[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.

[DiogenesKynikos]

> 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.

This is a complete rewrite of the history of WWII. The USSR did not initiate WWII. It was Nazi Germany that drove the escalating conflict and aimed to conquer Europe.

The argument you're making could be turned around to say that Poland co-started WWII when it conspired with Nazi Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia - something that Poland actually did in 1938. And by the way, at that time, the USSR was willing to go to war to defend Czechoslovakia from Nazi aggression, and it was Poland that blocked that idea by refusing to cooperate with the USSR. But that argument would be equally wrong as your argument: Poland simply acted opportunistically, while Germany was the one driving the conflict.

After the British and French sold out Czechoslovakia, the Soviets did an about face and decided to make a deal to save their own skin. Stalin was deathly afraid of a German invasion of the USSR, and wanted to make sure that Germany did not launch its war against the USSR first. Again, the driving factor in this was the knowledge that Germany was preparing for aggressive war. Without that, there simply would not have been WWII. The USSR was not planning any offensive war, nor was it in any position to launch one. Stalin was busy purging the Red Army officer corps.

Stalin was absolutely a coward on this issue. He was paralyzed by fear of a German invasion. He refused to accept the many different strands of intelligence which indicated that a German invasion was imminent. He kept sending supplies to Germany until the day of the invasion, in order to buy off the Germans. He was even told the exact date of the invasion by Richard Sorge, and he ignored it. The Red Army was caught completely flat-footed. Most of the air force was wiped out on the ground. That's not the sign of a country ready for an imminent war. Again, it was Germany driving events.

I do think you should be thankful to the USSR for saving you and your country from annihilation and extermination. They sacrificed millions of people to do so.

[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.