I'm not fan of communism, but was not the first man in space from a communist country? I agree that progress is more impressive under capitalist countries (and

I'm not fan of communism, but was not the first man in space from a communist country? I agree that progress is more impressive under capitalist countries (and that capitalist countries have other very useful advantages, such as not having gulags), but I rather feel that the reason was rather that capitalism was very well positioned to grab the low hanging fruits before the others (and also that, due to our position, we see the progress of capitalism as more impressive as the ones from renaissance, antiquity, ... while maybe, relatively, the step was more impressive at the time)