The Space Race: How America Reached the Moon
In 1957 a small Soviet satellite circling overhead convinced Americans they were losing a race they had not known they were running. Twelve years later, two Americans walked on the moon. The Space Race was a Cold War contest for prestige and power that became, almost in spite of itself, the most ambitious feat of exploration in human history. This guide tells that story.
It runs from the starting gun of Sputnik, through the agency and the astronauts who answered it, to the moon landing and the Space Shuttle era that followed. Each entry links to a full account.
Start here for the whole contest - the Cold War competition that carried two superpowers off the earth. The sections that follow trace it in order.
The race began with a beep from orbit. The Soviet Union's first satellite shocked the United States into action, turning rocketry from a scientific curiosity into a matter of national survival.
The contest's great prize was the Moon. These entries cover the all-out American effort to reach it first - the program, the people, and the landing that fulfilled a decade's ambition.
After the Moon came the long work of routine spaceflight. These entries cover the reusable shuttle and the era of orbital operations - including the disasters that reminded the country how dangerous the work remained.
The race was one front of the larger Cold War with the Soviet Union, and it stands among the greatest achievements of American invention.