If the US and USSR hadnt been "fighting" in the Cold War, and had been allies, probably Yuri woulda had an American with him and the Russians woulda stepped down with Armstrong.
But, sadly, all the BS that happened throughout history kept us apart (and still are apart).
Meh.
I would love to see that view.
While space "fanatism" became a part of soviet mentality after some time, initial boost happened only because of cold war and competition, while the american participation happened as confrontation for high scores and stopped at the first successeful result. Thus, without cold war we all would still be happily sitting in the mud. Look at the situation at space tragvels today. One space station and hundreds of boring commercial and navigational and meteorogical sattelites on our side, same boring sattelites, canceled projects and blowing up shuttles on american side, and no future for everyone. Gotta love peace and capitalism.
[color=#FFFFFF]It's not just peace and capitalism, it's the lack of competition, if China says we'll create a nuke base on the moon, I reckon that the US will race them to build it (if they have the cash that is). Doesn't matter if it's capitalism socialism, anarchy or monarchy, it's the competition that drives the technology.
Simple deduction
No nazi's-no battle of Britain -no V2 - no Saturn V - no Moon landing
No Cold war - no arms race - no ICBMs - R-7 Semyorka - no Sputnik - no Gagarin