Quote: (09-27-2015 03:48 PM)Teutatis Wrote:
Indeed, it makes you wonder if American politicians were really interested in space exploration, human knowledge and evolution or if they just wanted to get there before the Russians, like a kid who doesn't want another kid to have the toy. Nowadays politicians are more interested in pouring trillions into the military industrial complex useless projects than to fund something that is actually helpful for mankind.
I don't think it had anything to do with space exploration, but more like making better intercontinental ballistic missiles and ways to shoot them down and bomb each other.
When sputnik was first unveiled as thes first unmanned sattelite, and we knew the Soviets had nukes, and then a way to deliver them, and Kruschev seemed relatively crazy with his quotes like "we will bury you" and whatnot, it gave us incentive to start our own space program.
It was not some sort of competition to say, "let's see who can build the first base on the moon and Mars."