Who won the Space Race? Community poll

[Piwa]

Drawing heavy spaceship ( TMC) . Drawing from declassified workbook author of the article that was in the 1960s, the lead designer of OKB- 1. At TMK was supposed to create artificial gravity by rotating around the center of mass of the ship . Provide the crew with food , water and air was closed bio- technical complex . In its structure - a greenhouse, which was intended to cover by concentrators sunlight. The ship looks like a five-story cylinder of varying diameter in the shape of a bottle . First floor - living , with three cabins , the second - working with logging to control the ship , and the third - a greenhouse , and the fourth - the instrument- service module , which also served as the refuge of the radiation and the fifth floor is formed by the descent module with corrective propulsion . Hubs are located outside , solar panels , radiators and blinds thermal control system , remote radio communications antenna and Gateway .

[Piwa]

Great plans were for mankind ...

[Piwa]

By the way, yesterday, exactly 56 years ago, was launched into space on Sputnik-1. Missed the date: (

[mrfox]

The only winners in this race are those who keep running, keep dreaming.

Those who think they have "won", have truly lost.

Problem is, the ones who think they have won are the only ones who are still running, still dreaming.

So, technically, your statement is contradictory and invalidates the very point it's trying to make.

www.nasa.gov/

Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available.

We sincerely regret this inconvenience.

Edited October 5, 2013 by mrfox

[Brotoro]

Even the Soviets knew they lost the race when they started lying about never having intended to go to the Moon in the first place. "The Moon? Nyet, we were never trying to go there. Our Soyuz project was always all about...making space stations! Da! That's the ticket. We were never trying to get to the Moon."

Of course, we all found out differently later.

[Piwa]

Even the Soviets knew they lost the race when they started lying about never having intended to go to the Moon in the first place. "The Moon? Nyet, we were never trying to go there. Our Soyuz project was always all about...making space stations! Da! That's the ticket. We were never trying to get to the Moon."

Of course, we all found out differently later.

In the Soviet Union was the dispersion of money between projects, including the space station.

And, as in the Soviet Union, could not lie about the fact that they did not want to fly to the moon, do you think U.S. satellites could not take a picture of H-1 at the launch site ???...

[Piwa]

Unlike the United States where it was prioretety start at the moon in the USSR in the first place wanted to study it, and not waving a flag on it

[Brotoro]

In the Soviet Union was the dispersion of money between projects, including the space station.

And, as in the Soviet Union, could not lie about the fact that they did not want to fly to the moon, do you think U.S. satellites could not take a picture of H-1 at the launch site ???...

I don't understand what you are saying. The Soviets most certainly did lie about not participating in the race to the Moon. And the space-program-haters in the U.S. swallowed this propaganda and went on and on about how NASA had wasted money on a 'race' that didn't really exist, and that NASA had been making everything up about the Soviets having a manned Moon program. What a bunch of dupes.

Certainly the U.S. intelligence agencies knew many things about the Soviet program, but this information was not published at the time (to protect their intelligence assets and details about their reconnaissance capabilities). Civilian space watchers knew rumors about the N-1 failures, but just because the Soviets had a massive rocket they kept blowing up is not proof that it was intended for lunar missions...it could have been intended to launch large space station components.

It was not until 1989 that information about the Soviet lunar program was finally released as part of glasnost. See, for example, this article in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/18/us/russians-finally-admit-they-lost-race-to-moon.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

I realize that most of you were not alive when we had the lack of information on the Soviet program, and we could only guess what they were up to, and had to listen to their lies. But I was alive during that period and avidly followed all information that was available to the public.

[Plymouth]

By the end of the WWII, USA were the ones who had the full deck of scientists working on their space program, so for me, technically, they cheated.

[Piwa]

The USSR had hidden everything that is connected with the cosmos, such as the launch of Sputnik 1, or the flight of Yuri Gagarin. in the Soviet Union did not say much, they were doing their job.

[Brotoro]

The USSR had hidden everything that is connected with the cosmos, such as the launch of Sputnik 1, or the flight of Yuri Gagarin. in the Soviet Union did not say much, they were doing their job.

I wasn't talking about the Soviets hiding things (although they certainly did that)... I was talking about them lying. Like they lied about Yuri Gagarin landing inside his Vostok capsule (instead of admitting that he ejected from it) since they would not have been able to file for a record with the Federation Aeronautique Internationale if he had ejected. And like they lied about never having intended to go to the Moon after they lost the race.

[czokletmuss]

I wasn't talking about the Soviets hiding things (although they certainly did that)... I was talking about them lying.

