On the spaceflight note, it’s rather sad that the Soviets harassed and imprisoned Yuri Kondratyuk since his work was vital in the moon landing and orbital mechanics in general.

If his work in space flight was supported and not repeatedly crushed by authorities, the USSR might’ve landed on the moon first. Instead, he was imprisoned by the NVKD for some of his engineering designs (for “sabotage” of not using nails, which is a dumb thing on its own).

And eventually, he gave all his aerospace notes to a friend to smuggle them out of the country because he feared the govt would accuse him of treason like they had Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (the guy who made Sputnik 1).

The Soviets could have won the space race, if it weren’t for the “authoritarianism” you’re trying to make light of

Yeah it's crazy what you can achieve when you turn millions of people into a slave army for a dictatorship