Vostok, the other Apollo

I noticed in our class discussion that we asked a lot of what if questions, about what might have happened differently if certain people or events in the apollo program where changed. Then I realized that we have something to compare apollo to, the Soviet space program, Vostok. The Soviets had a completely separate socio-technological system than the American space program. So I set out to do some research on the soviet space program, here’s some of what I found.

The soviets were responsible for the first satellite, animals in space, man in space, woman in space, space walk, probe on the moon, and rover operated on another planet; but for a long time the details of their space program where kept very secret.

On much more limited recourses than the Apollo program, the soviet developed beautify simple solutions, which are summed up nicely in an article by the BBC here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/moon-soviet-lunar-program-and-space-race/

I found a book that is a lot like Apollo but for the Soviet space program. What you may notice as perhaps one of the biggest differences in culture between the Soviet and American space program is that the cosmonauts who flew the spacecraft were engineers who built them, not pilots. You can read summaries of key players and their backgrounds here: http://web.mit.edu/slava/homepage/voices.htm

These engineers in the cockpit may be part of the reason the soviets weren’t first to the moon, because of hesitation, as some cosmonauts reflect in this article by PBS:  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/moon-soviet-lunar-program-and-space-race/