If you guessed that this is post on the 50th anniversary
of the start of the Space Age, you guessed right.
But that's not the whole story.
Back in 1957, the Soviets did have transistors; Germanium types.
In fact Joseph Stalin's NKVD spies had obtained transistors from
the western nations as far back as 1952.
But....until nearly 1960 transistors were more of a laboratory curiosity
in the Soviet Union than a readily available product for either
the Soviet military or their space program.

As a result, did you know that Sputnik-1 didn't have a single transistor in it?
Not even one!...It's radio transmitters were primitive.
In fact it is highly doubtful that the Soviet spacecraft designers &
builders fitted any transistors in Sputnik's 2 or 3 either...

And its very likely both Lunik-1 & 2 didn't contain any transistors, as well.
[One day, in the far future, astronauts may retrieve Lunik-1 from its Solar orbit
and find that it contains good old-fashioned vacuum tubes.]

The irony is?

The Soviets were using 1930's 'electronic' technology in Sputnik's 1 to 3; and Lunik's 1 & 2 as well.
In fact the R7 rocket booster, and its manufacture & design are basically early 1940's, late 1930's technology.

Imagine how much more difficult it would have been for NASA to beat the Soviets had Soviet scientists
discovered semiconductor technology [transistors] the same year Bell Labs made the discovery [1947]?

Imagine if you will what would have happened to the 'Moon Race' had Soviet scientists invented
the integrated-circuit the same year [1958] a Texas Instrument engineer invented it?

Hats off to those brilliant Soviet scientists and engineers who pulled off an astonishing number of 'space firsts'
between 1957 and 1967 using inferior metallurgy and inferior electronics than available to the Americans.

Jacob