Space Race

Initially, President Eisenhower was worried that a satellite passing above a nation at over 100 kilometers (62 mi) might be seen as violating that nation's airspace.

Korolev received word about von Braun's 1956 Jupiter-C test and, mistakenly thinking it was a satellite mission that failed, expedited plans to get his own satellite in orbit. Since the R-7 was substantially more powerful than any of the US

Beep ... beep ... beep

The signals of Sputnik 1 continued for 22 days

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Korolev was buoyed by the first successful launches of the R-7 rocket in August and September, which paved the way for the launch of Sputnik.

The first launch took place on Friday, October 4, 1957, at exactly 10:28:34 pm Moscow time, with the R-7 and the now named Sputnik 1 satellite lifting off the launch pad and placing the artificial "moon" into an orbit a few minutes later.[72] This "fellow traveler", as the name is translated in English, was a small, beeping ball, less than two feet in diameter and weighing less than 200 pounds. But the celebrations were muted at the launch control center until the down-range far east tracking station at Kamchatka received the first distinctive beep ... beep ... beep sounds from Sputnik 1's radio transmitters, indicating that it was on its way to completing its first orbit.^[72] About 95 minutes after launch, the satellite flew over its launch site, and its radio signals were picked up by the engineers and military personnel at Tyura-Tam: that's when Korolev and his team celebrated the first successful artificial satellite placed into Earth-orbit.^[73]

The next satellite sent by the Soviets after Sputnik 1 was Sputnik 2, launched on November 3, 1957, just a month later. This would put the first animal into orbit.^[74][75]

At the latest, the successful start of Sputnik 2 with the satellite weighing more than 500 kg proved that the USSR had achieved a leading advantage in rocket technology. The CIA, initially astonished, estimated the launch weight of the rocket at 500 metric tons, requiring an initial thrust exceeding 1,000 tons, and assumed the use of a three-stage rocket. In a classified report, the agency described the event as a "stupendous scientific achievement" and concluded that the USSR had likely perfected an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of accurately targeting any location.^[76] In reality, the launch weight of the Soviet rocket was 267 metric tons with an initial thrust of 410 tons with one and a half stages. The CIA's misjudgement was caused by extrapolating the parameters of the US Atlas rocket developed at the same time (launch weight 82 tons, initial thrust 135 tones, maximum payload of 70 kg for low Earth orbit).^[77] In part, the favourable data of the Soviet launcher was based on concepts proposed by the German rocket scientists headed by Helmut Gröttrup on Gorodomlya Island, such as, among other things, the rigorous weight saving, the control of the residual fuel quantities and a reduced thrust to weight relation of 1.4 instead of usual factor 2.^[78] The CIA had heard about such details already in January 1954 when it interrogated Göttrup after his return from the USSR but did not take him seriously.^[79]

The Soviet success raised a great deal of concern in the United States. For example, economist Bernard Baruch wrote in an open letter titled "The Lessons of Defeat" to the New York Herald Tribune: "While we devote our industrial and technological power to producing new model automobiles and more gadgets, the Soviet Union is conquering space. ... It is Russia, not the United States, who has had the imagination to hitch its wagon to the stars and the skill to reach for the moon and all but grasp it. America is worried. It should be."^[80]

Eisenhower ordered project Vanguard to move up its timetable and launch its satellite much sooner than originally planned.

On April 2, 1958, President Eisenhower reacted to the Soviet space lead in launching the first satellite by recommending to the US Congress that a civilian agency be established to direct nonmilitary space activities. Congress, led by

On October 21, 1959, Eisenhower approved the transfer of the Army's remaining space-related activities to NASA. On July 1, 1960, the Redstone Arsenal became NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, with von Braun as its first director. Development of the Saturn rocket family, which when mature gave the US parity with the Soviets in terms of lifting capability, was thus transferred to NASA.^[93]

The US and the USSR sent animals into space to determine the safety of the environment before sending the first humans. The USSR used

The USSR sent the dog Laika into orbit on Sputnik 2, the second satellite launched, on November 3, 1957, for an intended ten-day flight.^[74] They did not yet have the technology to return Laika safely to Earth, and the government reported Laika died when the oxygen ran out,^[95] but in October 2002 her true cause of death was reported as stress and overheating on the fourth orbit^[96] due to failure of the air conditioning system.^[97] At a Moscow press conference in 1998 Oleg Gazenko, a senior Soviet scientist involved in the project, stated "The more time passes, the more I'm sorry about it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog...".^[98]

