Mitchell Holman wrote in
30:

snip



Of course, for a whole year after Sputnik the
US orbital rockets kept blowing up on the launch pad,
showing just how "able" the US was..........



Painting with a wide brush there, pilgrim. Refine your
searches. Read more (recently printed) history books.
Quit using Hollyweird as a source (your comment sounds
suspiciously close to a verbatim quote from the script
of "The Right Stuff"). One of these days you may
actually learn the full extent of what was really going
on back in those days.

Just in the last few years has some of the records/info seen
the light of day. Much of what you may believe as history
might actually have been a govt. subterfuge.