Anyone remember?

[brush]

5. IIRC we didn't get a satellite up for a while. The USSR then put a man in orbit...

before we finally sent Alan Shepard straight up into space, then down, but no orbit. The Ruskies were way ahead of us but we caught them, and passed them. The movie "Hidden Figures" is a good account of that time. See it if you can.

In fact, trying to keep up with us and the weapons in space wars is what broke the USSR,Brezhnev. and all the others who followed him in short order.

The sophisticated Gorbachev followed and gave us a scare for a minute as many thought Reagan was no match for him. But the Berlin Wall fell, a momentous event in '89, and he was forced out as the country was broke. Yeltsin came next but was a drunk and couldn't handle it. He finally gave way to fucking Putin in the 90s and he hasn't left yet.

But guess what, Russia's economy is in the tank again because of Putin's ill-advised Ukraine invasion and international sanctions that have followed it. Putin is old and won't be around much longer. We will beat them again.