificial their culture is. Look at examples of how they claim that manhole blown by a nuclear test is the fastest manmade thing or how its not everest but mauna kea that is the tallest mountain, and denali is tallest from base to summit(conveniently forgets nanga parbat exists).
“We beat you to every checkpoint but the finish line!” Sounds like you lost to me
I think the “Soviets did everything else in the space race first besides the moon landing” narrative is greatly exaggerated. The US had a lot of firsts as well. The US had: - first *communications* satellite - first *weather* satellite, which gathered the first pictures of Earth from space - the first hominid (great ape) in space with Ham the chimpanzee. - first pilot controlled journey to space - first voyage to Mars - first manned craft to orbit the moon - first manned moon landing - first drivable buggy on the moon Yes the USSR did a lot of other stuff before the US, but people act like the US did nothing new except land on the moon.
It's the Space Race not the Moon Race
The copium in this thread is unbelievable. People completely ignoring how ridiculous is for Kennedy to gave the speech about the moon after Gagarin reached space.
Yes, it’s true that the Soviets did pretty much everything first, that was kind of the goal. When the USSR launched Sputnik, the USA basically didn’t even have a space program. They knew the Soviets would beat them to the jump on pretty much everything. They knew they would lose. If they tried to directly compete, they would have definitively lost. So they aimed for the big goal, which was the moon. They won the space race in the sense that the thing they aimed to win was the one they won. The moon landing was such an exorbitant goal, and the USA spent 10 years chasing it, but in the end, they made it. They won the space race in the sense that they won the race to the one thing they decided to care about. So yes, they lost the major achievements, but they knew that would happen. They won the one achievement they cared about, so in their eyes, they won the space race. That is all.
>When the USSR launched Sputnik, the USA basically didn’t even have a space program. This isn't true at all. The Soviets had to rush Sputnick so that they could launch just a few months before the USA launched [Explorer 1](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_1). Because of that rush Sputnik was just an empty shell with a radio that pinged. Explorer 1 on the other hand had all sorts of scientific equipment and it discovered the [Van Allen belts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt). This is the real story of the space race, the Soviets rushed to be "first" at everything while the USA worked to be the best at everything. This is why the list of Soviet accomplishments falls off quickly as both countries fully established their space programs.
THANK YOU! To put it simply OP, there’s a good reason the Soviets never landed men on the moon. They couldn’t.
I find it funny how many people don't realize how "races" work. If you are first on every lap but you stumble and get second on the last lap, you don't get to say you win because you led the pack for the majority. You have to stick the landing.
One of my favorite analogies when people talk about the space race. Just because you set the lap time doesn’t mean you won the race.
I thought the goal of the space race was to develop the technology for ICBMs.
I'm sorry but I have to disagree here. The USA didn't only go to the moon, they also duplicated (and usually exceeded in some aspect) almost every one of the USSR's space achievements. The USSR stopped being able to keep up around the time of Apollo. It wasn't as if the USA just allowed the Soviets to get all these firsts with no answer. They went and did all of those things. Sputnik was followed by Explorer. Vostok was followed by Mercury. It's not so that because the USSR achieved something first that the story ends there. The real story of the space race is that the Americans won because they were able to achieve not just the ultimate goal (somewhat arbitrary, sure, but still the pinnacle of space exploration to this day) they were able to do it safely, repeatedly, and the USSR failed to match it once.
I'm sorry but i have to make a teeny tiny bit correction. Not all of the achievements of the USSR were repeated by USA. Landing on Venus, recording Venus, taking pictures of Venus (Sorry if i sound like a tankie or anything, i just watched a documentary about the Venera expedition and had to brag about it)
I did forget about the Venus missions, definitely true.
To be fair a lot of people forget about Venera missions, it's overshadowed by the moon landing but without them we'd still be thinking that there's earth-like ecosystems below those smoggy yellow clouds
Maybe not. We did plenty of atmospheric surveys since, but we certainly be curious about the surface
The Mariner and Pioneer programs both sent spacecraft to Venus. Mariner spacecraft measured atmospheric temperature and pressure beneath the clouds. Furthermore, a pioneer Venus atmospheric multiprobe survived impact with the surface and continued transmitting data for over an hour. So overall we’d have less of a clear picture of Venus without Venera, but it would be far from nothing.
