@roedergk
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.
@michaelbobic7135
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.
@lainefrajberg955
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.
@occhamite
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.
@olafstorbeck4777
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...
@jamesszalla4274
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.
@brianboye8025
The USSR lost the moon race. They have a great deal to be proud of with their space program and adventurous spirit.
@erfquake1
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.
@mississippichris
"Luck had truly run out which is inevitable when you take such a reckless path to success." It's hard to write a line that captures so much. Well done!
@stephenwest6738
I've always liked how both the US and the Soviets were willing to congratulate each other on the breakthroughs they achieved, and expressing sympathy during the related tragedies. It says quite a bit about the class of the leaders of the time. It really embodies that each side wanted to win by their own victories and not the other's failures. "You don't get taller when others fall down"
@CLipka2373
18:03 - The wording may be misunderstood to imply that the entire Soyuz system was designed to be capable of carrying cosmonauts to the moon. This was not the case. While the Soyuz spacecraft (i.e. the capsule on top) was in fact envisioned to carry people as far as the moon, this was only intended as a flyby mission (as opposed to entering a lunar orbit, let alone land on the moon) - and the Soyuz rocket (everything below the capsule) would only have yeeted the capsule into earth orbit, where the spacecraft would have rendezvoused with other separately-launched components to boost it onward to the moon.
@rumrstv
The one major thing not mentioned is that the entire Soviet space program was done in complete secrecy. They only announced their successes (except for one manned flight). All failures were kept secret. The US space program proceeded completely in the open. It was a careful methodical program where safety was paramount for the astronauts. I know everyone is going to say "What about Apollo 1?" . Yes safety was out the window on that one but that changed over night. The entire program was changed with regard to safety after those deaths. BTW All safety rules are written in blood!
@georgeshapiro301
If you know much about Apollo, it's less that the Americans were responsible and more that they were slightly less irresponsible than the Soviets and a bit more lucky.
@midwestguy1983
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.
@zlejablko
R.I.P Laika 🫡
@JoshKaufmanstuff
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
@Name-q5h
The US landed on the Moon first, that ended the space race, it was entirely political.
@brianboye8025
I remember that our astronaut had the same spacesuit problem during the US Gemini space walk.
@CLipka2373
15:56 - "It's said Leonov's body temperature rose by 35°C during the ordeal" Well, that's just plain bunk. Standard human body temperature is ~37°C. Temperatures above 40°C (that's +3°C) are considered Hyperpyrexia, i.e. life-threatening fever. At temperatures above 42°C (+5°C), human proteins start to degenerate, and the person is pretty much guaranteed to be unable to function at all, due to delirium, coma, and/or convulsions. Anything even higher is generally fatal. So unless he had started out in a cryochamber with a body temperature of at most ~10°C (which would also be problematic), an increase in body temperature of 35°C would have left him dead as a parrot. The English Wikipedia article on the Voskhod 2 mission mentions a much more plausible 1.8°C increase in core body temperature (3.2°F).
@j3i2i2yl7