In 1958, Korolev upgraded the R-7 to be able to launch a 400-kilogram (880 lb) payload to the Moon. The Luna program began with three failed secret 1958 attempts to launch Luna E-1-class impactor probes.^[99] The fourth attempt, Luna 1, launched successfully on January 2, 1959, but missed the Moon. The fifth attempt on June 18 also failed at launch. The 390-kilogram (860 lb) Luna 2 successfully impacted the Moon on September 14, 1959. The 278.5-kilogram (614 lb) Luna 3 successfully flew by the Moon and sent back pictures of its far side on October 7, 1959.^[100]

The US first embarked on the Pioneer program in 1958 by launching the first probe, albeit ending in failure. A subsequent probe named Pioneer 1 was launched with the intention of orbiting the Moon only to result in a partial mission success when it reached an apogee of 113,800 km before falling back to Earth. The missions of Pioneer 2 and Pioneer 3 failed whereas Pioneer 4 had one partially successful lunar flyby in March 1959.^[101][102]

The period from 1961 to 1968 began with the first men sent to space, the first robotic explorations of other planets; with missions to Venus and Mars conducted by both the Soviet Union and the United States, robotic landings on the Moon, and the gestation of US ambition to land a man on the moon. The 60s saw significant advancements in crewed spaceflight by both cold war adversaries, as well as the first nuclear detonation in space, research into anti-satellite technology, and the signing of historic international outer space treaties.

The Soviets designed their first human

On April 12, 1961, the USSR surprised the world by launching

The US Air Force had been developing a program to launch the first man in space, named Man in Space Soonest. This program studied several different types of one-man space vehicles, settling on a ballistic re-entry capsule launched on a derivative Atlas missile, and selecting a group of nine candidate pilots. After NASA's creation, the program was transferred over to the civilian agency's Space Task Group and renamed Project Mercury on November 26, 1958. The Mercury spacecraft was designed by the STG's chief engineer Maxime Faget. NASA selected a new group of astronaut (from the Greek for "star sailor") candidates from Navy, Air Force and Marine test pilots, and narrowed this down to a group of seven for the program. Capsule design and astronaut training began immediately, working toward preliminary suborbital flights on the Redstone missile, followed by orbital flights on the Atlas. Each flight series would first start unpiloted, then carry a non-human primate, then finally humans.^[118]

The Mercury spacecraft's principal designer was

On May 5, 1961,

Before Gagarin's flight, US President John F. Kennedy's support for America's piloted space program was lukewarm. Jerome Wiesner of MIT, who served as a science advisor to presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and himself an opponent of sending humans into space, remarked, "If Kennedy could have opted out of a big space program without hurting the country in his judgment, he would have."^[130] As late as March 1961, when NASA administrator James E. Webb submitted a budget request to fund a Moon landing before 1970, Kennedy rejected it because it was simply too expensive.^[131] Some were surprised by Kennedy's eventual support of NASA and the space program because of how often he had attacked the Eisenhower administration's inefficiency during the election.^[132]

Gagarin's flight changed this; now Kennedy sensed the humiliation and fear on the part of the American public over the Soviet lead. Additionally, the

Kennedy ultimately decided to pursue what became the Apollo program, and on May 25 took the opportunity to ask for Congressional support in a Cold War speech titled "Special Message on Urgent National Needs". Full text  He justified the program in terms of its importance to national security, and its focus of the nation's energies on other scientific and social fields.

Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center facility.^[137] Full text 

As President, Johnson steadfastly pursued the Gemini and Apollo programs, promoting them as Kennedy's legacy to the American public. One week after Kennedy's death, he issued Executive Order 11129 renaming the Cape Canaveral and Apollo launch facilities after Kennedy.

