I see your point; I think that saying "the system won", though, is an easy story to tell that doesn't reflect what actually happens very well. I don't see how the starving-people-to-death part of the system and the space-race part are sufficiently connected that the space-race part winning helps the starving-people-to-death part.

(If you disagree about this prediction, I will be unhappy to discuss it further but happy to say "okay, this is the underlying fact on which we disagree, let's stop there". Is this the underlying fact on which we disagree, or is there more to it?)

Thus, my understanding of the original quote is "The Pursuit of Science lies above political differences, and sabotaging the former because of the latter is petty."