A history of the Soviet communication satellite program. From the description:

The Soviet Union had a big advantage in launch vehicle capability, but, while the US had adapted the Delta to launch small satellites into Geostationary orbits the R7 which had carried spacecraft to the Moon and Venus was not capable of doing the equivalent without significant redesign. Instead, the Soviet Union's scientists came up with their own solution which had some advantages for covering the massive territory of the USSR.

What was the experience? If I can I'd like to go there at some point.

Space programs were speciality of USSR, and the SU made many breakthroughs and records. These days, some people (I suppose that similar to degrowthers) say that this is an unnecessary cost and they question why we should explore the space, while there are so much unsolved problems on Earth. I think this is wrong: the great Voyager missions brought many scientific breakthrougs and the total cost per citizen was something like cents. What are your views on space exploration, like scientific one? (I assume that even degrowthers and anarchists would agree that metorogical, navigation, communication etc. satellites are indispensable.)

Edit: There are some pessimistic views about space exploration from philosophical point of view, but quite obvious for an anti-capitalists: https://jacobin.com/2022/07/colonization-space-exploration-moon-gunther-anders-privatization-earth-destruction/

Mine is Neptune