The

The Zond programme was orchestrated alongside the Luna programme with Zond 1 and Zond 2 launching in 1964, intended as flyby missions, however both failed.^[153][154] Zond 3 however was successful, and transmitted high quality photography from the far side of the moon.^[155][156]

Partly to aid the Apollo missions, the Surveyor program was conducted by NASA, with five successful soft landings out of seven attempts from 1966 to 1968. The Lunar Orbiter program had five successes out of five attempts in 1966–1967.^[157][158]

In late 1966, Luna 13 became the third spacecraft to make a soft-landing on the Moon, with the American Surveyor 1 having now taken second. Luna 13 made use of inflatable air-bags to soften it's landing.^{[159][160][161]} Surveyor 1 was a 995 kg lander, notably larger than the 112 kg Luna 13 E-6M lander.^[159][162] Surveyor 1 was equipped with a Doppler velocity sensing system that fed information into the spacecraft computer to implement a controllable descent to the surface. Each of the three landing pads also carried aircraft-type shock absorbers and strain gauges to provide data on landing characteristics, important for future Apollo missions.^[163][164]

Surveyor 3, which successfully touched down on the Moon April 20, 1967, carried a 'surface sampler' which facilitated tests of the Lunar soil. Based on these experiments, scientists concluded that lunar soil had a consistency similar to wet sand, with a bearing strength of about 10 pounds per square inch (0.7 kilograms per square centimeter, or 98 kilopascals), which was concluded to be solid enough to support an Apollo Lunar Module.^[165] The Surveyor 3 lander would be later visited by Apollo 12 astronauts.^[166]

On Nov. 17, 1967, before mission termination, Surveyor 6 fired its thrusters for 2.5 seconds, becoming the first spacecraft launched from the lunar surface. It rose about 10 feet (3 meters) before landing 8 feet (2.5 meters) west of its original spot. Cameras then examined the original landing site to assess the soil's properties.^[167][168]

From the early 60s both cold war adversaries almost simultaneously initiated their own programmes which sought to reach other planets in the solar system for the first time; namely Venus and Mars.

Venus was of great interest in the field of planetary science due to its thick and opaque atmosphere, the atmospheres of other planets being a novel area of research at the time.

In 1961 the Venera Programme was initiated by the Soviet Union, with the launch of Venera 1. The programme would go on to mark many firsts in the exploration of another planet. Despite the later successes however, Venera 1 and Venera 2, intended to flyby Venus, resulted in failure due to losses of contact.^[169][170]

NASA would then initiate the Mariner program with the launch of Mariner 1 and Mariner 2. Mariner 1 failed shortly after launch,^[171] however Mariner 2 would become the first man-made object to flyby another Planet in December 1962 when the probe passed by Venus.^[172][173]

Later in 1965/66, Venera 3, marked the first time a man-made object made contact with another planet after it impacted Venus on March 1, 1966, despite operational difficulties resulting in loss of contact with the craft.^[174]

In 1967, Mariner 5 flew by Venus and conducted atmospheric analysis.^[175]

In 1964, NASA's Mariner 4 became the first successful Mars flyby, transmitting 21 pictures of the planets surface. This was followed by Mariner 6 and 7 in 1969.

Focused by the commitment to a Moon landing, in January 1962 the US announced Project Gemini, a two-person spacecraft that would support the later three-person Apollo by developing the key spaceflight technologies of

Korolev's conversion of his surplus Vostok capsules to the

On March 18, 1965, about a week before the first piloted Project Gemini space flight, the USSR launched the two-cosmonaut Voskhod 2 mission with Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov.^[183] Voskhod 2's design modifications included the addition of an inflatable airlock to allow for extravehicular activity (EVA), also known as a spacewalk, while keeping the cabin pressurized so that the capsule's electronics would not overheat.^[184] Leonov performed the first-ever EVA as part of the mission.^[183] A fatality was narrowly avoided when Leonov's spacesuit expanded in the vacuum of space, preventing him from re-entering the airlock.^[185] To overcome this, he had to partially depressurize his spacesuit to a potentially dangerous level.^[185] He succeeded in safely re-entering the spacecraft, but he and Belyayev faced further challenges when the spacecraft's atmospheric controls flooded the cabin with 45% pure oxygen, which had to be lowered to acceptable levels before re-entry.^[186] The reentry involved two more challenges: an improperly timed retrorocket firing caused the Voskhod 2 to land 386 kilometers (240 mi) off its designated target area, the city of Perm; and the instrument compartment's failure to detach from the descent apparatus caused the spacecraft to become unstable during reentry.^[186]

