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Why Did The Russians Lose The Moon?
After the launch of Sputnik in 1957 - which had a devastating impact on the morale of the West - the United States collected what seemed to be the final defeat on April 12, 1961, when Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) aboard Vostok 1 flew around the Earth for the first time. It was a huge media success for Soviet technology and America was annihilated. The result was a burst of pride for the nation, even if, according to the experts, the games were already done: the Soviet Union would also win the race to the Moon! Which then, as we all know, did not happen. And at this point the question can only be: why? Why did the Russians lose the Moon? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe for more videos:https://www.youtube.com/c/InsaneCuriosity?sub_confirmation=1? Business Enquiries: Lorenzovareseaziendale@gmail.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The reason why the Russians, starting from an advantageous situation, lost almost without fighting the race to the Moon is an argument long debated by historians. In the United States, the problem has been dismissed for decades with a very simplistic explanation: the Soviets could not compete with the superior American technology and had no hope even at the start. In reality, it seems that the reasons were multiple, at least five of great importance, and that among them technological inferiority is only marginally included. The first reason was the total lack of organization. The idea that in the '60s the West had of the Soviet space program was that of a giant, perfectly oiled machine, all devoted to the success of the country and the Party. And instead it happened quite the opposite: the Soviet Union didn't even have a real "space program", no multi-year forecasts, allocation of funds or political direction. Projects were approved from time to time, unrelated to each other and according to the media opportunity of the moment, often without even verifying their economic coverage; under these conditions, success depended exclusively on the talent and merit of some engineers. Very often, the administrative directors were bureaucrats without the slightest technical preparation, who simply decided on promotions and punishments on political and racial grounds, or applied the directives coming from the Party. In short, a complex project such as the flight to the Moon would have required the joint and coordinated efforts of an entire nation, while in the Soviet Union everyone went their own way and often institutes, politicians and the military put obstacles in each other's way, chasing only prestige and personal power. The second reason for the Soviet failure was the insufficient political and financial commitment. While the United States, since 1961, dedicated a substantial portion of the national budget to the space enterprise and involved some of the largest national industries (Boeing, Rockwell, McDonnell Douglas, IBM. General Electric, etc.), in the USSR until 1964 the only top politician to show any interest in space was Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971). From the point of view of financial commitment, the gross domestic product of the United States in the 60s was about double that of the Soviet Union, but according to some analysts the expenditure that the U.S. incurred for their space program was five times higher. An economic commitment completely unsustainable for the USSR, especially since Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982), contrary to his predecessor Khrushchev, believed that military and agricultural spending should take priority over space spending. From this point of view, it is clear that the cost of sending a man to the Moon was badly balanced with the effort to equip himself with thousands of intercontinental missiles, an effort made at a time when agriculture was going through a particular crisis and the people were starving. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If You happen to see any content that is yours, and we didn't give credit in the right manner please let us know at Lorenzovareseaziendale@gmail.com and we will correct it immediately" "Some of our visual content is under an Attribution-ShareAlike license. (https://ift.tt/1jttIpt) in its different versions such as 1.0, 2.0, 3,0, and 4.0 – permitting commercial sharing with attribution given in each picture accordingly in the video." Credits: Mark A. Garlick / markgarlick.com Credits: Ron Miller Credits: Nasa/Shutterstock/Storyblocks/Elon Musk/SpaceX/ESA Credits: Flickr Credits: ESO #InsaneCuriosity #SpaceRace #
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