Race to the Moon

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Race to Space	Race for the Base

Alexei Leonev plants the Soviet flag on the Moon

General Information

Participants

United States

Soviet Union

Place

Start date

Late 1950s

End date

26 June 1969

Outcome
Soviet victory Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes first man on the Moon

Remember, we chose to go to the Moon not because it was easy... but because it was hard.

Ellen Wilson, in season 1, episode 10, "A City Upon a Hill"

The Race to the Moon was a major event in the Space Race in which the American government-funded space agency NASA and the Soviet Space Program competed to reach the Moon, with the ultimate goal of landing the first human on Earth's natural satellite.

History[]

The race[]

After the Soviet Union launched the first human into space, the race started in the late fifties when both superpowers started to reach out beyond Earth's orbit and send spacecrafts towards the Moon. After the first attempts of reaching lunar orbit, and later trying to land unmanned vehicles, the race gained momentum with John F. Kennedy's address at Rice University^W on the nation's space effort on September 12, 1962, where he announced the plan to bring American astronauts to the Moon before the end of the decade.

In 1966, key Soviet engineer Sergei Korolev underwent surgery and survived, allowing the Soviet space program to acquire more funding to conduct better tests of the N1 rocket, and thus opening the door for a Soviet Moon landing.

Ultimately, after several N1 launches, the race ended on June 26, 1969 with the Soviets landing their cosmonaut Alexei Leonov on the Moon, followed 3 weeks later by Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969.^[1]

Aftermath[]

After the United States' defeat, many began doubting the willingness of NASA to take risks, notably Apollo 10 astronaut Edward Baldwin, who, believing NASA could have had a chance of landing Apollo 10 on the Moon well before the Soviets, stated in a press conference that "NASA doesn't have guts anymore". Shortly after the launch of Apollo 12, the Soviets also landed the first woman on the Moon, Anastasia Belikova, urging NASA to also land a woman on the Moon. Ordered by president Nixon, they began recruiting female astronaut candidates for the Apollo program, including Mercury 13 trainees Molly Cobb and Patty Doyle, along with 17 other female ASCANs.

Eventually, Molly Cobb became the first American female astronaut in space and on the Moon as part of Apollo 15 in 1971, where she and Ed Baldwin discovered ice inside Shackleton crater, paving the way for the lunar bases Jamestown and Zvezda at said location.

Over time, Jamestown expanded both in size and operation, having been the site of a major attack in 1983, and later the testing and launch site for NASA's Mars spacecraft Sojourner, aiming to carry the first humans to the red planet.