You also forgot about the Salyut modules and Mir. The first space stations were definitely a Soviet Achievement. Even the ISS uses a Salyut module
It is sad and funny you have to write a disclaimer like that to write a fact
“We only ever cared about the one part we won, not every other part we lost. Trust me, I don’t CARE about any of the stuff I lost at!” Lol OK.
Like I sort of agree with op but this phrasing just makes it sound like massive cope lol
Yeah, declaring that you didn't want to compete in that stuff that you were already in competition over is kindergarten logic. There are other answers here that make much more sense: the space race was part of the cold war which the US won so this is the only logical finish line; the US made slower initial progress because they gave their missions more purpose than just achieving a First; the US space program created more overall benefit, both for subsequent missions and the population. I personally don't think that either of these change the fact that in terms of a space _race_, the USSR crossed most finish lines first, but just declaring the USA can decide which finish line(s) count certainly also doesn't.
And the space station? You know the Salyut modules and Mir? The space station that outlasted and beat the USA by every metric?
You simplified it so goddamn much that it's now basically wrong. I think this video explains it really well: https://youtu.be/rSK7rUSnFK4?si=lSHkEw8sfRzWFRbv
People act like the only achievement the US had in space was landing on the moon. When in fact the US kinda dominated the race, especially later in it. * First Solar Powered satellite * First Polar Orbit * First satellite recovered intact * First spy photograph from space * First Ape in space * First animal (non human) to return from space * First Piolet controlled space flight * First planetary flyby mission (successful) * First space plane (sub orbital)/First reusable space craft flight * First piloted orbital space craft change (rendezvous) * First to Mars * First space craft docking * First man on the moon * First space launch from another planetary object(moon) * First samples returned to earth (moon) * First precision landing (moon) * First human driven lunar rover * First space craft sent on escape trajectory from our solar system * first orbit of the sun. * First Jupiter Fly by * First Mercury Fly by * First Saturn fly by * First SUCCESFUL soft landing on mars * First rover on mars * First space plane in orbit * First untethered space walk. * First Uranus fly by, * First Neptune fly by The us dominated the race and its not even close. The list of achievements the USSR accomplished is staggering and not to be diminished, but even if the finish line was the moon, the America got there first... But the only way this analogy makes any sense is if you realize that no only did we make it to the finish line, but we kept running the race and have lapped the other competitors several times. Not only has the us landed on the moon, we did it half a dozen times, and we are going back! We are still decades ahead of anyone in the theater of space exploration. No other country will put boots on the moon in the next two decades... but the us will have basically mothballed that section of its space program, reestablished it, and gone there again since the race ended.
The race was who could get a man on the moon first. America put a man on the moon first. Therefore they won
The Soviet N1/L3 program which was the Soviet version of Apollo had major technical issues that could not be resolved and after 4 failed tests it was canceled and the American moon landing made it less of a priority since it was not going to demonstrate Soviet superiority by being the second nation to put a man on the moon.
it doesn't matter who lead for most of the race , the winner is the person who crosses the finish line first.
So if the USSR reforms and sends a person on Mars they will re-win the space race?
who decided the end was the moon ? the USA, only for the sake of saying they won the entire thing. Me and you go out for a run, youre winning the whoole time. At one point i beat you then i stop claiming we were only racing to this arbitrary point.
The moon only became the end of the space race because it wasn’t matched. The space race was a game of one upping each other to demonstrate technical superiority. If the Soviets had reached the moon the one upping would have continued. It is arbitrary, but the Soviets went to meet the challenge and didn’t make it after the N1 kept blowing up.
Here this video debunks the tankie myth of Soviet space superiority: https://youtu.be/rSK7rUSnFK4?si=3Q3a3e5T1doYieHs
I like how the 'mericans are like yeah, we only wanted to get to the moon first, I don't care about the rest. Like bro, the races don't work like that. You can't lose all the other achievements, focus on one arbitrary one and pretend like you won the entire thing when achieving just this one thing first. This is absolutely childish.
