[bwooceli]

First thought I had after getting into the early sixties was, "Wow, no wonder we made it to the moon first". Talk about practice makes perfect...

[matthewmcg]

This is even more vividly shown in this NASA plot of booster development:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/USAF_ICBM...

[dominotw]

>no wonder we made it to the moon first

Korolev's premature death and his successor's lack of political savvy might have to do something with it.