34 ms·

Which is another weird thing. US declared the space race "won" when they got to the moon, despite being behind in all other milestones like sattelite and manned

by dtech 3y ago

Which is another weird thing. US declared the space race "won" when they got to the moon, despite being behind in all other milestones like sattelite and manned space flight. If SU got to the moon first US would've ignored it too and said Mars was the real target...

mjamesaustin 3y ago
There's a show about that exact scenario! For All Mankind.
- arethuza 3y ago
  I love For All Mankind - largely because it portrays the future I used to think we were going to have when I was a kid in the 1970s.
  - WorldMaker 3y ago
    Season 2 captured so much of my 1980s kid "this is the space future I was promised". At the time my uncle even worked on projects at Nasa and would describe some of the ideals of the space shuttle program in a way that For All Mankind Season 2 captured that boring reality never quite did, especially after the Challenger disaster. (Plus, spoilers: Project Orion in that season! Which is one of the things that I can point to where FAM's timeline is maybe worse than ours, as it is fun to bring up every time people suggest they can't watch FAM because it is too "utopian". Project Orion was in part cancelled because of advances in cancer research, especially with respect to radiation. The FAM timeline seems to be spending so much on aerospace at the expense of cancer research among other things, and things like the 80s and 90s fights against tobacco seem almost non-existent in that timeline. People are still smoking nearly as much in that timeline's 80s as they did in the 50s. There are no signs of the near ubiquitous anti-tobacco PSAs of our timeline's 80s and 90s. I don't know how much the writers are intentionally working in such trade-offs, versus just trying to maintain storylines and aesthetics across its decade jumps, but it makes a ton of sense that there would be such trade-offs. Similarly, there are signs that civil rights are still generally worse in that timeline than ours, especially gay rights and feminism.)
thrashh 3y ago
No, the battle was an economic one, never a science one. Let’s face it: both the US and Soviet Union had extremely capable scientists. But the entire Cold War was about which economic system was the “best” and in the end, the Soviet Union frankly ran out of money and could not even test their Buran spacecraft before launching it to see it crash. Running out of money is how you lose this battle.
- dijit 3y ago
  > the Soviet Union frankly ran out of money To be perfectly fair, this was at least partly the result of the immeasurably expensive clean up of Chernobyl. Estimates vary but the most recent numbers put it at about $700 Billion.
  - badpun 3y ago
    SU was economically unviable long before Chernobyl disaster. It was so mismanaged it had large-scale famines, for God's sake.
    - allarm 3y ago
      I don’t think they had famines around 1986. Long before that - yes.
    - p_l 3y ago
      Honestly, it would have had them either way. You can't change the shitshow that was Imperial Russia that easily, and tsarist legacy was hamstringing any reform (for example in the decision to continue the systems of secret police and prison camps - neither was Communist invention) However they did fuckup in many areas in the economy, something that was recognised internally at least by some - as seen by multiple attempts at reforms. Also, one can't discount the unbelievably favourable position of the USA at the end of WW2 when analysing this (in comparison, Soviets started with a worse position than many would believe, because Imperial Russia really wasn't well off)
      - 3y ago
cscurmudgeon 3y ago
You can give all the space battles to the Soviets, the war was lost by them though lol.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Yeah, that's why for decades later and until now the US couldn't even send somebody to the space station and had to borrow their tech, lol
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
    > Yeah, that's why for decades later ... Do you live in a universe where 2020 are closer to 1960s than 1990s? Must be great to live in such a world. > US couldn't even send somebody to the space station and had to borrow their tech Anyways, I wouldn't call Russian tech, Soviet tech. Remember the Soviet Union died in 1991, we can't call 2010s tech Soviet lol.
krapp 3y ago
[flagged]
jayd16 3y ago
Races are won at the end, not the beginning or middle.
- dtech 3y ago
  Extremely convenient the end was determined during the race.

by dtech 3y ago

mjamesaustin 3y ago

There's a show about that exact scenario! For All Mankind.

arethuza 3y ago
I love For All Mankind - largely because it portrays the future I used to think we were going to have when I was a kid in the 1970s.
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  Season 2 captured so much of my 1980s kid "this is the space future I was promised". At the time my uncle even worked on projects at Nasa and would describe some of the ideals of the space shuttle program in a way that For All Mankind Season 2 captured that boring reality never quite did, especially after the Challenger disaster. (Plus, spoilers: Project Orion in that season! Which is one of the things that I can point to where FAM's timeline is maybe worse than ours, as it is fun to bring up every time people suggest they can't watch FAM because it is too "utopian". Project Orion was in part cancelled because of advances in cancer research, especially with respect to radiation. The FAM timeline seems to be spending so much on aerospace at the expense of cancer research among other things, and things like the 80s and 90s fights against tobacco seem almost non-existent in that timeline. People are still smoking nearly as much in that timeline's 80s as they did in the 50s. There are no signs of the near ubiquitous anti-tobacco PSAs of our timeline's 80s and 90s. I don't know how much the writers are intentionally working in such trade-offs, versus just trying to maintain storylines and aesthetics across its decade jumps, but it makes a ton of sense that there would be such trade-offs. Similarly, there are signs that civil rights are still generally worse in that timeline than ours, especially gay rights and feminism.)

thrashh 3y ago

No, the battle was an economic one, never a science one. Let’s face it: both the US and Soviet Union had extremely capable scientists. But the entire Cold War was about which economic system was the “best” and in the end, the Soviet Union frankly ran out of money and could not even test their Buran spacecraft before launching it to see it crash. Running out of money is how you lose this battle.

dijit 3y ago
> the Soviet Union frankly ran out of money To be perfectly fair, this was at least partly the result of the immeasurably expensive clean up of Chernobyl. Estimates vary but the most recent numbers put it at about $700 Billion.
- badpun 3y ago
  SU was economically unviable long before Chernobyl disaster. It was so mismanaged it had large-scale famines, for God's sake.
  - allarm 3y ago
    I don’t think they had famines around 1986. Long before that - yes.
  - p_l 3y ago
    Honestly, it would have had them either way. You can't change the shitshow that was Imperial Russia that easily, and tsarist legacy was hamstringing any reform (for example in the decision to continue the systems of secret police and prison camps - neither was Communist invention) However they did fuckup in many areas in the economy, something that was recognised internally at least by some - as seen by multiple attempts at reforms. Also, one can't discount the unbelievably favourable position of the USA at the end of WW2 when analysing this (in comparison, Soviets started with a worse position than many would believe, because Imperial Russia really wasn't well off)
    - 3y ago

cscurmudgeon 3y ago

You can give all the space battles to the Soviets, the war was lost by them though lol.

coldtea 3y ago
Yeah, that's why for decades later and until now the US couldn't even send somebody to the space station and had to borrow their tech, lol
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  > Yeah, that's why for decades later ... Do you live in a universe where 2020 are closer to 1960s than 1990s? Must be great to live in such a world. > US couldn't even send somebody to the space station and had to borrow their tech Anyways, I wouldn't call Russian tech, Soviet tech. Remember the Soviet Union died in 1991, we can't call 2010s tech Soviet lol.

krapp 3y ago

[flagged]

jayd16 3y ago

Races are won at the end, not the beginning or middle.

dtech 3y ago
Extremely convenient the end was determined during the race.