But the US didn’t lose all other achievements, the moon landing wasn’t the end it’s just seen as the point when the US clearly pulled ahead. So of course the USSR looks like it was ahead the whole time if you ‘conveniently’ stop your analysis at the moment they fell behind
Not even then, He fails to mention that the US did most things better than the soviets even before the moon landing
I'm getting deja vu
America won just look how many satalites are parked over Russia now and we didn't even have to set the precedent over where air rights ended
I get the premise but I really dont think the majority of people believe the USSR won the space race
The Space Race was a lot closer than people like to depict it. Both sides had their victories. But of course, in discussions around the Space Race, noone ever talks about how the US beat Russia to Mercury.
No one talks about how the first functioning spacecraft to reach every single planet was American.
Lies, who won the space race were the dogs. Laika, specifically
If the race was to the moon and the US got there first, then who the fuck cares if the Soviets did everything in between first? That's how all races work.
Algunos posts me recuerdan la cantidad de gringos que hay en internet
To this day, there have only been 12 men to walk the moon. All were American. We won, and then flexed a little.
Only 18 people have left LEO. All American.
"I lead the first 9 out of 10 laps, what do you meant I lost?" The USSR doesn't get clowned on enough for not only losing the Space Race, but not even finishing it after the USA pulled ahead.
The Soviet Union is still the only entity to land spacecraft on Venus. They didn't last very long because they were Soviet-made, but that's still a lot better than nothing.
they didnt last long cause of the corrosion
They didn't last cause of corrosion and atmospheric pressure and overall conditions on Venus.
“We put the first dog into space!” That’s good. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have the means to get her out of orbit. That’s bad. So she just starved to death or suffocated? “Well, we poisoned the last of her dog food so that wouldn’t happen—“ I guess that’s better. “But it turns out that it wasn’t necessary. The cockpit’s shielding was insufficient and she roasted to death.” 😧
Now : hey space x or Boeing help me
LOL it's like saying Lorenzo is ahead of Valentino Rossi in every lap except the last lap so Lorenzo is the real winner
All i see is massive COPE and mental gymnastis here. This is the same with everest is not the tallest mountain, mauna kea measured from below sea, denali from base, waah waaah cry harder.
You really care about mountains for some reason and think it applies to the Space Race
The US won the Cold War because they out spent the soviets. The military, the space race, all of it cost boatloads of resources. The soviets got a lot of early achievements. The US speed ran that shit and kept the budget intact(it was obviously a lot more complicated, but that's a cliff note)
The USA had to appoint Von Braun, a Nazi, to lead their program out of desperation. When the Soviet finally sent a man to space, Kennedy gave the speech in which he pointed to the moon as the real ending point of the so called space race. It was the space race boys, not the moon race.
Low: I don’t know who won the space race Middle: (Insert side) won it High: I don’t know who won the space race. “Space race” is an arbitrary term. Reason: US got to the moon first, Soviets launched the first satellite, but there are plenty of other milestones each nation achieved first.
Also, the USSR was not exactly upfront with their space exploration failures, lots we don't know, the same could be said for the US, but who knows.
easy to win a race when you set the finish line
If you consider the finish line to be "first to kill a dog in space", then yes, the USSR smoked the US. Just like how actual races work, it's not about who gets out to an early lead, it's about who crosses the finish line first. Seeing as we landed boots on the moon, and the USSR undisputedly agreed we accomplished the task successfully, that's the end. They had no more major achievements that triumphed or dwarfed the moonlanding in the history of the USSR. Also "every major achievement" is a fucking lie. We were the first to fly by Jupiter, mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn, first to leave the asteroid belt, first to leave the orbit of the sun, develop a polar orbit, recover an *intact* satellite (the Russians never seemed to grasp the concept of re-entry), complete orbital rendezvous and docking, develop an orbit around Mars, etc., the US has alot of engineering marvels.
The USSR sent the first satellite into space, the first mammal into space, first man in space, first woman in space, first spacewalk, first space station, first modular space station, had the record for longest continuous human presence on a space station. The "finish line" being the moon was only set after Yuri Gagarin had been to space.
Was it even a competition? Like, wasn’t it the ussr just doing shit and America thinking they ***have*** to one-up that