By October 16, 1964, Leonid Brezhnev and a small cadre of high-ranking Communist Party officials deposed Khrushchev as Soviet government leader a day after Voskhod 1 landed, in what was called the "Wednesday conspiracy".^[187] The new political leaders, along with Korolev, ended the technologically troublesome Voskhod program, canceling Voskhod 3 and 4, which were in the planning stages, and started concentrating on reaching the Moon.^[188] Voskhod 2 ended up being Korolev's final achievement before his death on January 14, 1966, as it became the last of the space firsts that the USSR achieved during the early 1960s. According to historian Asif Siddiqi, Korolev's accomplishments marked "the absolute zenith of the Soviet space program, one never, ever attained since."^[7] There was a two-year pause in Soviet piloted space flights while Voskhod's replacement, the Soyuz spacecraft, was designed and developed.^[189]

Though delayed a year to reach its first flight, Gemini was able to take advantage of the USSR's two-year hiatus after Voskhod, which enabled the US to catch up and surpass the previous Soviet superiority in piloted spaceflight. Gemini had ten crewed missions between March 1965 and November 1966: Gemini 3, Gemini 4, Gemini 5, Gemini 6A, Gemini 7, Gemini 8, Gemini 9A, Gemini 10, Gemini 11, and Gemini 12; and accomplished the following:

• Every mission demonstrated the ability to adjust the crafts' inclination and apsis without issue.
• Gemini 5 demonstrated eight-day endurance, long enough for a round trip to the Moon. Gemini 7 demonstrated a fourteen-day endurance flight.
• Gemini 6A demonstrated rendezvous and
  Agena Target Vehicle
  (ATV).
• Rendezvous and docking with the ATV was achieved on Gemini 8, 10, 11, and 12. Gemini 11 achieved the first direct-ascent rendezvous with its Agena target on the first orbit.
• Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin
  spent over five hours working comfortably during three (EVA) sessions, finally proving that humans could perform productive tasks outside their spacecraft.
• Gemini 10, 11, and 12 used the ATV's engine to make large changes in its orbit while docked. Gemini 11 used the Agena's rocket to achieve a crewed Earth orbit record
  apogee
  of 742 nautical miles (1,374 km).

Gemini 8 experienced the first in-space mission abort on March 17, 1966, just after achieving the world's first docking, when a stuck or shorted thruster sent the craft into an uncontrolled spin. Command pilot Neil Armstrong was able to shut off the stuck thruster and stop the spin by using the re-entry control system.^[191] He and his crewmate David Scott landed and were recovered safely.^[192]

Most of the novice pilots on the early missions would command the later missions. In this way, Project Gemini built up spaceflight experience for the pool of astronauts for the Apollo lunar missions. With the completion of Gemini, the US had demonstrated many of the key technologies necessary to make Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon, namely crewed spacecraft docking, with the exception of developing a large enough launch vehicle.^[193]

Korolev's design bureau produced two prospectuses for circumlunar spaceflight (March 1962 and May 1963), the main spacecraft for which were early versions of his Soyuz design. At the same time, another bureau,

Officially, the Soviet lunar program was established on August 3, 1964, with the adoption of Soviet Communist Party Central Committee Command 655-268 (On Work on the Exploration of the Moon and Mastery of Space).[140] The circumlunar flights were planned to occur in 1967, and the landings to start in 1968, intending to land a person on the Moon before the Apollo flights.^[195] Both of the bureaus submitted their projects for a crewed lunar landing.^[140]

Korolev's lunar landing program was designated N1/L3, for its N1 super rocket and a more advanced Soyuz 7K-L3 spacecraft, also known as the lunar orbital module ("Lunniy Orbitalny Korabl", LOK), with a crew of two. A separate lunar lander ("Lunniy Korabl", LK), would carry a single cosmonaut to the lunar surface.^[195]

The N1/L3 launch vehicle had three stages to Earth orbit, a fourth stage for Earth departure, and a fifth stage for lunar landing assist. The combined space vehicle was roughly the same height and takeoff mass as the three-stage US

Chelomey's program assumed using a direct ascent lander based on the LK-1, LK-700, which would be launched using his proposed UR-700 rocket. Following Khrushchev's ouster from power, Chelomey lost his support in the Soviet government, and his proposal didn't receive any funding. Additionally, in August 1965, due to Korolev's opposition, work on the LK-1 was suspended, and later stopped completely. As a replacement, the circumlunar mission would use a stripped-down Soyuz 7K-L1 "Zond", while still retaining the Proton UR-500 booster. To fit two crewmembers, the Zond had to omit the Soyuz orbital module, sacrificing equipment for habitable cabin volume.^[194][199]

