Comment by drysine
6 hours ago
>His staff literally were absorbed into the Russian sand US space programs.
Not really in case of the USSR. German group in Russia was isolated and Korolev didn't like competition. Soviet space program started by replicating German rocket, but once all production chains were created, it was off on its own course.
I highly recommend English translation of memoirs of Boris Chertok[0] to anyone interested in the history of Soviet space program.
[0] https://www.nasa.gov/history/history-publications-and-resour...
That was just because the Russian's didn't trust "their" Germans as much as the Americans trusted "theirs". Operation Osoaviakhim was mostly about knowledge extraction, not about cooperation. The other difference was that the "Russian Germans" didn't go to Russia on their own will (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Osoaviakhim).
Once the knowledge was "extracted" the Germans were allowed to return though (good thing Stalin was already dead at that time).
Former Junkers engineer Brunolf Baade then went on to build the first and only German jet airliner for East Germany - which then of course was cancelled as soon as it was ready to enter production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baade_152).
>as the Americans trusted "theirs"
Americans didn't trust either. But then Sputnik happened and Americans only had oopsnik[0], so they turned to neglected Redstone made by von Braun[1][2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_TV-3#Reaction
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_1
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun#U.S._Army_ca...