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Don't forget Mir! Or how the ISS is built around modules meant for Mir 2.

• avmich 5y ago
  Yes, I've mentioned space stations - which were the next frontier after the Moon race for manned spaceflight. USA had a tremendous success with space probes - starting with Hubble. Actually, Voyager - still chugging along - and even Vikings - started massive Mars science - but I'd consider the wave of many space projects - Pathfinder, Galileo, Cassini, many space telescopes etc. - started roughly with Hubble launch. In manned space USA was arguably tied with Shuttle, which eventually stopped flying in 2011, and had to send astronauts with Soyuzes; only when SpaceX completed the Crew Dragon, USA resumed sending people to orbit again; but these are better known recent events. Similarly USA recently got much stronger in commercial space sectors, including regarding manned space - launches, suborbital space; here modern Russia so far offers the same tourist flights as 20 years ago, while having troubles in modernizing, or even maintaining, the launcher fleet. But that's Russia, not USSR. So if we stop the clock at the moment USSR dissolves, the relative space capabilities are different than now. In space USSR had - up until the end - enough of achievements to be considered world class.