My understanding is that initially Khrushchev had little interest in Sputnik. His primary concern was simp!y developing an ICBM; launching a satellite was Korolev's reward for doing so. Khrushchev only became interested when he saw the West's reaction to the Sputnik launch.

One small criticism: It is flatly impossible for Leonov's body temperature to have risen by anything remotely like "35 degrees Celcius" during the spacewalk. Normal Human body Temperature is 98.6 F or about 37C. Another 35 C would have Leonov at 72C, or 161 F - like a cup of tea too hot to drink , or even hold for long. Humans die if body temp exceeds about 109F, or 43C. TAssuminhg this is just a case of a missing decimal point, the correct figure for Leonov's temp increase might be 3.5 C, or 6.3 F, putting him at around 105F - a very serious state of affairs, but survivable for a fit young man.

The 1950's. When the phrase "I can see your house from here." became a clear threat.

Whatever you can say about the Soviets' disregard for safety, you have to admire the courage and wits of the early cosmonauts. The American astronauts were equally talented and courageous. I suspect that, had these men been able to meet secretly, they would have had much in common.

To be fair,NASA was a bit reckless too. And 3 astronauts paid with their lives when a fire consumed their capsule during a ground test on Jan.27,1967. It was only after that sobering experience that NASA adopted a more careful approach to the space race. Even so,Apollo 11 had some close calls.

Okay SR, forgive my bluntness here. I'm a loving, devoted subscriber to your channel. However, the title of the episode says one thing while the content is something else entirely. In the episode, there is near-zero insight on the Soviet space program or anyone associated with it having any obsession with NASA at all. Quite the opposite, apparently. But what the content DOES contain is more bothersome. It's just boilerplate history. It sounds as if someone opened up an AI bot and said "write a script describing the space race." It objectively does to anyone listening to it. As such, this stops being worthwhile.

The USSR lost the moon race. They have a great deal to be proud of with their space program and adventurous spirit.

Well, some gaps and errors in the story. The Soviets got a group of 50 or so German engineers from the V2 program, my grandfather was one of them. They build the Soviet rockets. Study the history of the island village of Gorodomlija on the Seliger lake in central Russia. Sergej Korolev might have been a great engineer himself, but the heavy lifting was done by the German engineers of the "Bureau Göttrup". My grandfather returned to Germany together with his family, including my mother, in 1953. The 'release document' was signed by the comrades Berija, Molotov and Josef Vissajonovich Tschugaschvili himself...

They won every major goal of the space race (first satellite, first animal in orbit, first man in orbit, first woman in orbit, first automated moon landing, first spacewalk, first multi-crew flight, etc.) except for docking in space and the moon landing--which we unilaterally declared to be the only significant goal.

Had the Russians painted the moon red, the Americans would have painted a Coca Cola logo on it.

Russians: 1) First satellite: 1957 2) First animal in space: 1957 3) First successful unmanned Moon landing: 1959 4) First man in space: 1961 5) First woman in space: 1963 6) First space walk: 1965 7) First successful unmanned landing on a different planet (Venus): 1970 8) First space station: 1971 9) First successful unmanned landing on Mars: 1971 Americans: 1) nothing 2) nothing 3) nothing 4) nothing ... 10) First successful manned Moon landing: 1969 This video: "The Real Reason Russians Lost The Space Race"

Considering the content, the video should have instead been entitled NASA’s fascination with the Soviets. I enjoyed the video, but it’s not what I expected from the title

The Soviets achieved numerous firsts before the Americans, yet your title suggests it was the Soviets who were obsessed with NASA.

The Soviet Moon missions were to have a crew of two Cosmonauts, not three. The early versions of the Soyuz couldn’t accommodate three Cosmonauts in pressure suits. It could only accommodate two. They would have to depressurize the Soyuz and have a Cosmonaut spacewalk to the LK lunar lander. The lack of pressure suits led to the death of the Soyuz 11 three man crew.

Why the USSR lost the space race? Korolev died. The chief designers who took over after him were competent engineers but they could not steer their lunar program through the one thing that was arguably more difficult than the depths of space, namely the Soviet bureaucracy. Alexei Leonov, in the splendid autobiography he co-wrote with David Scott, essentially says as much. Korolev doesn't have all the ill health effects of years in Stalin's camps, and bad habits of smoking and drinking the history of the space race could have been very different. Nevertheless, a huge tip of the hat to both the Astronauts and Cosmonauts who were the first men to go to the stars. Here's to a restoration of peace so that humanity may return to the moon, and go beyond.

R.I.P Laika 🫡

How can you say the Soviet Union lost ? And the USA won except for the USA going to the moon it lost in every other thing 1st in space man/women, satelite to moon / Venus/ Space , space station etc

This video (or is it ChatGPT?) misses a lot of important things. For example, the first Soviet satellite was meant to be the one that finally went up as Sputnik 3, and was advertised well beforehand as part of the International Geophysical Year. It wasn't ready early enough for when the R-7 was ready to launch a satellite, so the simple Sputnik 1 was quickly built. The propaganda rushed details about Sputnik-2 and Laika of course are correct. The Nedelin catastrophe involved a purely military missile. As for Vostok, the problem was not that "the parachutes could not handle the speed", but that the speed of descent of the capsule under parachutes was too high on landing on hard ground for the cosmonaut not to be injured or killed (true to this day), which is why Voskhod, Soyuz, New Shepard crew capsule and Starliner used/use rockets or airbags to cushion the landing. Water landings are more tolerable and so Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Crew Dragon did/do not fire retro-rockets just before landing (though Crew Dragon has the necessary rockets and probably can be adapted for emergency landing on solid ground, which was the original design goal). The video does not go beyond the 1960's. After the tragedies of Soyuz 1 in 1967 and of Soyuz 11 in 1971, the Soviets/Russians have not lost any more cosmonauts in spaceflight, and their safety systems have functioned well despite some truly hairy episodes. The US has lost many more, and the Shuttle had no launch escape system. Curiously, Elon Musk uses the same design and testing philosophy as Korolev's, and many of his solutions resemble those of Korolev more than those previously associated with NASA. Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are assembled and integrated horizontally, whereas American launch systems and spacecraft have previously been integrated vertically. The diameter of Falcon stages is governed by highway clearances, and that of Soyuz stages is governed by railway clearances. The design and construction of Super Heavy appears to have more in common with N-1 than Saturn 5, except for vertical assembly and handling rather than horizontal.

Funny how Soyuz became the worlds most reliable launch system & prime contractor for the International Space Station.

Layka died like a hero. US also did the same with chimp, who also died like a hero