Comment by krapp
6 hours ago
The Soviets launched the first satellite, put the first animal into space, launched the first lunar probe, got the first photographs of the dark side of the moon, put the first human in space, put the first woman in space, put the first craft with more than one crew member into space, did the first spacewalk, sent the first probe to Venus, got the first pictures of another planet, and launched the first space station.
The moon landing was fine and all, a moment of global historic import (and propaganda value, with the US putting their flag on it like they owned the damned thing) but that's still just one victory in a race that was otherwise entirely dominated by the Soviets, and on balance what the Soviets did was of greater scientific merit than anything the US would achieve for years. Americans didn't even care about space until Russia flew Sputnik over their heads.
We realized we needed a delivery mechanism for nuclear weapons before Russia was able to build an ICBM.
Space? That was excellent marketing.
That was a factor in the initial stages of the space race. But military and civilian launch technologies diverged once things really got going. The military switched to solid rocket launchers to improve safety and reliability but those couldn't be used as the core of human rated rockets.