Most people believe that NASA put up the Space Station, however this is a miss understanding by those who cannot understand the difference between bolting things onto a station already in orbit and putting a station in orbit. First lets get something straight, Russia has been the only country to put up successful space stations into orbit until Russia taught China how to do it in 2019 when they both signed the new space treaty. Russia put the ISS in orbit and only they possess the technologies to keep the station in orbit:
https://www.russianspaceweb.com/iss-fgb-launch.html



NASA CANNOT INHABIT SPACE WITHOUT RUSSIA OR CHINA!
As simple as a fact can be. Russia put it in orbit, keeps it in orbit and after it was placed in orbit NASA joined the station. Joined the station, could not put one up for Russia to join.
Do not like this fact, tough shit, NASA can only at best visit space. From Apollo to the Shuttle to the new Dragon they scramble to just put men in low earth orbit for a few weeks at a time without Russia keeping them up there.
What about Skylab??? Its a joke! Imagine if I said I was running a mile marathon and got a bunch of pledges and then only ran 15 feet and called it a success? That is literally Skylab! Russia commissioned their Salyut Space Station for 10 years, Nasa said Skylab was also commissioned for 10 years... However while Russia inhabited the Salyut 7 from 1971 to 1986
https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/the-forgotten-rescue-of-the-salyut-7-space-station/
Nasa was only able to inhabit Skylab for 24 weeks and it was decommissioned!
15ft of a mile race. Pathetic and NASA never tried to put up another space station again. Losers that cannot inhabit space and can only visit at best.

The greatest thing NASA has ever done was participate in the third Russian Space station. Because they cannot, still cannot, go to the moon or leave low earth orbit, they can barely get into low earth orbit.
If the space race was about controlling the high ground, Russia sure has NASA in check... NASA pays to visit and put things on Russia's station. Russia gets to use Ukraine as leverage, NASA and America are financially, militarily and politically subject to them for usage of space. If Russia knew America could not inhabit space without them, and knew NASA would rely on them if they allowed NASA to pretend it went to the moon instead of trying to put its own space station up, then Russia won the space race allowing NASA to claim it went to the moon.
Look at NASA today... Same old propaganda as before... Russia threatened to kick them out and BOOM they are going to the moon. Really Orion just launched twice as an unmanned radiation probe and then they went off on how they cant afford it and so they might just scrap the mission. All while they desperately try figure out how to find stable orbit in low earth orbit and put up anything that might work as their own space station.
Finally something that makes sense. Thank you.