The US and USSR began discussions on the peaceful uses of space as early as 1958, presenting issues for debate to the United Nations,^{[200][201][202]} which created a Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in 1959.^[203]

On May 10, 1962, Vice President Johnson addressed the Second National Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Space revealing that the United States and the USSR both supported a resolution passed by the Political Committee of the UN General Assembly in December 1962, which not only urged member nations to "extend the rules of international law to outer space," but to also cooperate in its exploration. Following the passing of this resolution, Kennedy commenced his communications proposing a cooperative American and Soviet space program.^[204]

In 1963, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed by more than 100 signatories, including both the United States and the Soviet Union. This treaty followed the US test of a nuclear bomb detonated in outer space the year earlier called Starfish Prime.

The UN ultimately created a Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, which was signed by the United States, the USSR, and the United Kingdom on January 27, 1967, and came into force the following October 10.^[205]

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Outer Space Treaty of 1967

This treaty:

• bars party States from placing
  weapons of mass destruction
  in Earth orbit, on the Moon, or any other celestial body;
• exclusively limits the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes, and expressly prohibits their use for testing weapons of any kind, conducting military maneuvers, or establishing military bases, installations, and fortifications;
• declares that the exploration of outer space shall be done to benefit all countries and shall be free for exploration and use by all the States;
• explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet, claiming that they are the
  common heritage of mankind
  , "not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means". However, the State that launches a space object retains jurisdiction and control over that object;
• holds any State liable for damages caused by their space object;
• declares that "the activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty", and "States Parties shall bear international responsibility for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental entities"; and
• "A State Party to the Treaty which has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by another State Party in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, may request consultation concerning the activity or experiment."

The treaty remains in force, signed by 107 member states. – As of July 2017^[update]

In November 1968, dismay gripped the United States Central Intelligence Agency when a successful satellite destruction simulation was successfully orchestrated by the Soviet Union.^[206] As a part of the Istrebitel Sputnikov anti-satellite weapons research programme, the Kosmos 248 Soviet satellite was successfully destroyed by Kosmos 252 which was able to intercept within the 5 km 'kill radius' and destroyed Kosmos 248 by detonating its onboard warhead. This wasn't the beginning of the programme, years earlier intercept attempts had begun with maneuvering test of the Polyot satellites in 1964.^{[207][208][209][210]}

Possibly as a response to the Soviet programme, the United States began Project SAINT, which was intended to provide anti-satellite capability to be used in the case of war with the Soviet Union.^{[211][206][212]} However, less is known about the mission profiles of this project compared to the Soviet programme, and the project was cancelled early on due to budget constraints.^[212]

In 1967, both nations' space programs faced serious challenges that brought them to temporary halts.

On January 27, 1967, the same day the US and USSR signed the Outer Space Treaty, the crew of the first crewed Apollo mission, Command Pilot

On April 24, 1967, the single pilot of Soyuz 1,

The United States recovered from the Apollo 1 fire, fixing the fatal flaws in an improved version of the

The Soviet Union also fixed the parachute and control problems with Soyuz, and the next piloted mission Soyuz 3 was launched on October 26, 1968.^[227] The goal was to complete Komarov's rendezvous and docking mission with the un-piloted Soyuz 2.^[227] Ground controllers brought the two craft to within 200 meters (660 ft) of each other, then cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy took control.^[227] He got within 40 meters (130 ft) of his target, but was unable to dock before expending 90 percent of his maneuvering fuel, due to a piloting error that put his spacecraft into the wrong orientation and forced Soyuz 2 to automatically turn away from his approaching craft.^[227] The first docking of Soviet spacecraft was finally realized in January 1969 by the Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 missions. It was the first-ever docking of two crewed spacecraft, and the first transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another.^[228]

The Soviet

On December 21, 1968, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders became the first humans to ride the Saturn V rocket into space, on Apollo 8. They also became the first to leave low-Earth orbit and go to another celestial body, entering lunar orbit on December 24.^[238] They made ten orbits in twenty hours, and transmitted one of the most watched TV broadcasts in history, with their Christmas Eve program from lunar orbit, which concluded with a reading from the biblical Book of Genesis.^[238] Two and a half hours after the broadcast, they fired their engine to perform the first trans-Earth injection to leave lunar orbit and return to the Earth.^[238] Apollo 8 safely landed in the Pacific Ocean on December 27, in NASA's first dawn splashdown and recovery.^[238]

The American Lunar Module was finally ready for a successful piloted test flight in low Earth orbit on Apollo 9 in March 1969. The next mission, Apollo 10, conducted a "dress rehearsal" for the first landing in May 1969, flying the LM in lunar orbit as close as 47,400 feet (14.4 km) above the surface, the point where the powered descent to the surface would begin.^[239] With the LM proven to work well, the next step was to attempt the landing.

