obviously im no fan of the ussr but they won the space race by every metric except one

- first artificial satellite
- first person in space
- first spacecraft on the moon
-first spacecraft to escape earth
- first extended human habitation in space
- first spacecraft to land on another planet
- theres a lot more

the point here is twofold: first, any american claims to "winning the space race" are pure nationalism; second, don't let billionaire creeps deceive you into thinking that collectivism and progress are mutually exclusive #space