” You need the will and determination to do it, both requiring an overarching framework of a government/economy substructure to make it happen.”
Like the space program. The Soviets never reall had one. When you look at what America invested in going into space, you realize that the Soviets really only had a series of death-defying stunts. They finally stopped, only when they could no longer defy it.
Soviet space program was by far advanced and more intensive than that of NASA. The only things impressive in NASA program during the Cold War are Apollo and Viking.
Exactly. There is no denying that the Soviets had very good scientists, but their government as a tool for focusing their efforts left a lot to be desired, and that is putting it lightly.
Honesty, it is a vignette of the entire collectivism vs. capitalism argument.