Unknown to the Americans, the Soviet Moon program was in deep trouble.^[237] After two successive launch failures of the N1 rocket in 1969, Soviet plans for a piloted landing suffered delay.^[240] The launch pad explosion of the N-1 on July 3, 1969, was a significant setback.^[241] The rocket hit the pad after an engine shutdown, destroying itself and the launch facility.^[241] Without the N-1 rocket, the USSR could not send a large enough payload to the Moon to land a human and return him safely.^[242]

The latter period of the space race began with the United States landing the first men on the moon, and was followed by the Soviets operating the first space stations and putting the first robotic landers on Venus and Mars, the US space shuttles marking the first significant reusable space vehicles, and a cooling down of tensions with the first docking between a Soviet and American vessel.

Apollo 11 was prepared with the goal of a July landing in the

Neil Armstrong's historic first words on the Moon.

"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

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The first step was witnessed on live television by at least one-fifth of the population of Earth, or about 723 million people.^[249] His first words when he stepped off the LM's landing footpad were, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."^[248] Aldrin joined him on the surface almost 20 minutes later.^[250] Altogether, they spent just under two and one-quarter hours outside their craft.^[251] The next day, they performed the first crewed launch from another celestial body, and rendezvoused back with Collins in Columbia.^[252] But before they return ascended the Space Race came to a particular culmination.^[253] Few days before Apollo 11 left Earth the Soviet Union launched the Luna 15 probe, entering lunar orbit just before Apollo 11 and eventually sharing it with Apollo 11. Aware of Luna 15, Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman was asked to use his goodwill contacts in the Soviet Union to prevent any collision. Subsequently, in one of the first instances of Soviet–American space communication the Soviet Union released Luna 15's flight plan to ensure it would not collide with Apollo 11, although its exact mission was not publicized.^[254] But as Apollo 11 was wrapping up surface activities, the Soviet mission command hastened Luna 15 and attempted its robotic sample-return mission before Apollo 11 would return. As Luna 15 descended just two hours before Apollo 11's launch and impacted at 15:50 UTC some hundred kilometers away from Apollo 11, British astronomers monitoring Luna 15 recorded the situation, with one commenting:“I say, this has really been drama of the highest order”.^[255]

Apollo 11 left lunar orbit and returned to Earth, landing safely in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969.^[256] When the spacecraft splashed down, 2,982 days had passed since Kennedy's commitment to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth before the end of the decade; the mission was completed with 161 days to spare.^[257] With the safe completion of the Apollo 11 mission, the Americans won the race to the Moon.^[258]

Armstrong and his crew became worldwide celebrities, feted with ticker-tape parades on August 13 in New York City and Chicago, attended by an estimated six million.

The public's reaction in the Soviet Union was mixed. The Soviet government limited the release of information about the lunar landing, which affected the reaction. A portion of the populace did not give it any attention, and another portion was angered by it.[264]

The first landing was followed by another, precision landing on Apollo 12 in November 1969, within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 spacecraft which landed on April 20, 1967.

In total the Apollo programme involved six crewed Moon landings from 1969 to 1972, and a total of twelve astronauts walked on the surface of the Moon. These were Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17.

NASA had ambitious follow-on human spaceflight plans as it reached its lunar goal but soon discovered it had expended most of its political capital to do so.^[265] A victim of its own success, Apollo had achieved its first landing goal with enough spacecraft and Saturn V launchers left for a total of ten lunar landings through Apollo 20, conducting extended-duration missions and transporting the landing crews in Lunar Roving Vehicles on the last five. NASA also planned an Apollo Applications Program (AAP) to develop a longer-duration Earth orbital workshop (later named Skylab) from a spent S-IVB upper stage, to be constructed in orbit using several launches of the smaller Saturn IB launch vehicle.

