[MaxMax]

But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far
from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West.

Thats ok, look where it made America go. America always needs a challenge to go beyond imagination.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Read a little further:

the world's first orbiter was born out of a very different Soviet program: the frantic development of a rocket capable of striking the United States with a hydrogen bomb.