The arguments I hear is that the Soviets always did some “cheap” thing where it allowed them to do it first without some technological superiority which supposedly the US had, I’m not that familiar with the topic but I doubt this narrative. Also because the funnelled immense amounts of money into propaganda for the moon landing, and I assume there’s a little bit to the relation between space programs and the development of nuclear warheads, where both were very related to each other, and the bellic part of it and the warmongering ended up winning rather than the actual scientific development. In the eyes of the Usonian, Soviet development of space programmes were just the scientific advancement of nuclear deterrence.