Who won the Space Race? Community poll

[Moar Boosters]

Voted other.

I don't really think there is/was a clearly defined winner.

The Soviets were the first to accomplish most of the major achievements, and NASA were the first to the Moon.

Both then suffered huge setbacks. The Soviet Union collapsed and the space program lost most of it's funding.

NASA spend a huge proportion of their budget on the space shuttle which completely failed in making spaceflight routine, and sadly killed 14 astronauts and lost a lot of public confidence.

It's kinda weird to even call it a race. Both nations have achieved great feats, but I'm pretty sure most of the scientists from each country were doing it for the science, rather than to allow their governments to play their game of one-upmanship. Currently the Americans have to pay the Russians to launch people into space, so I guess on the political front they're behind, but at the same time they're making fantastic discoveries with projects like Curiosity and hopefully LADEE.

In the future the real space race will be between commercial companies. That will be a real race, the winner being whoever can create the safest and cheapest launch system, and hopefully in the future great scientists will still continue to make great discoveries, and it won't matter as much which country they come from.

[Helix935]

if you ask me i would first say that the space race is not over.....

the USSR started it

the US had gave the appearance of its end by landing on the moon

but it is still not over for there are still frontiers left to be reached which include Mars, Venus, Titan, Europa, even Callisto are still left untouched by humans

and from the looks of it it seems to be starting up again as we start to compete with Japan, China, Russia, and even India in the near future (unless some crap happens that screws this all up but this is unlikely) which i am sure most of us will see.

[Guest]

Humanity is winning.

[Mr Shifty]

Humanity is winning.

Plus one. And some more characters.

[Sax Man Aeronautics]

People say the US won, when in fact, the USSR did most of the achievements.

[Omicron314]

I second regex's sentiments. Does it really matter who won? I will be happy when the first human steps on Mars regardless of whether they are American or Russian or Chinese. The American political response that will occur when another country (my money's on China) plants its own flag in the lunar regolith will be very interesting to watch, though.

[Guest]

Now, don't get me wrong, competition is great for business, but IMO the space race never really ended, it just turned into a human endeavor.

E: Also, this:

The American political response that will occur when another country (my money's on China) plants its own flag in the lunar regolith will be very interesting to watch, though.

Edited September 14, 2013 by regex

[Payload]

Who determines when the race was over? I say the first country to have a working ICBM won the space race. That was Germany if I am not mistaken. The rest of it is political BS where both the USSR and the USA where trying to re-create and better what the Germans had already done.

[bellino]

Huma-

Oh wait, were not united. Yet.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[dharak1]

I would say US because the space race was kind of about distance, if Russia got boots on mars after them they would have won.

[Drunkrobot]

In terms of expertise needed for future missions, Russia has a slight edge over USA. There are 2 key aspects of a long-term manned spaceflight that Russia is more skilled at than the US, long-duration flight and construction in LEO. Constructing the first multi-module space station in history, then living in it for months on end, pretty much on their own, makes Russia's case.

Of course, the US has it's own advantages. If Orion/SLS manages to get built, then NASA has the opportunity to do a lot of cool things. The moment they take some ice from an asteroid, and use it to fill up the fuel tanks, asteroid mining would leap from something people say out loud to prove themselves crazy to something every space program on the planet will work towards doing bigger and better.

But hey, at this point in the space age, ESA might have it worked out. ESA is hardly at the cutting edge of technology, and, my god, never look at the comment section of an article on ESA, but sharing the cost across the member nations makes it super cheap per nation. €8 a year per European is a damn good price for an full on space program. I think it was Bill Clinton who said that turning the space station Freedom into the ISS effectively divided the cost by two.

[ZedNova]

Nobody "Won", the space race. Just because we (The US) landed on the moon first, doesn't mean that we won. In fact, can anyone win? Maybe whoever gets to Alpha centauri first wins?

[ThatDebri]

CANADIANS WON THE SPACE RACE!

proof:www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEkl_Mnhp1A

[Raticon]

If one would like to say that the race is over, yes.

USSR got the first satellite and the first man into orbit, as well as the first nation to land a probe onto another planet and first to build and inhabit a space station, among others.