In February 1969, President

AAP planners decided the Earth orbital workshop could be accomplished more efficiently by prefabricating it on the ground and launching it with a single Saturn V, which immediately eliminated Apollo 20. Budget cuts soon led NASA to cut Apollo 18 and 19 as well. Apollo 13 had to abort its lunar landing in April 1970 due to an in-flight spacecraft failure but returned its crew safely to Earth. The Apollo program made its final lunar landing in December 1972; the two unused Saturn Vs were used as outdoor visitor displays and allowed to deteriorate due to the effects of weathering.

The USSR continued trying to develop its N1 rocket, after two more launch failures in 1971 and 1972, finally canceling it in May 1974, without achieving a single successful uncrewed test flight.^[269]

In late 1970 Luna 16 was launched by the Soviet Union, and became the first uncrewed probe to return a sample from the Moon. This was followed by Luna 20 and Luna 24 in subsequent years.^[270][271]

The Soviet Union was also able to successfully land the first robotic rover on the moon in 1970, followed by another in 1973, with the Lunokhod missions.^[272]

These missions demonstrated continued Soviet willingness to compete with the US in the space race despite having lost the manned moon landing aspect of the space race.

Having lost the race to the Moon, the USSR seemed to decide to concentrate on orbital space stations instead of pursuing a crewed lunar mission. During 1969 and 1970, they launched six more Soyuz flights after Soyuz 3 and then launched a series of six successful space stations (plus two failures to achieve orbit and one station rendered uninhabitable due to damage from explosion of the launcher's upper stage) on their Proton-K heavy-lift launcher in their Salyut program designed by Kerim Kerimov. Each one weighed between 18,500 and 19,824 kilograms (40,786 and 43,704 lb), was 20 meters (66 ft) long by 4 meters (13 ft) in diameter, and had a habitable volume of 99 cubic meters (3,500 cu ft). All of the Salyuts were presented to the public as non-military scientific laboratories, but three of them were covers for military Almaz reconnaissance stations: Salyut 2 (failed),^[273] Salyut 3,^[274] and Salyut 5.^[275][276]

The United States launched a single orbital workstation, Skylab, on May 14, 1973. It was launched using a leftover Saturn-5 rocket from the Apollo programme.^[280] Skylab weighed 169,950 pounds (77,090 kg), was 58 feet (18 m) long by 21.7 feet (6.6 m) in diameter, and had a habitable volume of over 10,000 cubic feet (280 m³). Skylab was damaged during the ascent to orbit, losing one of its solar panels and a meteoroid thermal shield. Subsequent crewed missions repaired the station, and conducted valuable research. The third and final mission's crew, Skylab 4, set a human endurance record (at the time) with 84 days in orbit when the mission ended on February 8, 1974. Skylab stayed in orbit another five years before reentering the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia on July 11, 1979.^[281]

Salyut 4 broke Skylab's occupation record at 92 days. Salyut 6 and Salyut 7 were second-generation stations designed for long duration, and were occupied for 683 and 816 days. Salyut 7 improved upon earlier designs by allowing long-duration crewed missions and more complex experiments. These stations, with their expanded crew capacity and amenities for long term stay, carrying electric stoves, a refrigerator, and constant hot water.^[282]

In 1970, the Soviet Union's Venera 7 marked the first time a spacecraft was able to return data after landing on another planet.^[283] Venera 7 held a resistant thermometer and an aneroid barometer to measure the temperature and atmospheric pressure on the surface, the transmitted data showed 475 C at the surface, and a pressure of 92 bar.^{[284][285][283][286]}

In 1975, Venera 9 established an orbit around Venus and successfully returned the first photography of the surface of Venus.^[287][288] Venera 10 landed on Venus and followed with further photography shortly after.^[289]

NASA initiated the Pioneer Venus project in 1978, successfully deploying four small probes into the Venusian atmosphere on December 9, 1978. The probes confirmed that Venus has little if any magnetic field, and cameras detected lightning in the atmosphere. The last transmissions were received on October 8, 1992, as its decaying orbit no longer permitted communications. The spacecraft burned up the atmosphere soon after, ending a successful 14-year mission that was planned to last only eight months.^[290]

In 1981, Venera 13 performed a successful soft-landing on Venus and marked the first probe to drill into the surface of another planet and take a sample.^[291][292] Venera 13 also took an audio sample of the Venusian environment, marking another first.^[293] Venera 13 returned the first color images of the surface of Venus, revealing an orange-brown flat bedrock surface covered with loose regolith and small flat thin angular rocks.^[291] Venera 14, an identical spacecraft to Venera 13, was launched 5 days apart with a similar mission profile.^[294]

In total ten Venera probes achieved a soft landing on the surface of Venus.

