Space Race

The Space Race was the competition between the Soviet Union and the United States to achieve firsts in spaceflight, from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. Part of the Cold War, it began with the launch of the first artificial satellite in 1957, saw the first human in space in 1961, and reached its climax with the American Moon landing of 1969.

Both powers built their space programmes on the long-range missiles they were developing to carry nuclear weapons, drawing in part on German rocket technology and engineers captured at the end of the Second World War. In 1955 both announced plans to launch satellites during the International Geophysical Year. Achievements in space were seen as proof of technical and ideological superiority, and the public competition carried great prestige.

On 4 October 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, a small sphere whose radio signal could be picked up around the world. A month later Sputnik 2 carried the dog Laika into orbit. The shock in the United States, the "Sputnik crisis", led to new spending on science and education. After a failed first attempt, the United States launched its first satellite, Explorer 1, on 31 January 1958, and in July Congress created NASA. Soviet probes then reached the Moon, with Luna 2 striking its surface in 1959 and Luna 3 photographing its far side.

On 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, orbiting the Earth once in Vostok 1. Alan Shepard made a shorter suborbital American flight on 5 May. Weeks later, on 25 May 1961, President John F. Kennedy asked Congress to commit the nation to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely before the decade was out. The Soviet Union continued to lead for several years: Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963, and Alexei Leonov made the first spacewalk in March 1965. The American Gemini programme then caught up, practising rendezvous, docking and long flights.

Both sides suffered losses. In January 1967 three American astronauts died in a fire during a ground test of Apollo 1, and in April the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when the parachute of Soyuz 1 failed on return. The Soviet crewed lunar programme was hampered by divided leadership and by the repeated failure of its giant N1 rocket.

In December 1968 Apollo 8 carried three astronauts around the Moon. On 20 July 1969 Apollo 11 landed in the Sea of Tranquility, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to walk on another world, while Michael Collins orbited above. Five more Apollo crews landed by December 1972, the last with Apollo 17. The Soviet Union turned to robotic missions, returning lunar soil samples and landing a rover, and to space stations, beginning with Salyut 1 in 1971.

As tensions eased in the early 1970s, the two powers agreed to a joint mission. In July 1975 an Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soyuz in orbit, and the crews shook hands, a moment often seen as the end of the race. Cooperation later continued with the International Space Station.

Our 1960 and 1985 maps show the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, though the race itself brought no change to borders.