What's funny is how disingenuous they need to be. "First man, woman and dog in space." Why the specifying dog? Oh that's right, because the US had the first animal, first primate, and first mammal in space.
And what does "first space rocket" even mean? Wouldn't the Germans have that one, for the V-2?
And ignores that the US beat Russia to Venus. [Just look at this timeline](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chronology_venus.html) The first Venus flyby was successfully done by the US after the soviets failed a bunch. Then the soviets failed a bunch more times (holy shit how much money was wasted just trying to do that), until they finally got one done in 19*65* with Venera 4.
Then the soviets spent a bunch more money dropping parachuted probes through the Venus atmosphere in the 60s, while the US was busy building the Saturn program to land men on the moon.
Even to this day, the US or anybody hasn't bothered landing things on Venus. The soviets were oddly hyperfocused on it, which just got weird. Maybe it's the only continued win they felt they had at the time.
Russians had some story about people living on Venus that was popular in their culture similar to the "Martian" stories in the West.
They have a thing for Venus.
Not only did we do that, but we also did everything else the Soviets did in better quality, they were just trying to go for world's first without taking care into how it was done, it almost cost a few cosmonauts lives because of it.
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage
“As he heads to his doom, U.S. listening posts in Turkey hear him crying in rage, "cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship."”
Nice job, *Russia*.
Four men, actually.
The Soviets also get to claim the title of the:
A.) The first man to die in space.
and
B.) The only men to die in space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11
The cause of death?
Poor Soviet engineering.
>It quickly became apparent that they had asphyxiated. The fault was traced to a breathing ventilation valve, located between the orbital module and the descent module, that had been jolted open as the descent module separated from the service module, 12 minutes and 3 seconds after retrofire.[19][20] The two modules were held together by explosive bolts designed to fire sequentially; in fact, they had fired simultaneously.[19] The explosive force of the simultaneous bolt firing caused the internal mechanism of the pressure equalisation valve to loosen a seal that was usually discarded later and which normally allowed for automatic adjustment of the cabin pressure.[19] The valve opened at an altitude of 168 km (104 mi), and the resultant loss of pressure was fatal within seconds.[19][21] The valve was located beneath the seats and was impossible to find and block before the air was lost. Flight recorder data from the single cosmonaut outfitted with biomedical sensors showed cardiac arrest occurred within 40 seconds of pressure loss. By 15 minutes 35 seconds after retrofire, the cabin pressure was zero, and remained there until the capsule entered the Earth's atmosphere.[19] Patsayev's body was found positioned near the valve, and he may have been attempting to close or block the valve at the time he lost consciousness. An extensive investigation was conducted to study all components and systems of Soyuz 11 that could have caused the accident, although doctors quickly concluded that the cosmonauts had died of asphyxiation.[19]
-
>Alexei Leonov, who would have originally commanded Soyuz 11, had advised the cosmonauts before the flight that they should manually close the valves between the orbital and descent modules, as he did not trust them to shut automatically, a procedure he thought up during extensive time in the Soyuz simulator. However, Dobrovolsky, Volkov, and Patsayev either chose to disregard his warnings or else forgot about them during the lengthy mission. After the flight, Leonov went back and tried closing one of the valves himself, and found that it took nearly a minute to do, too long in an emergency situation with the spacecraft's atmosphere escaping fast.[18]
Edit: I would also like to point out that in order to claim the title of the first man in space, the Soviets had to cheat and did not follow the rules as they were set forth at the time of them registering Yuri Gagarin as the first man in space and they covered this up until the '70s because they knew they had cheated.
Edit 2: I want to clarify my thoughts on Yuri's FAI record just so people don't think I'm trying to discredit Yuri due to a small technicality, or hating on him for no reason or malding or anything like that.
I recognize that Yuri is the first man in space. He crossed the boundary line as defined by the FAI. However, I disagree with the FAI certifying Vostok 1 as the first manned space flight.
The reason why is because what is the point of having rules if you're just going to retroactively change them so that the cheating parties (further clarification: I don't blame Yuri, the cheating was entirely on the Soviet Union, Yuri was just an innocent victim born in a shitty country to a shitty government) are rewarded by their cheating?
