He would disagree that the USSR won the Space Race
Thanks, Sarah Palin, for pointing that out. I was about to make an embarrassing mistake.
In an interview with Fox News, Palin criticized President Obama’s “State of the Union” address. Particularly annoying to her were the President’s “Winning the Future” moments or, as she likes to call them, ‘WTF’ moments (Get it? See what she did there?). One of those ‘WTF’ moments occurred with Obama referenced the Soviet Union’s Sputnik program. Now, in case you aren’t familiar with history…
Palin begins, “He needs to remember what happened back then.” She says that the USSR won the Space Race, but incurred such tremendous debt that their communist country collapsed. Golly, we don’t want that happening.
A couple of problems with that historical analysis. Most people consider the final victory in the Space Race to be the landing of a man on the moon (Neil Armstrong, USA, 1969). Secondly, the USSR collapsed in 1991, a full 34 years after Sputnik launched. By that point, they invested very little on their space program. Actually, most people fault the Soviet’s unsustainable investment in defense programs as one of the reasons for the country’s ultimate demise.
She’s really still considered to be a presidential contender?
Not Intent on Arriving 
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