&gt; US methodically built capability far beyond what the Russians could sustain.<p>You know what year it is, right? This is not 1998. Unfortunately US &quot;sustainable&quot; technology is mothballed and we are flying into space on Soviet technology. I hate the commies on principle, but at the end of day you gotta accept reality here.<p>&gt; Soviets took in trumpeting various &quot;firsts&quot; in space<p>Also I can think of just a few firsts off the top of my head :<p>First satellite, first ICBM, first human in space, first probe to reach moon, first EVA.<p>Then looking up on Wikipedia I found: first probe launch to Mars, first probe launched to Moon, first probe to reach another plane (Venus), first unmanned rendezvous and docking, first permanently manned space station.<p>And even the first fully automated flight of a space shuttle system. Which they did to show off, and then also realized &quot;it was found too expensive to operate as a civilian launcher&quot;. It took US how many years and disasters and money to realize that?.