Really? USSR was a totalitarian empire build on misery: secret police, political repressions, genocide, ethnic cleansing, population transfers, concentration camps (Gulag), slave labour, socialistic economy and so on and so on. Damn, even Korolev was sentenced to Gulag where he lost his teeth (he had a prosthethic jaw) and health (hence it's one of the reasons why he died). Lying and hiding things? Come on

EDIT: Knowing atrocities which USSR has commited is one thing, but their achievements in space is something else entirely - the Space Race is about engineering, technology, bravery of pilots and vision, not about morality. I just couldn't hide my surprise when someone is, well, surprised that the USSR was keeping things in secret. Of course they did!

Edited October 6, 2013 by czokletmuss

[Piwa]

KGB secret police you have in mind? Genocide whom? Political repression in Stalin's time, of course it's terrible. rabsky labor - who was a slave? "Hell, even the Korolev, who was sentenced to the Gulag, where he lost his teeth (he had prosthethic jaw) and health care (and, therefore, it is one of the reasons why he died)," Korolev orestovali during Stalin's purges, after Stalin's death,Korolev was released, but I agree with you about Koroleve .......

Quote from the article:

Back in 1962, SP Korolev instructed GSKB "Spetsmash" under the leadership of Vladimir Barmina start finding long-term lunar base (DLB in the documents, but more often used the name "Star", and inside the design team at all, "Barmingrad").

It is amazing - and TMK, and Institute of Biomedical Problems and the moon base - all these Korolev. It seems that his ultimate goal was to become not only an interplanetary manned flight, but the beginning of the colonization of the solar system! Cursed Petrovskiy, you did not give the Korolev the ten years that he had asked before the operation (see Chapter 2.6 of the book FG Uglova "Under the white robes" - begins with the words, "My friend, who is now deceased"), damned GBshnik that hit Sergei Pavlovich carafe on cheek (bone had healed badly, and during the operation failed to correctly enter a breathing tube into the trachea) - because you have abandoned the path of humanity to the Stars!

Descendants also excelled - 40 years "grown peas" on the space stations and seriously argue that a man in deep space just do not need (to prove? Trying to convince themselves?)....

[Brotoro]

...I just couldn't hide my surprise when someone is, well, surprised that the USSR was keeping things in secret. Of course they did!

Please go back and read my original post on this to understand my point. Nobody is SURPRISED that the Soviets were keeping things secret or hiding their failures -- Piwa just brought that up (rather than address my original point, I guess).

MY point is that the Soviets chose to lie about their lunar program after they lost the space race. They claimed they were never trying to land men on the Moon. They claimed they were focusing on space stations all along...and they only wanted to explore the Moon with unmanned probes, unlike the wasteful United States. It wasn't until MANY years later that the truth was revealed. And all of this relates to the main question of this thread: Even the Soviets knew that they had lost the race...and that's why they chose to lie about it. Yes, the well known fact that the Soviets were a totalitarian and secretive society allowed them to get away with this...but that fact is not a SURPRiSE to anybody.

[czokletmuss]

Oh, okay, it seems that I was wrong. Sorry.

But I can't agree with you - yest, they lied and they lost the race to the Moon. But it's hardly loosing the whole Space Race, unless you think that putting Old Glory on lunar surface means that USA won it.

[Piwa]

Please go back and read my original post on this to understand my point. Nobody is SURPRISED that the Soviets were keeping things secret or hiding their failures -- Piwa just brought that up (rather than address my original point, I guess).

MY point is that the Soviets chose to lie about their lunar program after they lost the space race. They claimed they were never trying to land men on the Moon. They claimed they were focusing on space stations all along...and they only wanted to explore the Moon with unmanned probes, unlike the wasteful United States. It wasn't until MANY years later that the truth was revealed. And all of this relates to the main question of this thread: Even the Soviets knew that they had lost the race...and that's why they chose to lie about it. Yes, the well known fact that the Soviets were a totalitarian and secretive society allowed them to get away with this...but that fact is not a SURPRiSE to anybody.

I agree with you, in the Soviet Union lied about what they once did not want to put a man on the moon. But at least once in the Soviet Union did not deny that they have lost race to the moon.

[oggylt]

if the space race was to go to the orbit (very far away) SSRS won because they went first to the space, and the USA went to the same space just further away. I mean will you win a race. If you cross the finish line and run x meters further. And if you want the race thing till now don't forget the boundaries you have to cross something to win the race, why would a unmanned Venus (I typed eve first time :DDDDDD ) flyby landing be more advanced than a landing on the mars? Or why would doing something x times would title you as race winner after something same was done before without a failure ( i am talking about commercial launches those are totally out of question since it is mundane), But to return to the boundaries and the race itself, I would like to mention voyager that has just did something what has never been done before, and voyager 2 will not add anything to this race since it came second if it will fly further away. That is my point.

Edited October 6, 2013 by oggylt

[mdatspace]

Before the early 60s, the USSR was winning. They won the space race, but they lost the moon race.

[Helix935]

the space race is human progress and human progress doesn't which means that it has thus never ended for humans which would mean that no one has won until this galaxy and others are colonized by humans

[Brotoro]

Oh, okay, it seems that I was wrong. Sorry.

