EDIT: Let’s cool it with the downvotes, dudes. We’re not out to cut funding to your black hole detection chamber or revoke the degrees of chiropractors just because a couple of us don’t believe in it, okay? Chill out, participate with the prompt and continue with having a nice day. I’m sure almost everybody has something to add.
My main come back for this: It was the height of the Cold War and the Soviets didnt question it. Also, recently, the Chinese moon missions has photographs of modules left by the Apollo missions on the moon.
To be fair, the Soviets also thought the space race to be all done with once they put their astronauts in orbit, and they weren’t really paying attention when America went to the moon.
No they didn’t. They had their own moon program and announced their intentions to land in 1961 before the Americans announced in 1962
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_crewed_lunar_programs
If making a statement, why be quiet about it? That ruins the whole point of making a statement like how better someone is at something, doesn’t it? The civilian population in particular didn’t really care.