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It is, in fact, a heck of a lot more complicated than that. Mostly the U.S. went to the moon to provide civilian cover for R&D investments in I.C.B.M. and satellite surveillance technology. If you are interested I suggest reading "Red Moon Rising", which covers quite accurately the early players and their politics and motivations on both sides (from the V-2 in WW2 to Yuri Gagarin and Kennedy's declaration).

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A google search gives a lot of results, but I think you mean this: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Moon-Rising-Sputnik-Rivalries/dp/0...

Is this true?

The manuscript I read had a different cover, but I think it's the same book.

And yes, it's true. I work at NASA and some of my managers were there as early as the Apollo program. The connection to the military is an open secret that is well-known but has always been divorced from the mythic of the space race. It wasn't until the players retired, memoirs were published, and the fall of the U.S.S.R. that historians were able to put the pieces into a cohesive whole, telling the story from both sides. Matthew Brzezinski draws upon this more recent research for the book.

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