The Soviet Space Program Was Not Woke
Sending the first women into space isn’t the same as developing an astronaut program that values equality.
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series reflecting on the Apollo 11 mission, 50 years later.
About this time 50 years ago, three men returned home from a long journey. They had flown to the moon, planted an American flag in the silver regolith, and flown back. After a decade of jostling, the United States became the indisputable winner of the space race.
But the Soviet Union netted another kind of victory, according to a recent story in The New: “The Soviets won the space race for equality.” The story points out that after the Soviet Union made Yuri Gagarin the first man in space in 1961, the government sent the first woman, the first Asian man, and the first black man into orbit around Earth.
