I read it and had thoughts like “I could have developed a cure for cancer, but...didn’t!”
The one that stuck in my brain was “If frogs had wings, they wouldn’t whomp their ass every time they jumped.”
Point is, they had good scientists in the Soviet Union, but good scientists aren’t good enough to build a SR-71. You need the will and determination to do it, both requiring an overarching framework of a government/economy substructure to make it happen.
They didn’t.
There is nothing impossible is Sr-71 the Soviets couldn’t make at the time. The article correctly points at the fact that the system was considered absolete with the appearance of ICBMs and space reconnaissence.
” 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.