But I can't agree with you - yest, they lied and they lost the race to the Moon. But it's hardly loosing the whole Space Race, unless you think that putting Old Glory on lunar surface means that USA won it.

Getting to the Moon was only part of it (although a very big part).

The "space race" was NOT (as some people here apparently suggest) about human advancement in space flight... The space race was an aspect of the Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. The two countries could not just stand up and slug it out over their differences because that would have been far too destructive. So they found different, less destructive, methods of competing and demonstrating to the other countries of the world the superiority of their social, political, and economic systems. The venue of outer space was particularly apt for this because it allowed the demonstration of superior technology and engineering, and also demonstrated the superiority of economic systems because a country would not be able to maintain a multi-front program to explore space while simultaneously keeping a strong military and providing good lives for their people without having a strong economic system. This is what the space race was all about, and this is also why so many of the initial efforts involved concentrating on "firsts" for their political propaganda values (such as stuffing three men without spacesuits into a Vostok capsule with no abort system and trying to pass it off as a whole next generation of space vehicle developed in such a short time, or putting a poorly-trained women in a capsule just to be the first to do so, or changing plans for Apollo 8 just to get it to the Moon before the other guys might loop somebody around it first).

The U.S.S.R. certainly had the early lead because of their large ICBM (which they developed to carry huge, clunky hydrogen bombs...where as the U.S. didn't need to plan for such large ICBMs because they were further advanced in thermonuclear bomb technology). This is why Kennedy set America's primary goal to be the landing and returning of men from the surface of the Moon... because this would require a sufficient advancement in technology and booster power in a short enough time period that he figured the U.S. could get there first despite the U.S.S.R. having been first out of the starting blocks. Ever since project Gemini, where the U.S. was the first to develop the truly important techniques needed for space exploration (rendezvous and docking, and learning how to do effective work during EVAs) and Apollo (being able to build a successful very large booster, and sending humans deeper into space than simply lobbing them into LEO, which we sadly all fell back to later), the U.S. was ahead of the U.S.S.R. The U.S. had superior space probes with instruments of superior technology that provided vastly more information about more planets than the U.S.S.R. could manage, and many more space telescopes of superior technology to study the universe at a wide variety of wavelengths. The U.S. developed the first reusable spacecraft, and had the economic power to keep it flying to rack up a huge number of man (and woman) hours in space (and not of the political-stunt variety). Sure, it was only limited to LEO, and was nowhere near as cost effective as hoped for (but that makes its continued use an even more impressive demonstration of the U.S.'s economic power). The Soviets managed to fly their knock-off shuttle once, and their heavy-lift Energia only twice before their economic system eventually collapsed.

The "space race" was a politically-motivated demonstration of technological, industrial, and economic might. What humans have left from it is some legacy technology, some of which continues to chug along in low Earth orbit activities, a few probes from that era that continue to putter along, and a fair amount of science that was done along the way.

[ZingidyZongxxx]

The winner of a race is who crosses the finish first, not who starts first. Although neither technically finished, the U.S. got to the moon first.

[magnemoe]

The winner of a race is who crosses the finish first, not who starts first. Although neither technically finished, the U.S. got to the moon first.

As I remember from Civilization the winning condition is to colonize Alpha Centauri, last I checked this milestone is still open.

[Camacha]

Also if the Soviet probe landings where SO great, then why is the forum full of KSP players trying to do an Apollo-style mission to the mun, or trying to build a space shuttle, or landing a rover Curiosity style?

I always knew about the USSR Venus missions, but since I read up on them recently I have a lot more respect for them. I also discovered that soviet rovers explored the moon and still have the record for furthest drive on another body and have been the only rovers on another body until Pathfinder touched down many decades later. I find all these missions with simple technology highly inspiring and I think more people would too if they knew about them.

Sending men up that can improvise means in one way more complexity, but in a lot of other ways it is easier, since you have someone up there to fix problems, instead of being dead in the water as soon as something goes wrong. I will certainly launch USSR inspired probes in KSP, as I think they are great achievements.

And yes, I do come from a country that is culturally influenced by the USA, so it comes as no surprise that the general idea is/was that the USA missions were bigger achievements and thus are more known. The more I learn about the Soviet undertakings, the more I am impressed though. When viewed from a neutral point of view they were doing and developing all kinds of crazy and amazing things in more directions than just the moon.

[Piwa]

The winner of a race is who crosses the finish first, not who starts first. Although neither technically finished, the U.S. got to the moon first.

In the USSR, the first photo of the back side of the moon, the first flight around the moon (turtles), the first lunar soft landing

[Wahgineer]

www.nasa.gov/

Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available.

We sincerely regret this inconvenience.

Please explain, then, the SLS, Orion, and Curiosity. I'd say that's considered still running and dreaming.