My favourite thing about the #SpaceRace is that the urgency forced the US to make a state space program to keep up with the USSR. They had to keep the program fully state-controlled in order to prove that Capitalism is the best. I hope the irony wasn't lost on them.
@cosine They thought they had to keep the program fully state-controlled. That does not mean they were right.
Besides, the Kzinti Lesson teaches that any reaction drive can be used as a weapon and support for gun control in the US was peaking at the time the space program started.
@cosine I was just thinking about this the other day. I think it's really funny that the US basically takes credit for "winning" solely based on the random milestone of reaching the moon. Like reaching space first didn't count because ... the moon.
@cosine i don't remember the man who it was but i read a bio of one man who pushed for the us govt to make nasa, otherwise they were thinking about letting the air force and/or the army manage the space program instead
those are all state-planned options, and any one of them involves contractors for the actual hardware, but yeah. the military is far more autocratic than nasa was, and nasa at least had specs for the contractors unlike with spacex and shit where the manufacturer makes design decisions