... and the Soviets beat NASA to space, both in getting a satellite in orbit and in getting a human in orbit. (There's a bit of inherent Great Man Fallacy in f

... and the Soviets beat NASA to space, both in getting a satellite in orbit and in getting a human in orbit. (There's a bit of inherent Great Man Fallacy in figuring out the contributions of the Nazis, because while on the one hand von Braun did lead the design for the rocket that got NASA on the moon and the Soviets failed miserably at their equivalent, on the other hand, the Soviet rocketry lead who was behind their two previous successes died in 1966. There's an argument that they would have pulled it off if he had survived, but more generally, there's an argument that people other than von Braun were perfectly capable of competently building rockets, and in particular that they could do better work than the Americans while under Soviet-style politics.)