America and our German scientists, and Russia and their German scientists...

Let's not act like operation paperclip wasn't a rat race for both.

They didn't steal German tech, Germany caused two worlds wars and war prizes were taken including technology and scientists.

The space shuttle was 30 years after the space race homie. Also incorrect, NASA itself disagrees that it was Russia alone at fault.

We feared them, because they put up Sputnik, which, by the way, people forget was an emptied out casing of an intercontinental ballistic missile. And, Sputnik itself means "Fellow Traveler", so it's all peaceful, but it was a ballistic missile head, without explosives. So that was a signal, and we freaked in America. So NASA got founded, on the fear factor of Sputnik.

Alright, so we then go to the moon on the fear factor that Russia will control the high ground. Then we go to the moon, space enthusiasts say, "Oh, we're on the moon by '69, we'll be on Mars in another 10 years." They completely did not understand why we got to the moon in the first place. We were at war, once we saw that Russia was not ready to land on the moon, we stopped going to the moon. That should not surprise anybody looking back on it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The best race