[xenospn]

I lived in Israel when all of the soviet Jews emigrated in the late 80's/early 90's. One of them got a job alongside my dad, who was an engineer, and they went on a business trip to the US together. When he came back, he said that if they "turned off the US and locked the door", it should still take Russia over 100 years to catch up.

However, during the early days of the space race, there was literally nothing the US could do to catch up with the Soviet Union space program. Their best hope was a former Nazi engineer.