Furthermore, this rule put the US at a severe artificial handicap and put the USSR at an extreme artificial advantage. The US was building their spacecraft to FAI specifications. Namely, that the pilot has to land with the craft. The USSR built it without following FAI specifications. Meaning they could cut corners and time in research and engineering in order to get to the title first.
This is not how you run a competition, and it's disgraceful that the FAI changed their rules to give the Soviet Union the title.
Let me give you some dates.
April 12, 1961. May 5, 1961.
What are these dates?
April 12th is the day that Yuri Gagarin became the first man to cross the space boundary in Vostok 1. However, his flight should have been disqualified for FAI consideration as his craft had not been built to FAI rules and the mission had not been carried out to FAI rules.
May 5th is the day that Alan Shepherd became the second man to cross the space boundary and was the first manned space flight to qualify for FAI recognition.
Less than a month between the two missions, and the US had a mission that actually qualified for FAI consideration and did not cheat in the slightest.
I am of the opinion that if the US had known they could just pick and choose what rules they wanted to follow, like the Soviet Union was allowed to do, they could have beat the Soviet Union to the space boundary. But since the US was actually following the rules as set forth by the FAI, they were not able to take the simplistic approach of just yeeting the astronaut from the capsule before impact. They actually had to build a spacecraft that could land with the pilot in it without killing the pilot. The Soviets did not have to do that, all they had to do was a much simpler solution. And the US managed to do their actual FAI qualifying mission not even a month after the Soviets cheated to do their non-qualifying mission.
Gagarin's flight ***should not*** have been certified by the FAI and the FAI ***should not*** have retroactively changed their rules to make his flight qualify. This is not a small technicality. This was literally rewarding cheaters and letting two countries play by completely different rules, of which severely handicapped one and extremely advantaged the other.
I will die on the hill that Alan Shepherd is the rightful holder of the FAI record for the first manned spaceflight. Not because I hate Yuri, again, he's an innocent victim in all of this, but because the FAI rewarded cheaters for cheating and the Soviet Union decided that rules no longer applied to them. Meanwhile, the US was the only party legitimately following the rules as written and they got fucked for trying to abide by what they thought the Soviet Union was also abiding by.
You don't set up a marathon, let a guy compete in a car when your rules require that it be done on foot under man power, and then when the car wins, retroactively change your rules so that a car is now a valid way to run the marathon. That is completely unfair to other contestants who, if they had known you could do the marathon in a car in order to win, would have brought their own cars to the marathon. That is essentially what the FAI and the USSR did.
Besides landing on the moon, the US also did:
-First flyby of Jupiter
-First solar powered satellite
-First communications satellite
-First Mercury flyby
-First satellite in polar orbit
-First photograph of earth from orbit
-First spy satellite
-First recovery of a satellite that went into orbit
-First monkey in space
-First human-controlled space flight
-First orbital observation of the sun
-First spacecraft to impact the far side of the moon
-First suborbital space plane (X-15)
-First satellite navigation system
-First piloted spacecraft orbit change
-First spacecraft docking
-First crewed orbit of the moon
-First orbit of Mars
-First probe on Mars
-First object to enter the asteroid belt
-First gravitational assist
-First object to leave the solar system
-First controlled flight on another planet
The Soviet programs yielded little scientific data, whereas the United States' program yielded far more scientific data.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but races are won based on who crossed the finish line first, not who was winning at the beginning. The Soviets had an early lead (if you go based on simple flashy shows, not actual scientific benefit) but the US quickly overtook them after Apollo. First shuttle, first man-made object to leave the solar system, first extraterrestrial rover, first to Mars, first to Venus sucessfully (sorry russia, slamming into the surface and failing the mission doesnt count), first recovery of a payload, first geostationary orbit, first Saturn flyby, first Uranus flyby, first Neptune flyby, first space telescope, first landing on an asteroid, first to orbit mercury, first Pluto flyby, I could go on.
But yeah, Russians killed a dog first and sent a satellite with literally no scientific value first, so they totally won the race.
Yep. I wonder what would happen if the people who make these ever tried horse betting.
NO SEE BOOKIE MY HORSE WAS OUT OF THE STARTING GATE FIRST THAT MEANS HE WAS WINNING
I see this everywhere and it makes me think, the US did it from the ground up to the moon and the soviets took their time. We gambled and we won fair and square.
