the Soviets in space

In history the Soviets were always in short failed in defeating the Americans in the space race in which they had started when the world trembled at the sound of their rockets and Yuri Gagarin was the first man ever in space.



As of with the American rockets the Soviets were able to evolve the original designs and plans from the defeated Nazi's, (NASA was founded after the Americans figured out basis of how the V-2 ballistic missiles worked).

The Soviets however were the first to:

Have the first animal, first man and first woman in space.

First multi space craft docking.

First probe to land on the surface of the moon.

Send a probe into the orbit of another planet (Venus) and to land on the surface of another planet (Mars).

First data recorded off of another planet (Venus).

The moon landing in 1969 of the American Apollo 11 was truly a breakthrough for the Americans, the Soviets were unlucky as their massive N-1 rockets planned for such missions had exploded on test launches!



But the truth was while the United States government made a tradition of cutting big government funding for NASA shortly afterwords and focusing their attention for the next five years on sending men and equipment to fight in the jungles of Vietnam the Soviets were sending probes as far away as Venus! (see Venera 9).



Following the breakup of the Soviet Union they were left with the worlds first space station the Mir which was to be (unknown or planned by the Soviets) the main prototype of today's International Space Station.

But with the Cold War well over and both east and west working together in space related technologies one has to wonder the contribution that will be put forward by the former Soviet republics of Russia and the Ukraine.