Contrary to John Derbyshire, Apollo -did- help win the Cold War

Over at the Corner on National Review, John Derbyshire has been posting with the argument that the Apollo program did nothing to help America win the Cold War. In this post however, he prints a response from an ex-officer in the Soviet military who cites a more convincing argument. I think the ex-Soviet officer definitely makes the more convincing argument especially with bits of evidence such as:

"But the biggest impact was in the Third World. In the 1960s the Soviets were making good progress spreading socialism all over the Third World. Credible claims of overtaking America in the near future were quite helpful in this respect, since everybody wants to be on the winning side. Friedman and von Hayek provided superb arguments, but they were too theoretical for the rulers and too complex for the populations. Economic statistics were too inconclusive and untrustworthy.

The space race, however, provided a clear-cut competition. And the Moon was the Big Enchilada, since poorly educated people are not much impressed by low Earth orbital stuff, but even African tribesmen are well aware of the Moon, can easily grasp the concept of walking on it and intuitively understand that it's not an easy feat."