But if the Soviets hadn't gone up first...
Would the US have been motivated enough to do all that it did for the
rest of the 1950s, through the 1960s, and in many respects right where
we are today?
I can recall a Popular Science magazine article from 1957 saying that
"maybe" we would get an unmanned rocket to the Moon by the distant
future year 2000, but that manned spaceflight was way off.
Then the Space Race happened and the first humans were on the Moon
just 12 years after the PS article.
Maybe it would have been without the provocation. Look at how
dormant we have been since 1972 until very recently.