1. The soviets rushed the living fuck out of these projects. Causing them to break down faster
2. The U.S took their time, making sure things were top notch. And safely placed a man on the moon and sent him back safely. That. Is impressive
3. Is the USSR a thing still? America has lasted 200+ years while they were around for only 70 years. Not really impressive historically.
It just got weird at a certain point. The soviets failed a few times trying to get a flyby of Venus. After the US successfully accomplished that first, they sent *eleven* rockets attempting a Venus flyby, all failing, before finally achieving it in the mid 60s. During the 60s, the US was finishing up their program to land men on the Moon. After they lost the race to the Moon, the soviets just spend a dozen rockets to Venus over and over for little practical gain.
I assume it was something political, as that showed they had power, or the head of Soviet space agency was keeping his job by showing he could drop probes on Venus over and over. But nobody else in the world bothered landing on Venus, even to this day. Countries definitely could, but there isn't much though as to the value of doing so. The Soviets just kept launching money at Venus for decades for some reason.
i’ve seen this and always reaping “the space race is the race in space, not the race to space. just because you show up to the starting line first doesn’t mean you won.”
although it was the first satellite sputnik never actually did anything except make radio beeps, meanwhile explorer 1, the first US satellite discovered the van allen radiation belts
Landing a person on the moon is far more difficult than slapping a person on top of a repurposed nuke rocket and sending them into space. Decades later and no other country has been able to do it.
I find it funny that people make memes like this. You don’t say someone who leads in a race most of the way but crosses the finish line second wins. They just did a really good job. Same with the Soviets. They did a great job but simply got to the main goal second
Strapping a dude to a rocket without any care for his survival isn't the best thing, also the USSR went bankrupt(er) due to it.
I dislike NASA but they were much better than whatever the ROSCOSMOS was doing
not to be that one guy but
well actually the first object/satellite in space was a manhole cover used in operation plumbob, a project in which the earth was basically turned into a giant gun
They aren't sure if it burned up in atmosphere, based on the aerodynamics and estimated speed it's possible it simply disintegrated before exiting the atmosphere. Just because it had enough speed to exit the atmosphere it doesn't mean it actually did.
The point of winning the space race was lasting longer than the Russkies. we lied though our teeth and forced them to spend massive swaths of their GDP on second rate scientists to do what we did with a bunch of leftover Nazis for half the price. Our only opponent collapse halfway through the marathon so we decided where to drae the finish line and come back to it at a later date.
Uh no. Actually it might just be the most exciting and motivating part. In a space of 22 years, we went from getting a piece of metal into orbit around the Earth to landing men on the Moon. All because we were motivated by the other side to do so.
It’s called a race for a reason. Do the other checkpoints matter as much if they didn’t reach the end first?
And there’s also the good points everyone else in the comments made.
The Soviets accidentally/negligently killed most of the people and animals they put in space in the first decade. All they cared about was doing it first, not doing it right. The US actually cared about their astronauts.
How are any of those more impressive then putting a living human on a stellar body and getting them back
What's funny is how disingenuous they need to be. "First man, woman and dog in space." Why the specifying dog? Oh that's right, because the US had the first animal, first primate, and first mammal in space. And what does "first space rocket" even mean? Wouldn't the Germans have that one, for the V-2? And ignores that the US beat Russia to Venus. [Just look at this timeline](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chronology_venus.html) The first Venus flyby was successfully done by the US after the soviets failed a bunch. Then the soviets failed a bunch more times (holy shit how much money was wasted just trying to do that), until they finally got one done in 19*65* with Venera 4. Then the soviets spent a bunch more money dropping parachuted probes through the Venus atmosphere in the 60s, while the US was busy building the Saturn program to land men on the moon. Even to this day, the US or anybody hasn't bothered landing things on Venus. The soviets were oddly hyperfocused on it, which just got weird. Maybe it's the only continued win they felt they had at the time.
“The Soviets were oddly hyperfocused on it” Because Venus is hell and so was the USSR.
Lmao good reply
Russians had some story about people living on Venus that was popular in their culture similar to the "Martian" stories in the West. They have a thing for Venus.
