[kurisufag]

the reds did space much, much worse.

first satellite? all sputnik could do was beep, and it ran out of batteries in three weeks.

first animal? laika died.

first station? there were two attempts to crew it -- the first failed to dock and everyone on the second mission fucking died. the soyuz 11 crew remain the only human deaths in space.

first *naut? yuri gagarin didn't even have manual controls.

the n1 was catastrophic. need i go on?

[robocat]

Failing fast is easier when lives are valued cheaply. “If it’s not failing, you’re not pushing hard enough.”

You are selecting goalposts that suit your team, and being disrespectful of the USSR (presumably because you don't want to acknowledge their successes).

[inglor_cz]

Not the OP, but even though I respect the Soviet space results, the USSR itself was an abomination, a prison of nations, a rehashed Russian empire rebased on a totalitarian creed.

The eastern half of Europe took the first opportunity to run away from its grip, including my nation.

Happy (and naive) are the people who never lived under Moscow's rule.

[Waterluvian]

Kind of how I feel about how SpaceX’s deeply impressive accomplishments are American.

[DiogenesKynikos]

If you're from Eastern Europe, the USSR liberated your country from the Nazis.

[inglor_cz]

If you're from Eastern Europe (well, Central), like I am:

* two big totalitarian systems, the USSR and the Reich, start the war together by dismembering Poland, then divide the region according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, very nice,

* the USSR spends two years providing the Nazi war machine with necessary resources, thus indirectly aiding our local subjugation,

* then, as usual with bandits, one turns on the other,

* four years later, one loses, the other occupies half of Europe and introduces their own dystopian totalitarian systems there.

The Soviet rule was better in the sense that they didn't consider us racial subhumans, but "liberation" contains the word "liberty", and personal liberty was an extremely scarce good in the Stalinist era.

[DiogenesKynikos]

That's a giant load of historical revisionism.

Nazi Germany started the war. Full stop. The USSR did engage in appeasement from 1939-41, after the French and British sold out Czechoslovakia (and Poland opportunistically took a piece), which the USSR wanted to defend. The USSR knew that it was very high on the Nazis' target list (ideologically, Hitler viewed the Bolsheviks as his primary enemy), so Stalin decided to make a rotten deal with him to delay the war by as long as possible. Stalin was cowardly and opportunistic, but painting this as if the USSR started WWII is absurd.

If it weren't for the Red Army, the Nazis would have physically annihilated the entire Slavic population of Eastern Europe. That was their plan.

[inglor_cz]

The USSR absolutely co-started WWII, the whole meaning of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was to divide Eastern Europe into a Soviet part and a German part. Yes, they had several motives at once. So do regular gangsters. If a gangster teams up with other gangsters for a job, they are usually afraid of one another as well.

"The USSR knew that it was very high on the Nazis' target list (ideologically, Hitler viewed the Bolsheviks as his primary enemy), so Stalin decided to make a rotten deal with him to delay the war by as long as possible. Stalin was cowardly and opportunistic"

Of course the USSR knew, but they also knew that German forces would be engaged in the West, for some time at least. Moscow, together with everyone else, didn't expect France to fold so easily.

BTW I don't consider Stalin particularly cowardly, just psychopathic and evil.

"If it weren't for the Red Army, the Nazis would have physically annihilated the entire Slavic population of Eastern Europe. That was their plan."

True, I acknowledge that, and yet I loathe the USSR.

Imagine a girl caught by a murderer. A rapist comes along, saves her from the murderer, then proceeds to chain her in his house and rape her for several decades. Would you tell the girl "be at least somewhat respectful to your rapist, he saved your life"?

Heck no.

[HaZeust]

Ok, name some goalposts that steelman the USSR's contributions to the space race.

[bruce511]

Sputnik was the first object to orbit the earth. It was the spark that lit the fire under the US space effort. It may not have been grand, but it was the first.

Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space, first to orbit the earth.

To minimize these achievements is like saying the Wright Brothers test was meaningless because it only lasted 12 seconds. In truth each "first" represents a milestone, each required substantial effort.

In more recent times Russia alone was capable of manned space flight (2011 to 2020).

To return to your question, the USSR was critical to the space race. You cannot gave a race with 1 entrant. Without USSR constantly being in the news doing things first, there would not have been a space race at all.

Indeed, by the time of JFK's speech there was not much to race for except the moon. Once the Soviets stopped the US stopped as well. It's taken the talk of a Chinese mission for the US to even bother.

Earth satellites are an enormously valuable use of space. But very unsexy. Trips to the moon have pretty much no value. But they make for good PR.

[m4rtink]

You are mixing up human space flight and going to the ISS.

Sure, for quite a while ISS depended on Russia for crew access, but China has been capable of human spaceflight since 1999, running many missions since & their own space station.

[bruce511]

Yes, indeed.

[taneq]

First satellite, first lunar flyby, first heliocentric orbit, first lunar landing, first animals returned safely from orbit, first human space flight. Those are some pretty solid goals.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

What's a natural goalpost for the first "Space race" ?

I submit that a good candidate is: Space. It's in the name. It's not "the Moon race".

You know, getting a person to space and back. Yuri Gagarin, USSR, first successful crewed spaceflight, 1961.

Or, first artificial satellite in space. Sputnik, USSR 1957

I respect the USA's contributions to the space race too, but also I am amused by the USA under JFK picking something left undone, declaring that that as the only victory condition, doing it and then claiming total victory and celebrating it ever since. Got to salvage national pride somehow. Does that "steelman" it?

[bayindirh]

USSR's ballistic missiles did celestial navigation before the invention of GPS.

Atlas V can leave the pad it sits on because of the Russian RD-180 engine it uses.

[karmakurtisaani]

The real reason for the space race initially was to show you have rockets that can reach anywhere.

[konart]

Most "firsts" are terrible at what they do, especially compared to the follow ups.

>first animal? laika died.

Yes, but Belka and Strelka lived. They were the first to go to orbit and back. USSR too.

>first *naut? yuri gagarin didn't even have manual controls.

And Alan Shepard didn't even had a bath. I say this one doesn't count too.

In fact - nothing counts until your nation\program can't deliver a human to Alpha Centauri and black alive and well. Ideally in less than a year.

[verzali]

Tough to cover eight light years in less than a year, though depends whose frame of reference you are measuring in here?

[konart]

>Tough

A real challenge, wouldn't you agree? :)