This reminds me of a somewhat related topic - who won the space race? Growing up in Soviet Union, we were taught that it was the USSR - when Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Then I came to the US, and was taught that it was the US, when Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon.
No-one ever really set the goalpost of the Space Race, so it can be whichever you want. I personally like to consider the Apollo–Soyuz mission as the true finish of the space race, where the two nations docked their spacecraft together, and an astronaut and a cosmonaut shook hands in space.
In the end the big winner of the Space Race was humanity, in the massive scientific leap forward that it created.
I think it's pretty obvious in hindsight that the US shifted the goalposts to claim victory here. The real space race, having the ability to nuke any point on earth, was clearly won by the Soviets. Putting a man on the moon showed that America was vastly more capable on a technical level, but that wasn't really the point of the space race.
It's also why governments are carefully watching North Korea's space program, even if they'll never be able to put a man on the moon. Their ability to launch a sattelite into orbit makes them a threat, whether or not they can make a moon lander has little real value beyond vanity.
> The real space race, having the ability to nuke any point on earth, was clearly won by the Soviets.
The US and the Soviets had operational ICBMs at pretty much the same time-- dueling milestones from 1957 to 1959.
Then the Soviets pulled ahead with capabilities in LEO, which showed they also probably had "better" ICBMs.
Then the US caught up and surpassed them.
Then both stagnated; Russia did a slightly better job in choosing priorities for human spaceflight; the US did a better job with probes and unmanned spaceflight.
> Then the Soviets pulled ahead with capabilities in LEO, which showed they also probably had "better" ICBMs.
In the US the story is that because Soviet nukes were more crude than the US versions, which made them heavier and bulkier so the Soviets had to build their rockets bigger to have enough range. When the focus shifted to putting a man in orbit having a larger rocket to start with was an advantage and allowed the Soviets to achieve a number of firsts.
I do agree that declaring the race suddenly over with a man on the moon was a case of taking the ball and going home.
Wouldn't the 'US did a better job with probes and unmanned spaceflight' depend on when you want to plant the flag that the space race ended? If we go with what in the US we define as a man on the moon, the Soviets I believe were putting probes all over the place. The soviets were landing probes first on bodies in the 60s. While the US focused on the moon.
I guess that depends on what you define as the bounds of the space race. If we go to the fall of the Soviet Union, yea, I completely agree with your last statement. After we landed on the moon, we did start getting serious about probes and had a bunch of wins there with voyager and such.
> Wouldn't the 'US did a better job with probes and unmanned spaceflight' depend on when you want to plant the flag that the space race ended?
I was talking about post-1970 stagnation.
Russia basically scaled everything waaaay back post 1970. You have Venera as a significant first/win, parity for a little while on Mars, and then the US unrivaled in the outer solar system.
From what I understand the US outnumbered the soviets in sheer number of missiles though. Early 1960s politicians fearmongered about soviet missile capacity in order to justify a huge expansion in military capabilities while the soviets lagged behind in raw numbers.
Both sides grossly overbuilt their nuclear missile capabilities. The maintenance costs forced them into partial disarmament treaties in the 80s and 90s.
> the US shifted the goalposts to claim victory here
On the one hand, yes absolutely.
On the other hand -- which is more exciting? The "space race" of getting the first man in space and back, or the "moon race" of getting the first man on the moon and back?
I think it's fair to say the "moon race" was a far greater event in human history, to set foot on another world. Yes, the US shifted the goalposts... but at the same time the new goalposts seem like the more momentous event in human history. Think of how people across the world tuned in for live TV footage of the moon landing.
That's not really the full story. The US didn't come up with the moon goal. It was the Soviets' plan already, which is why JFK publicly announced it in a speech: to force them into a public prestige battle. The Soviets had the habit of repeated private failure. If they achieved something, they'd announce it afterwards; if they failed, they kept quiet. The US broadcast launches on TV and pre-announced goals, which was a major propaganda effort and much more effective than post-flight releases.
Growing in the Soviet Union, you should also remember the story that the airplane was invented by Mozhaysky, radio by Popov, lightbulb by Ladygin, and so on. No one in the US disputes who the first man in space was - the narrative rather highlights the US achievements. The soviets (and Russia) take it to the next level. It took me a while to understand why none of my colleagues have ever heard of Ostrogradskiy and Kotelnikov theorems
It was the race that moon the US one. The USSR was the first into space both with a spacecraft orbiting and living beings.
Maybe people interpret what they learned differently but I don’t think they were taught the US won the space race. Of course the goalposts will be moved to claim the glory.
I wasn’t taught that it was Yuri who won but rather Sputnik.
I like to think of it as a contest of one-upmanship.
Eventually the US did something the Soviets could not in the most difficult category of space exploration, which is manned spaceflight. If they'd gotten their manned lunar program done, they would have kept the Space Race going, and the US would have had to find another first. But they didn't.
