I've read a lot about the space race in the last week, and it got me thinking. What's the reason as to why the USSR were first to just about everything except the manned moon landing?
Was their economic situation superior to the U.S. or is there maybe some other reason to them leading the space race almost the whole time?
First, you may be interested in this thread and this one.
It's common to think of the USSR as being in front for the space race. But that's rather simplistic. The US was quite close behind. The launches of the first US satellites were within months of Sputnik 1. The US was just months behind on the first man in space, and less than a year on the first man to orbit. So they were ahead, but not by very much.
As for why, early on the space program just wasn't a very high priority for the US. It played second-fiddle to ICBMs in rocketry. And unlike in the USSR, spaceflight rockets and ICBMs were designed separately. The Soviet success with Sputnik and the beginning of the race to the moon changed that.
Source: Anderson, John D. Jr. Introduction to Flight