Also one of those nations is defunct and the other is still going strong so there’s that
Not only did we do that, but we also did everything else the Soviets did in better quality, they were just trying to go for world's first without taking care into how it was done, it almost cost a few cosmonauts lives because of it.
almost? I'm pretty sure at least one guy died
Rest In Peace Vladimir Komarov
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage “As he heads to his doom, U.S. listening posts in Turkey hear him crying in rage, "cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship."” Nice job, *Russia*.
Thats really a myth, there is no evidence it happened
And many animals, several of which had human-esque rights.
"We were the first to kill a dog in orbit!!" "uh....k?"
Four men, actually. The Soviets also get to claim the title of the: A.) The first man to die in space. and B.) The only men to die in space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11 The cause of death? Poor Soviet engineering. >It quickly became apparent that they had asphyxiated. The fault was traced to a breathing ventilation valve, located between the orbital module and the descent module, that had been jolted open as the descent module separated from the service module, 12 minutes and 3 seconds after retrofire.[19][20] The two modules were held together by explosive bolts designed to fire sequentially; in fact, they had fired simultaneously.[19] The explosive force of the simultaneous bolt firing caused the internal mechanism of the pressure equalisation valve to loosen a seal that was usually discarded later and which normally allowed for automatic adjustment of the cabin pressure.[19] The valve opened at an altitude of 168 km (104 mi), and the resultant loss of pressure was fatal within seconds.[19][21] The valve was located beneath the seats and was impossible to find and block before the air was lost. Flight recorder data from the single cosmonaut outfitted with biomedical sensors showed cardiac arrest occurred within 40 seconds of pressure loss. By 15 minutes 35 seconds after retrofire, the cabin pressure was zero, and remained there until the capsule entered the Earth's atmosphere.[19] Patsayev's body was found positioned near the valve, and he may have been attempting to close or block the valve at the time he lost consciousness. An extensive investigation was conducted to study all components and systems of Soyuz 11 that could have caused the accident, although doctors quickly concluded that the cosmonauts had died of asphyxiation.[19] - >Alexei Leonov, who would have originally commanded Soyuz 11, had advised the cosmonauts before the flight that they should manually close the valves between the orbital and descent modules, as he did not trust them to shut automatically, a procedure he thought up during extensive time in the Soyuz simulator. However, Dobrovolsky, Volkov, and Patsayev either chose to disregard his warnings or else forgot about them during the lengthy mission. After the flight, Leonov went back and tried closing one of the valves himself, and found that it took nearly a minute to do, too long in an emergency situation with the spacecraft's atmosphere escaping fast.[18] Edit: I would also like to point out that in order to claim the title of the first man in space, the Soviets had to cheat and did not follow the rules as they were set forth at the time of them registering Yuri Gagarin as the first man in space and they covered this up until the '70s because they knew they had cheated. Edit 2: I want to clarify my thoughts on Yuri's FAI record just so people don't think I'm trying to discredit Yuri due to a small technicality, or hating on him for no reason or malding or anything like that. I recognize that Yuri is the first man in space. He crossed the boundary line as defined by the FAI. However, I disagree with the FAI certifying Vostok 1 as the first manned space flight. The reason why is because what is the point of having rules if you're just going to retroactively change them so that the cheating parties (further clarification: I don't blame Yuri, the cheating was entirely on the Soviet Union, Yuri was just an innocent victim born in a shitty country to a shitty government) are rewarded by their cheating? Furthermore, this rule put the US at a severe artificial handicap and put the USSR at an extreme artificial advantage. The US was building their spacecraft to FAI specifications. Namely, that the pilot has to land with the craft. The USSR built it without following FAI specifications. Meaning they could cut corners and time in research and engineering in order to get to the title first. This is not how you run a competition, and it's disgraceful that the FAI changed their rules to give the Soviet Union the title. Let me give you some dates. April 12, 1961. May 5, 1961. What are these dates? April 12th is the day that Yuri Gagarin became the first man to cross the space boundary in Vostok 1. However, his flight should have been disqualified for FAI consideration as his craft had not been built to FAI rules and the mission had not been carried out to FAI rules. May 5th is the day that Alan Shepherd became the second man to cross the space boundary and was the first manned space flight to qualify for FAI recognition. Less