Who won the space race?

[milankragujevic]

Often people say that Americans won the space race, but i dont think so.

áááà won the space race by putting the first man-made object to space, and they won the manned space race, and the unmanned lunar race. But the US won the manned lunar race.

So do you agree with me or not?

[Borkless]

I'd say on the whole, the USSR won the space race. While Project Apollo was an amazing project, most of the hardware was very specialized. The Apollo CSM was pretty overbuilt for work in LEO, the LM was only good for landing on the moon, etc.

The Saturn V was a hugely powerful booster, but that in itself was sort of a crutch. It let US space designers get away with doing everything in one launch. The Soviets, with their less powerful boosters, were forced to learn how to dock and assemble things in space, a skill absolutely vital for any long-term space program.

While the Soviets didn't have great flashy achievements like landing on the moon, their ability to make orbital rendezvous and refueling almost routine was, in my opinion, a much more important and critical skill.

[Pursuedtank]

It depends how you clarify winning the race. If you consider a manned moon landing the "finish line" then yes, the US won the space race. If you consider the space race a list of achievements, with the most achievements achieved first then the US didn't win.

[milankragujevic]

Well space race is "race to space". So first one to space. So CCCP. moon race is the first one to the moon. ignoring robots, US won.

[cesarcurado]

I agree that USSR won the space race, not that I disrespect Americans or anything.

[milankragujevic]

I'm just sad that space development stopped after someone won. It shows that our nations don't care about space at all.

[marko dash]

Humanity won

[Diche Bach]

Humanity won

Quoted for emphasis

[M83]

I'd have to say that nobody really 'won' the Space Race. Each side had their achievements with the Soviet Union having more; the USSR with the first satellite, first man, first woman, first hard/soft landings on the Moon, first Moon rover, first space station, first multi-man craft, first EVA, and so on and so forth, with the US taking the prize of 6 lunar landings. As much as it was a 'race', which today seems like it was a competition with no huge implications, remember the drive was out of pure terror of the other side advancing ahead in public perception and world might. So if you look into the history of the times between these two nations, it might be easy to say "Well the Soviets did more things first, so they win it." But it's more complex, since there's a difference between what the space program did for each country. The US was helped immensely with lots of lucrative contracts and jobs sent to high-level research and scientific programs, and NASA stuck it out as the forefront of human spaceflight. As for the USSR, the space program was a drain on finances in Khruschev's/Brezhnev's already weak economy held up by lackluster Five-Year Plans. So it's hard to say who per se 'won' the Space Race.

We are also reminded of the toll on some brave men, such as Grissom, Chaffee and White on Apollo 1, Vladimir Komarov aboard Soyuz 1, and the crew of Soyuz 11 that perished on re-entry. Those deaths, at least in my mind, make it a draw between the two nations.

[Joshington]

Everyone was a winner.

[Kerbface]

I think we all sort of got runner up. I think it benefitted all of humanity, but I don't want to say we all "won" because we sort of gave up a lot once someone had no near major term goals that they could "beat" someone else at.

[Alavarien-46]

I think nobody won. We landed on the Moon in 1969, and it was everybody thought that the USA had "won" the race, but which country can re-achieve this now ? The answer is nobody. The USA got to the Moon first but nobody (USSR included) even tried to repeat this. That's why I think it's the Humanity which lost.

[King Arthur]

The problem we need to answer regarding us not going back to the Moon is simple: Why should we land more humans on the Moon?

The Apollo missions were more than sufficient in performing and returning scientific lunar data only humans would be able to do, and we haven't found anything new to research about the Moon that requires direct human presence since then. Long-term human presence on the Moon (let alone LEO!) is a (very) expensive endeavor and oftentimes the cost and point of long-term human presence in just LEO is brought to question (read: ISS), if we're having such a hard time just trying to justify humans living in LEO, the Moon is literally a whole lightyear out of the story. Life support systems are expensive, the supplies and habitat a human needs in space is prohibitive to upkeep; we need a huge justifiable reason to keep humans in space (let alone the Moon) and we simply haven't found it yet.

Now as for the OP's query of who won the space race: Looking at individual countries, the USSR/Russia won the Space Race on the whole (the Soyuz is still on-going for one, and is currently the only consistently available form of manned space travel) while the USA won the Moon Race. Looking at Earth as a whole, mankind took one giant leap and won.

[jwenting]

we need a huge justifiable reason to keep humans in space (let alone the Moon) and we simply haven't found it yet.

survival of the species...

And yes, that means getting out of the cradle, reach for the stars.

Not just because the sun will go kabloom at some point, wiping out this dirtball we call home, but because any civilisation that loses its spirit of adventure and exploration is doomed to die, and yes I think we're in that death spiral already, your very questioning of the need to reach out from the earth is symptomatic.

And then there's spreading the risk around of some guy pushing the button and decimating mankind by releasing some sort of supervirus or whatever.

[shand]

...presence on the Moon (let alone LEO!) is ...

