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Actually, in Russia do they have a pitch for where they’d rather draw the finish line? I admit it is probably influenced by having a US upbringing, but “landing

Actually, in Russia do they have a pitch for where they’d rather draw the finish line? I admit it is probably influenced by having a US upbringing, but “landing on the Moon” does seem like a natural finish line for a space race. The move of picking an advantageous finish line is easily countered by… picking an obvious successor finish line. If they’d stuck a base on the moon that’d have been a pretty compelling “actually, here’s the next finish line.” Maybe they have some space-station based claim.

roryirvine 11d ago
But the finish line did keep changing: first satellite in orbit, first living mammals in orbit, first human in orbit, multiple humans in orbit, spacewalk, moon landing, human moon landing, planetary landing, space station, reusable space plane, modular space station. I think both sides broadly agreed on all of those as their "next big goal" (with slight question mark over the space plane, as you could reasonably say the Soviet programme was purely reactive). The race ended after the fall of the Soviet Union (with the Challenger disaster being an additional factor), not because it had been definitively won.
- WalterBright 11d ago
  > first living mammals in orbit And left to die in orbit.
  - roryirvine 11d ago
    Sure. So you could maybe add the first animals to safely return from space into the list too - the first win on the American side if you're counting sub-orbital flights, otherwise it'd've been Sputnik 5.
  - Teever 6d ago
    That was part of the mission profile, no? If it hadn’t been you’d have a point, but as I understand it that was a reasonable milestone to hit and to determine if an animal can even survive for a time in orbit before they risked a human life. Animals often die in experimentation and that’s usually the whole point of the experiment.
- bee_rider 11d ago
  > But the finish line did keep changing: first satellite in orbit, first living mammals in orbit, first human in orbit, multiple humans in orbit, spacewalk, moon landing, human moon landing, I agree here, but it’s not really a game with declared rules or something. I think the US won in a game of oneupsmanship. Rather than try to make up rules, we can observe that the US always lost by little enough to plausibly claim that there was another more interesting goal right there. Then, won on the goal where, for whatever reason, there wasn’t a natural follow-up. Of course, getting people to believe that the next thing you go for is a natural follow-up is itself an exercise in PR or propaganda. That’s why I’m mostly curious about how Russians saw > planetary landing, space station, reusable space plane, modular space station. There are definitely candidates for what could have been the “next target.” In my perception these just weren’t something people were excited about. But I wasn’t born at the time and I’m American so I know I got a biased telling.
bryanlarsen 11d ago
Russia has the first finish line -- Sputnik. You can pick a successor finish line to diminish the American accomplishment, but Russia will always have that first one.
- WalterBright 11d ago
  Nah, the V2 was the first rocket to reach space.
  - bryanlarsen 11d ago
    While true, the Germans don't claim that first for obvious reasons, leaving the Russians able to claim the first achievement.
    - WalterBright 10d ago
      It doesn't matter what they claim. It's a documented fact.
      - bryanlarsen 10d ago
        Bragging rights are about bragging, not about facts. Facts make the bragging easier, but they are secondary.

roryirvine 11d ago

But the finish line did keep changing: first satellite in orbit, first living mammals in orbit, first human in orbit, multiple humans in orbit, spacewalk, moon landing, human moon landing, planetary landing, space station, reusable space plane, modular space station. I think both sides broadly agreed on all of those as their "next big goal" (with slight question mark over the space plane, as you could reasonably say the Soviet programme was purely reactive). The race ended after the fall of the Soviet Union (with the Challenger disaster being an additional factor), not because it had been definitively won.

WalterBright 11d ago
> first living mammals in orbit And left to die in orbit.
- roryirvine 11d ago
  Sure. So you could maybe add the first animals to safely return from space into the list too - the first win on the American side if you're counting sub-orbital flights, otherwise it'd've been Sputnik 5.
- Teever 6d ago
  That was part of the mission profile, no? If it hadn’t been you’d have a point, but as I understand it that was a reasonable milestone to hit and to determine if an animal can even survive for a time in orbit before they risked a human life. Animals often die in experimentation and that’s usually the whole point of the experiment.
bee_rider 11d ago
> But the finish line did keep changing: first satellite in orbit, first living mammals in orbit, first human in orbit, multiple humans in orbit, spacewalk, moon landing, human moon landing, I agree here, but it’s not really a game with declared rules or something. I think the US won in a game of oneupsmanship. Rather than try to make up rules, we can observe that the US always lost by little enough to plausibly claim that there was another more interesting goal right there. Then, won on the goal where, for whatever reason, there wasn’t a natural follow-up. Of course, getting people to believe that the next thing you go for is a natural follow-up is itself an exercise in PR or propaganda. That’s why I’m mostly curious about how Russians saw > planetary landing, space station, reusable space plane, modular space station. There are definitely candidates for what could have been the “next target.” In my perception these just weren’t something people were excited about. But I wasn’t born at the time and I’m American so I know I got a biased telling.

bryanlarsen 11d ago

Russia has the first finish line -- Sputnik. You can pick a successor finish line to diminish the American accomplishment, but Russia will always have that first one.

WalterBright 11d ago
Nah, the V2 was the first rocket to reach space.
- bryanlarsen 11d ago
  While true, the Germans don't claim that first for obvious reasons, leaving the Russians able to claim the first achievement.
  - WalterBright 10d ago
    It doesn't matter what they claim. It's a documented fact.
    - bryanlarsen 10d ago
      Bragging rights are about bragging, not about facts. Facts make the bragging easier, but they are secondary.