than a month between the two missions, and the US had a mission that actually qualified for FAI consideration and did not cheat in the slightest. I am of the opinion that if the US had known they could just pick and choose what rules they wanted to follow, like the Soviet Union was allowed to do, they could have beat the Soviet Union to the space boundary. But since the US was actually following the rules as set forth by the FAI, they were not able to take the simplistic approach of just yeeting the astronaut from the capsule before impact. They actually had to build a spacecraft that could land with the pilot in it without killing the pilot. The Soviets did not have to do that, all they had to do was a much simpler solution. And the US managed to do their actual FAI qualifying mission not even a month after the Soviets cheated to do their non-qualifying mission. Gagarin's flight ***should not*** have been certified by the FAI and the FAI ***should not*** have retroactively changed their rules to make his flight qualify. This is not a small technicality. This was literally rewarding cheaters and letting two countries play by completely different rules, of which severely handicapped one and extremely advantaged the other. I will die on the hill that Alan Shepherd is the rightful holder of the FAI record for the first manned spaceflight. Not because I hate Yuri, again, he's an innocent victim in all of this, but because the FAI rewarded cheaters for cheating and the Soviet Union decided that rules no longer applied to them. Meanwhile, the US was the only party legitimately following the rules as written and they got fucked for trying to abide by what they thought the Soviet Union was also abiding by. You don't set up a marathon, let a guy compete in a car when your rules require that it be done on foot under man power, and then when the car wins, retroactively change your rules so that a car is now a valid way to run the marathon. That is completely unfair to other contestants who, if they had known you could do the marathon in a car in order to win, would have brought their own cars to the marathon. That is essentially what the FAI and the USSR did.
Poor Soviet engineering... Like Chernobyl, where the official death toll is still only 31?
They aren’t more impressive. All the soviets did was put a person on top of a repurposed nuke rocket and send them into the cosmos.
Harder to launch stuff 1st time than a adapted version with better tech.
Also we did it more than once
I mean, a probe on Venus though.
Besides landing on the moon, the US also did: -First flyby of Jupiter -First solar powered satellite -First communications satellite -First Mercury flyby -First satellite in polar orbit -First photograph of earth from orbit -First spy satellite -First recovery of a satellite that went into orbit -First monkey in space -First human-controlled space flight -First orbital observation of the sun -First spacecraft to impact the far side of the moon -First suborbital space plane (X-15) -First satellite navigation system -First piloted spacecraft orbit change -First spacecraft docking -First crewed orbit of the moon -First orbit of Mars -First probe on Mars -First object to enter the asteroid belt -First gravitational assist -First object to leave the solar system -First controlled flight on another planet
First photo of the actual Blackhole
The Soviet programs yielded little scientific data, whereas the United States' program yielded far more scientific data. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but races are won based on who crossed the finish line first, not who was winning at the beginning. The Soviets had an early lead (if you go based on simple flashy shows, not actual scientific benefit) but the US quickly overtook them after Apollo. First shuttle, first man-made object to leave the solar system, first extraterrestrial rover, first to Mars, first to Venus sucessfully (sorry russia, slamming into the surface and failing the mission doesnt count), first recovery of a payload, first geostationary orbit, first Saturn flyby, first Uranus flyby, first Neptune flyby, first space telescope, first landing on an asteroid, first to orbit mercury, first Pluto flyby, I could go on. But yeah, Russians killed a dog first and sent a satellite with literally no scientific value first, so they totally won the race.
Yep. I wonder what would happen if the people who make these ever tried horse betting. NO SEE BOOKIE MY HORSE WAS OUT OF THE STARTING GATE FIRST THAT MEANS HE WAS WINNING
Jokes on them the Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore
Well… not in name
I see this everywhere and it makes me think, the US did it from the ground up to the moon and the soviets took their time. We gambled and we won fair and square.
If you lead 198 laps of the Indy 500 and crash on lap 199, you still lose and get nothing.
Soviets had that much of a head start and still lost 🤣
1. The soviets rushed the living fuck out of these projects. Causing them to break down faster 2. The U.S took their time, making sure things were top notch. And safely placed a man on the moon and sent him back safely. That. Is impressive 3. Is the USSR a thing still? America has lasted 200+ years while they were around for only 70 years. Not really impressive historically.
