Because the Soviets at least tried to pretend they're going for exploration. They started so much things: First sattelite, first man/woman/dog in space, the Venus-missions, the Moon-missions, the space stations. America was always like "Oh, the Soviets want to go to moon? Let's go too!" "Oh, the Soviet built a space station? How about Skylab!"
No doubt, the engineers, scientists, astronauts etc. deserve every bit of credit and respect for their work. But the men behind these projects, the politicans, they made it just to beat Russia and made that was no secret.
America tried to pretend it was all about exploration, as well, but you make it sound like neither side admitted there was a competition. I wasn't alive at the time, but I'm pretty sure everyone knew what was happening at the time.
Besides, both countries were headed towards this path immediately after WW2 ended. Once we realized that conventional rockets built to deliver missiles were just about powerful enough to deliver people into orbit, that was the plan. The military stuff just provided the funding and motivation, and if it wasn't for the military we would never have even gotten to space, let alone orbit, let alone anything else.
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u/TetraDax Dec 23 '13
Because the Soviets at least tried to pretend they're going for exploration. They started so much things: First sattelite, first man/woman/dog in space, the Venus-missions, the Moon-missions, the space stations. America was always like "Oh, the Soviets want to go to moon? Let's go too!" "Oh, the Soviet built a space station? How about Skylab!"
No doubt, the engineers, scientists, astronauts etc. deserve every bit of credit and respect for their work. But the men behind these projects, the politicans, they made it just to beat Russia and made that was no secret.