Sputnik

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The rocket technology of the Soviet Union was most certainly superior to anyone else at the time.  However, Sputnik I's scientific worth pales into insignificance next to NASA's Explorer I, launched (IIRC) in January 1958.  Explorer I led to the discovery by James Van Allen of the radiation belts around the Earth later named after it's discoverer.  Sputnik I carried a simple radio transmitter and very little else.

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blobrana wrote:
Yes you may be right there comrade,

But we all know it wasn’t about science.

That's very true.  Rumours abound to this very day about missing cosmonauts, airbrushed from early publicity photos.  

The new Voskhod 1 was the first craft to fly with more than two cremmembers on board and as trumpeted by the Soviet press with the headline "Sorry Apollo".  The reality was that the craft was a stripped out Vostok, with no launch escape system and three of the most diminutive cosmonauts on the programme were picked to crew it.

There was much political craziness on both sides - NASA developed the vastly different Mercury, Gemini and Apollo craft simultaneously with the Redstone, Titan and Saturn boosters during a very short period of time.  The Russians won the early PR, even marrying off Valentina Tereshkovna to a fellow Cosmonaut within a few months of her mission.  

The Politburo had tired of the circus surrounding Krushchev's ambitions in space and when he was eventually ousted the moon race was effectively over, as was Tereshkovna's marriage.

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Dandy wrote:

PMC wrote:
The rocket technology of the Soviet Union was most certainly superior to anyone else at the time.  
...

Please keep in mind mind that it came from the same source as the "American" rocket technology:
Germany.

Well yes this is true up to a point, although Dr Robert Goddard and Sergei Korolev were well established rocket scientists prior to 1939.  Certainly, Goddard's research in the field of liquid fuelled rocketry gave German scientists a starting point.  

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@Cymric

Apparently the US Congress has relaxed the rules and theoretically allowed NASA to buy Russian Soyuz capsules...  Previously the US wouldn't deal with any countries suspected of supplying Nuclear secrets to Iran (ie Russia) but in the light of the shuttle fleet grounding the regulations have been reviewed.  

The Russians are only obliged to provide the US one more seat on a Soyuz mission and the Shuttle will be grounded until further notice.  Meanwhile, a half-built ISS circles above us waiting for resupply and assembly.  Either the US will cut back on manned spaceflight (a huge morale blow especially in the light of Bush's moon pledge).

Perhaps we'll see a white painted Soyuz with "USA" printed on the side, who'd have thought that forty years ago?

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metalman wrote:

what year was it that the Soviets had a man walk on the moon???

The Soviet moon race effectively died when Khruschev fell from power.  Kennedy and Khruschev were engaged in a game of one upmanship which the USA had hitherto lost.  Kennedy declared in 1961 "We choose to go to the moon" and efforts to get an American there took on an almost messianic momentum after Kennedy's death in 1963.  

I don't think that even Nikita Khruschev was prepared for the response of the American congress to fund the Apollo programme, certainly Russia's efforts in space after 1966 seemed to move toward robotic exploration of the moon (Luna probes actually soft landed on the moon and returned soil samples to Earth in the Early 70s, a feat not matched since) and to maintaining permanantly manned orbiting space stations (the Salyut series).

The Soviets took some terrifying risks, but ultimately the Soyuz vehicle is very highly evolved and Russian rockets are reliable launchers as a result.  Had the USA not tried to re-invent the wheel so many times (Vanguard, Redstone, Titan, Atlas, Saturn, Shuttle etc) then they too might not have the entire shuttle fleet grounded today.  

The fact remains that if NASA wants to go back to the moon, it's going to have to develop a new rocket platform in order to do so, while maintaining it's commitments to the ISS and winding down the massively expensive shuttles by 2010.