In purely technological terms, the USSR trumped the USA. Sputnik and Gagarin were followed by a series of other firsts: the first woman in space, first lunar impact, first image of the dark side of the moon, first space rover and first space station were all claimed by the Soviets. But in the popular imagination, the Space Race was won when the USA put a man on the moon in 1969.
Three years later, tensions between the two superpowers briefly eased. And three years after that, in 1975, the world watched as an American Apollo module docket with a Soviet Soyuz last capsule. The two commanders shook hands in space. The Space Race was over.
Surviving propaganda posters are a potent reminder of the stratospheric ambitions of the Soviet regime during the Space Race.
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@redredred In all honesty, the loss or Korolev is the biggest reason why the Soviet Union's successes in space travel ended so quickly. When he died, his successors had no clue what they were doing, and the Soviet space program was crippled for a time.
@redredred Well, these days, nobody's, but that only because it's been many decades since the last time the USA did a moon mission. As impressive as it was, the moon is relatively uninteresting, at least geologically speaking.
@redredred The moon missions were just a dick measuring contest. We won, woohoo. But notice that we haven’t been back for almost 50 years as there is no reason that would justify the expense.
There were some useful spin-offs of the space program, like polycarbonate tubes which turned out to be an ideal material for bongs.
@LeopoldBloom The moon mission was more than dick measuring I think, it was a historic accomplishment to land humans on the moon. And the data we gathered from it was extremely useful. That said, not much has changed on the moon since we were last there. So yeah, there isn't much of a need for another visit, at least not a manned one. A remote mission to take long term measurements might be useful though.
@BlueMetalChick I'm not sure why we had to go so many times, or bring the lunar rover. And even back then, a lot of the data could have been collected by landers.
I was a kid when that was going on, and I remember the excitement and sense of accomplishment, and I'm sure others did too. Although, the Vietnam war, civil rights, and other issues were happening at the same time, and in retrospect, it just seems inappropriate. And then it led to the Space Shuttle, which other than keeping people interested in the space program, was basically just flushing money down the toilet. They had to make so many compromises in the design, and it never came close to fulfilling its original promise.
I think we're doing much better now with space telescopes and robotic probes that really are gathering useful data.
@LeopoldBloom The Space Shuttle was a bit of a farce, but at the same time, it was an excellent testing bed for a lot of the technology that is now standard in space-capable transport. It was conceived for the wrong reasons but proved useful in unexpected ways.
@BlueMetalChick I disagree. It's only value was in how much people liked it, so it kept the space program going. If we'd focused that money and energy on robotic probes and space telescopes, we would still have made those same technological advances, and would be that much further ahead.
I know it's an unpopular opinion, but manned space travel is centuries if not thousands of years in the future, and any attempt to develop it now is a waste.
@LeopoldBloom The Space Shuttle served as an unexpected proof of concept for a great deal of the methods and technologies that have allowed what limited manned space travel we've accomplished. We won't be sending humans to the surfaces of other planets and moons anytime soon, but to asteroids is a very real possibility. And that's extremely valuable.
@LeopoldBloom We have the technology to do it right now. It's just a little too expensive at this moment. But for reference, fifteen years ago it was about one hundred times more expensive than it was worth. Today it's about five times more expensive. So if the price has gone down ninety five fold in fifteen years, it may be realistic sooner than you think.
It would also do absolute wonders for Earth's environment.
@BlueMetalChick I'm not aware of any serious plans for asteroid mining. Most of the discussion seems to be around idiotic ideas like a moon colony or sending humans to Mars. The asteroid belt is beyond Mars, so sending humans there will be a lot further off than 15 years. Keep in mind that developments in AI and robotics will also happen by then, so it may make more sense to send robots to build an asteroid mining operation as the profit margin would be much higher than with humans.
@LeopoldBloom The Asteroid Belt isn't what we'd be aiming for anyway. I wish, but that's probably about twenty to thirty years away at the moment. A moon colony sounds like another harebrained Elon Musk proposal, and as amazing as a manned mission to Mars would be, Elongated Muskrat has done a tremendous amount of damage to any potential manned Mars mission.
If you read very, very, very carefully, you’ll note that all I actually did was ask a question. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow
@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow I’m not running anywhere. What’s entertaining is how I make reference to an indisputable fact and some idiot calls it a goofy position.
The lefttards are wonderfully entertaining. It’s like watching puppies play.