The US were the first to land people on the Moon, as well as send probes to interstellar space, among other things.

I would like to say that the Soviets won the space race, as they were the first to get a man into orbit and then back home again. The US on the other hand would have won the "Moon race" and the "Interstellar race". All in my own humble opinion.

[3_bit]

Well the Russians did get a lot of "firsts" such as satellite, man, station, etc., but they did it, as far as I know "the quick and dirty" way, while the US took the time to do more research, which paid off heavily when they starting beating the Russians mid-Gemini project. I believe had the Russians taken a similar route to the US and started when they did, their N1 would have worked because they would have had the knowledge and have easily beaten us to the Moon.

Summary: the long way is sometimes faster.

[rasheed]

In all, humanity wins.

[Canopus]

USA won, sent humans farther than anyone before, created the Space Shuttle, launched a bigger space station than Salyut, invented the MMU, sent a lot of probes which Russia often fails at, created the worlds first GPS network(Russia failed again to launch GLONASS), launched the worlds first commercial satellite, performed first rocket launch from airplane.

The space shuttle was actually a disaster, launching a bigger spacestation isnt really a success either, and there were many failures on the US site too.

I think nobody really won because there is no defined finish line. And now everyone is on the same site (except china maybe) which i think is far better for humanity anyway.

[jwenting]

Soviets won. They're up there, we're not (or if we want to go, we have to beg them for a ride)...

[PolecatEZ]

Raytheon, Boeing, McDonnel-Douglas, and a handful of others won the space race.

[jwenting]

Who determines when the race was over? I say the first country to have a working ICBM won the space race. That was Germany if I am not mistaken. The rest of it is political BS where both the USSR and the USA where trying to re-create and better what the Germans had already done.

Germany made an IRBM, their ICBM never left the drawing board.

The USSR made the first ICBM (and used it to launch Sputnik 1 to show it).

[Tiberion]

The space shuttle was actually a disaster

Don't be ridiculous. It flew 135 missions over 30 years.

If being the 2nd most used 'people launcher' makes you a failure, I am sure there are dozens of countries and private companies lining up to get in on some of that failure.

Come on people, get a grip on reality.

[Kryten]

Wasting an enormous amount in the process, and destroying the US commercial launch industry.

[hugix]

What people who complain about the fact that the US has no manned launcher forget is that there currently only is one location to fly to. the ISS currently is the only destiny for manned spaceflight. And even better. most of the components are from the USA (7 out of the 11 pressurized modules are US). So that one is a draw.

A bigger aspect of space exploration is done by robots. That one is won by the USA. The Mars rovers, interplanetary orbiters like Cassini and MESSENGER. DAWN, etc... a lot of exploration is done by the USA or is im co operation with the USA (Like the Huygens probe).

But the real winner is everyone who makes money out of it. Satellites are a every day part of our lives. GPS, weather, communication. these need to be build and launched. This is a market. If you can make money out of space flight. You've won.

[Tiberion]

Wasting an enormous amount in the process, and destroying the US commercial launch industry.

Hogwash. Boeing, McDonald Douglas, ATK and others have made billions of dollars over the years, both from NASA and the USAF buying launchers, as well as private companies.

Was the shuttle expensive to maintain? Yes. But without it, many of the things it did simply would not have been done.

Doesn't matter how inefficient it was, it was in no way a failed program And no amount of post-program revisionism can change that.

[Kryten]

Hogwash. Boeing, McDonald Douglas, ATK and others have made billions of dollars over the years, both from NASA and the USAF buying launchers...

...destroying the US commercial launch industry.

The USAF is not capable of using foreign launchers due to various regulations (mostly related to technology transfer control). NASA is subject to most of the same agreements. In terms of actual commercial launches, Boeing (or rather the ILS assets they've developed) hasn't launched one since 2006, Lockheed hasn't launched one since 2002, and ATK, uh, well, ATK isn't actually a launch provider. The decline started long before that; when it was decided the shiny new Space Shuttle^TM would be used to launch all US payloads. Having an industry suddenly stop, and then start from scratch a few years later, isn't terribly good for it...