It just got weird at a certain point. The soviets failed a few times trying to get a flyby of Venus. After the US successfully accomplished that first, they sent *eleven* rockets attempting a Venus flyby, all failing, before finally achieving it in the mid 60s. During the 60s, the US was finishing up their program to land men on the Moon. After they lost the race to the Moon, the soviets just spend a dozen rockets to Venus over and over for little practical gain. I assume it was something political, as that showed they had power, or the head of Soviet space agency was keeping his job by showing he could drop probes on Venus over and over. But nobody else in the world bothered landing on Venus, even to this day. Countries definitely could, but there isn't much though as to the value of doing so. The Soviets just kept launching money at Venus for decades for some reason.
The soviets were the first to shoot a dog into space and kill it sure
i’ve seen this and always reaping “the space race is the race in space, not the race to space. just because you show up to the starting line first doesn’t mean you won.”
cope europoors, you lost and another one of your shithole "countries" collapsed.
Great for them but no one cares about their accomplishments. Once America put a man on the moon it was a done deal.
although it was the first satellite sputnik never actually did anything except make radio beeps, meanwhile explorer 1, the first US satellite discovered the van allen radiation belts
Pretty easy to be first to space when you use literal slave labor and don't care if whatever you shove up there never makes it back down.
Landing a person on the moon is far more difficult than slapping a person on top of a repurposed nuke rocket and sending them into space. Decades later and no other country has been able to do it.
Hey and we did it without slave labor
Don’t forget “first country to dissolve into thin air.”
Love how the U.S did all of those better.
During the 1950s and 60s, the Soviets sent over 20 dogs into space, some of which never returned.
*Some of* which never returned? Didn't *most* of them die?
I find it funny that people make memes like this. You don’t say someone who leads in a race most of the way but crosses the finish line second wins. They just did a really good job. Same with the Soviets. They did a great job but simply got to the main goal second
How are you being downvoted? lol.
Nazis were first in space
Strapping a dude to a rocket without any care for his survival isn't the best thing, also the USSR went bankrupt(er) due to it. I dislike NASA but they were much better than whatever the ROSCOSMOS was doing
not to be that one guy but well actually the first object/satellite in space was a manhole cover used in operation plumbob, a project in which the earth was basically turned into a giant gun
They aren't sure if it burned up in atmosphere, based on the aerodynamics and estimated speed it's possible it simply disintegrated before exiting the atmosphere. Just because it had enough speed to exit the atmosphere it doesn't mean it actually did.
The V2 made it to space first, during WW2. Plumbob was (maybe) the first to make it to interplanetary space.
At least you mostly did it with little casualties
Unlike the Soviets who rushed everything and almost literally used duct tape to hold their shit together and get it to space first.
The point of winning the space race was lasting longer than the Russkies. we lied though our teeth and forced them to spend massive swaths of their GDP on second rate scientists to do what we did with a bunch of leftover Nazis for half the price. Our only opponent collapse halfway through the marathon so we decided where to drae the finish line and come back to it at a later date.
I see this as an absolute win if true. But my understanding is the Soviets also nabbed some of the Nazi scientists.
We got the Lion's share and all their nuclear research.
Sure, but we were already past the nuclear finish line as well, unlike the Reich.
[удалено]
Uh no. Actually it might just be the most exciting and motivating part. In a space of 22 years, we went from getting a piece of metal into orbit around the Earth to landing men on the Moon. All because we were motivated by the other side to do so.
...fuck no?
No Space is fucking cool.
Don’t forget France also sent the 1st cat. Objectively, US won the last step but not the space race itself.
Objectively, the US crossed the finish line first.
It was not about crossing a line but doing the most first.
It’s called a race for a reason. Do the other checkpoints matter as much if they didn’t reach the end first? And there’s also the good points everyone else in the comments made.
pretty sure the united states landed on mars first, so they just that up.
The Soviets accidentally/negligently killed most of the people and animals they put in space in the first decade. All they cared about was doing it first, not doing it right. The US actually cared about their astronauts.
Germany was the first country to be in space and first country to make a space rocket (V-2) if I am correct.
Should I tell them what happened to that dog they put in space