With no official measure of success, the winner of the space race is a point of controversy. Most historians agree that the space race ended on 20 July 1969 when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon for the first time. As the climax of space history and exploration, the lunar landing led to a triumph for the US.
The collapse of the Soviet Union eventually allowed the US and the newly founded Russian Federation to end their Cold War competition also in space, by agreeing in 1993 on the Shuttle–Mir and International Space Station programs.
The space race formally ended on July 17, 1975, when the U.S. and Soviet Union linked up in orbit and shook hands during the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Soviet cosmonauts and American astronauts shake hands in orbit as the two nations' spacecraft dock during the Apollo-Soyuz mission, as seen in this artist's illustration.
More than a billion people viewed the historic landing, and the moment overwhelmed Americans with the feeling of dominance. The moon landing united the country with a sense of insurmountable pride. The United States had won the Space Race, a competition more significant than any earthly battle.
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik, and the space race was on. The Soviets' triumph jarred the American people and sparked a vigorous response in the federal government to make sure the United States did not fall behind its Communist rival.
All along, the Soviet moon program had suffered from a third problem—lack of money. Massive investments required to develop new ICBMs and nuclear weapons so that the Soviet military could achieve strategic parity with the United States siphoned funds away from the space program.
Although conspiracy theories persist that the moon landing was a hoax, more than half a billion people watched the historic event, which was broadcast on television. This was a victory for the United States over the Soviet Union, whose own lunar program had made a number of failed attempts.
Who Won the Space Race? By landing on the moon, the United States effectively “won” the space race that had begun with Sputnik's launch in 1957. For their part, the Soviets made four failed attempts to launch a lunar landing craft between 1969 and 1972, including a spectacular launch-pad explosion in July 1969.
The same rocket science that enabled space agencies to launch people off of Earth could also potentially be used to launch nuclear warheads around the globe… If the space race had continued, then, the nuclear arms race would have continued, too.
The very first nation to reach the surface of the moon was the USSR (Russia), whose unmanned spacecraft Luna 2 impacted the moon' surface on 12 September 1959. While Luna 2 was the first probe to land on the moon, it had been designed to crash-land into the surface (a "hard landing") rather than conduct a soft landing.
The Russian Federation became the Soviet Union's successor state, while many of the other republics emerged from the Soviet Union's collapse as fully independent post-Soviet states. The United States was left as the world's sole superpower.
The world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, marking the start of the space race.
If we define the 'space race' as spaceflight capability, the Soviets won it hands down. But it was the Americans who got to define the space race for posterity when President John F. Kennedy called for putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.
Korolev's death in 1966, along with various technical and administrative reasons, as well as a lack of financial support, resulted in both programs being delayed.
So why haven't astronauts been back to the moon in 50 years? "It was the political risks that prevented it from happening," Bridenstine said. "The program took too long and it costs too much money." Researchers and entrepreneurs have long pushed for the creation of a crewed base on the moon — a lunar space station.
Soviets Advance Undercover
In Borman's view, "they beat us to the punch first off. Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit ... they beat us to a space walk ... the first woman in space, the first multiple crew in space." The Soviets kept their program under wraps, announcing each success only after it happened.
The original space race was a key part of the Cold War, when the U.S. and the USSR competed to be the first country on the moon. Now almost 70 years later, the U.S. is in a new space race with a new competitor: China.
China was late to the space race – it didn't send its first satellite into orbit until 1970, by which time the United States had already landed an astronaut on the moon – but Beijing has been catching up fast. In 2013, China successfully landed a rover on the moon, becoming only the third country to do so.
On 4 January 1958, after three months in orbit, Sputnik 1 burned up while reentering Earth's atmosphere, having completed 1,440 orbits of the Earth, and travelling a distance of approximately 70,000,000 km (43,000,000 mi).
The United States is the only country to have successfully conducted crewed missions to the Moon, with the last departing the lunar surface in December 1972.
The United States spent $25.8 billion on Project Apollo between 1960 and 1973, or approximately $257 billion when adjusted for inflation to 2020 dollars.
The Sputnik crisis was a period of public fear and anxiety in Western nations about the perceived technological gap between the United States and Soviet Union caused by the Soviets' launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite.
The USA, China and Russia are the clear front-runners, but the race is very different this time. More than 80 countries now have a presence in space. Some people might be surprised to learn that the United Arab Emirates has sent a probe to Mars, and that Israel has (crash) landed on the Moon.
The first animal to make an orbital spaceflight around the Earth was the dog Laika, aboard the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 on 3 November 1957.