It always comes across to me as maximum cope when Americans brag about "winning the space race". I mean, even if it was true, the US's economy was massively wealthier than the USSR's. This "race" was literally between the wealthiest country on earth and a very poor country. Even at the height of the USSR, its GDP was only about half that of the US's.

It really does not show the US's "strength" to brag so much about winning against someone with so much less resources. It's a sign of weakness to actually even be in a "race" with a developing country to begin with, which suggests they are actually competitive and have a chance of winning.

That's really what the whole "space race" shows. It does not matter who "won", the very fact a poor developing nation could compete with the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth in the first place demonstrates the extraordinary weakness of the capitalist system.

The US only placed a man on the moon because of NASA, which they founded as a direct response to the Soviets launching Sputnik. Meaning, the US literally only implemented this space program as a response to the Soviets, they were not a natural outgrowth of the US's system and would not have happened without the Soviets (as we have seen NASA massively defunded ever since). The fact the US even got on the moon in the first place only happened because of the USSR.

That was back in 1969, and we're now in 2022 yet, funnily enough, the capitalist private sector has not got a man that far yet.

—aimixin