...the Moon is literally a whole lightyear out of the story

*Doesn't need to be said*

basically i agree King Arthur; there is no NEED for manned missions. not only are our romote techs a lot better then they used to be, but manning a mission is really really hard (comparatively).

OP: the US won the space race - because they achieved the last big thing. But most importantly because of Star Wars. They got a space program in place such that the proposal of Star Wars (not the film) was sufficient to be a major threat to the USSR. They had GPS (predecesors) in the 60's, and the ability to launch weaponised sat's if they wanted to. meanwhile USSR was unable to meet that technological challange and feed its citizens so it lost. combine that with the "WE PUT OUR FLAG ON THE MOON" publicity... well that just about seals it.

The USSR tried really hard, they led for the first few laps, but then NASA pulled its fingers out, took a (huge) risk and won the race.

[Diche Bach]

I suspect that any of us with sense realize that interstellar stuff is still in the sci-fi realm of reality (really wish it wasn't the case, but it seems to my naïve non-engineer/physical scientist eye that that is the case). So a moon base for the purpose of 'reaching for the stars' seems a bit rash.

However, I would think that with its low escape velocity, not to mention its minerals and soils, it is in some ways preferable as a staging / building area for intra-solar operations such as mining?

[milankragujevic]

If the US didn't waste many attempts ignoring Von Braun, they would've been the first in everything. And if evil Joseph (Stalin) didn't imprison all enginners and staff the USSR would've landed on the moon, simply because Korolyov wouldn't die. And he died because he was tortured in Gulag and that deformed his mouth so they couldn't give him a breathing tube on an operation.

US completly ignored Space, and public hated Werhner Von Braun because he was a nazi. That's what slowed down the US. Also the lack of spirit to compete first, since everyone in the world viewed US as a superiour country (except in countries under communist influence and the USSR itself). Korolyov was smart enough to realize the potential of (future) R-7 and started building it instead of using the obsolete V2. And he had Kruschev's support. It's amazing what he did, because most of the people he worked with had no idea of rockets, and the general public didn't even dream about it.

Humanity lost. Yes, we did all those things. But why aren't we moving? We are stuck on a Soyuz, because Roscosmos lost funding for Klipper and Parom, NASA had to shut down the Shuttle, and Orion is barely "alive". I hope that SpaceX and China restart our space program.

Edited August 5, 2013 by milankragujevic

[SuperWeegee4000]

Basically, the Russians would most likely have come out on top, but they just stopped caring.

[Themohawkninja]

There are really two answers to the question of "who won the space race".

First of all, there was no international goal that was set, under which the first to reach that goal would win, so in that sense, NOBODY WON.

On the other hand, let me first refute why you think the U.S.S.R. won. They were the first to accomplish a major task, however you don't say somebody has one a race when they succeed at jumping the first hurdle before anyone else, you say that the person who crosses the finish line first is the winner of the race. Now then, even though there was no international goal, America did set a goal, and they did achieve it, whereby Russia simply tried to beat America, and failed to beat America to their own goal, so in that sense, AMERICA WON.

This should, however bring up the question of "what was the Space Race, racing towards"? Moon landing? Who can get the most "firsts"? Most science? Most PR from it?

[Tom Robin]

I suspect that any of us with sense realize that interstellar stuff is still in the sci-fi realm of reality (really wish it wasn't the case, but it seems to my naïve non-engineer/physical scientist eye that that is the case). So a moon base for the purpose of 'reaching for the stars' seems a bit rash.

However, I would think that with its low escape velocity, not to mention its minerals and soils, it is in some ways preferable as a staging / building area for intra-solar operations such as mining?

A moonbase would be a better launch pad if the rockets are built and filled with moon materials.

[King Arthur]

survival of the species...

And yes, that means getting out of the cradle, reach for the stars.

Unfortunately, we have an astronomical truckload of social, cultural, and political issues (with no clear answers in sight) that we first need to deal with right here on Earth before we can even consider moving out into space.

[M83]

Unfortunately, we have an astronomical truckload of social, cultural, and political issues (with no clear answers in sight) that we first need to deal with right here on Earth before we can even consider moving out into space.

I tend to disagree, as things like hunger, poverty, disease, are always going to be here. I do not think humanity will be capable of eradicating every last ill that affects ourselves. So because of that, we should not limit ourselves to only fixing problems down here, because we've got dreams up there. No matter what, governments and private companies will promote space, and they're not wrong for doing that instead of doing, say, cancer research. Space and disease, they are quite similar in that we cannot give all resources to one and none to the other, as it stunts the ability for humanity to progress.

It's like when you look at all the fancy machines in hospitals and the high-tech computers and all that jazz. When that stuff was conceptualized, it might have had to do with the field of, say, quantum physics, or chemistry, and the scientists and programmers, for all intents and purposes, did not care about whether it affected medicine. But some of the things have, and it's bad to dismiss an area of science if it can help us so much.

Apologies for getting so off-topic, back to the discussion at hand.