In 1984, the Soviet Vega programme began and ended with the launch of two crafts launched six days apart, Vega 1 and Vega 2. Both crafts deployed a balloon in addition to a lander, marking a first in spaceflight.^{[295][296][297]}

The US never caught up or matched the Soviet efforts to explore the surface of Venus, but did claim the title of the first successful probe to have flown by the planet and had notable success with the Pioneer atmospheric probes.

In 1971, the Soviet's Mars 2 successfully established Mars orbit and attempted a soft landing but crashed, becoming the first man-made object to impact Mars. This was shortly followed by Mars 3, a 358 kg lander, which successfully landed but the lander only transmitted data for 14.5 seconds before losing contact.^[300]

In 1976, NASA followed suit, and put two successful landers on Mars. These were Viking 1 and Viking 2. These landers were significantly larger than the Soviet Mars landers (Viking 1 was 3,527 kilograms). They were able to take the first photographs from the surface of Mars.^[301][302]

Viking 1 operated on the surface of Mars for around six years (On Nov 11, 1982 the Lander stopped operating after getting a faulty command) and Viking 2 for over three years (mission ended in early 1980). Both landers were equipped with a robotic sampler arm which successfully scooped up soil samples and tested them with instruments such as a Gas chromatography–mass spectrometer. The landers measured temperatures ranging from negative 86 degrees Celsius before dawn to negative 33 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. Both landers had issues obtaining accurate results from their seismometers.^{[302][303][304][305]}

Photographs from the landers and orbiters surpassed expectations in quality and quantity. The total exceeded 4,500 from the landers and 52,000 from the orbiters.

The Viking landers recorded atmospheric pressures ranging from below 7 millibars (0.0068 bars) to over 10 millibars (0.0108 bars) over the Martian year, leading to the conclusion that atmospheric pressure varies by 30 percent during the Martian year because carbon dioxide condenses and sublimes at the polar caps. Martian winds generally blow more slowly than expected, scientists had expected them to reach speeds of several hundred miles an hour from observing global dust storms, but neither lander recorded gusts over 120 kilometers (74 miles) an hour, and average velocities were considerably lower. Nevertheless, the orbiters observed more than a dozen small dust storms. The Viking landers detected nitrogen in the atmosphere for the first time, and that it was a significant component of the Martian atmosphere. There was speculation from the atmospheric analysis that the atmosphere of Mars used to be much denser.^[306][307]

The Soviets did not match the Martian lander achievements of NASA, but did claim the title of the first lander.^[308]

In May 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet

NASA achieved the first approach and landing test of its

The first woman in space was from the Soviet Union, Valentina Tereshkova. NASA did not welcome female astronauts into its corps until 1978, when six female mission specialists were recruited. This first class included scientist Sally Ride, who became America's first woman in space on STS-7 in June 1983. NASA included women mission specialists in the next four astronaut candidate classes, and admitted female pilots starting in 1990. Eileen Collins from this class became the first pilot to fly on Space Shuttle flight STS-63 in February 1995, and the first female commander of a spaceflight on STS-93 in July 1999.

The USSR admitted its first female test pilot as a cosmonaut, Svetlana Savitskaya, in 1980. She became the first female to fly since Tereshkova, on Salyut 7 in December 1981.

The USSR turned its space program to the development of the low Earth orbit modular space station

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• Scanned letter from Wernher Von Braun to Vice President Johnson Archived May 13, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
• "America's Space Program: Exploring a New Frontier", a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
• Why Did the USSR Lose the Moon Race? from Pravda, 2002-12-03
• Space Race Exhibition Archived January 1, 2006, at the Wayback Machine at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
• TheSpaceRace.com – Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs
• Timeline of the Space Race to the Moon 1960 – 1969 Archived November 19, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
• Shadows of the Soviet Space Age, Paul Lucas
• Chronology:Moon Race at russianspaceweb.com
• John F. Kennedy Moon Speech at Rice Stadium and Apollo 11 Mission Video on
  YouTube
• Sergei Korolev: Father of the Soviet Union’s success in space ESA.int