At the same time, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) came together by one Dwight Eisenhower. Also, another satellite was launched, led by the United States Air Force, was used to exploit the military potential of space. Both these satellites came after NASA was established, and worked alongside with NASA. The Soviet Union furthermore was able to be the first to send a probe to land on the surface of the Moon. This probe that accomplished this was entitled Luna 2. To take the Space Race to a different level, the Soviet Union also accomplished to send Yuri Gagarin, a cosmonaut, into Earth’s orbit in a capsule-like spacecraft called the Vostok 1. “For the U.S. effort to send a man into space, dubbed Project Mercury, NASA engineers designed a smaller, cone-shaped capsule far lighter than Vostok; they tested the craft with chimpanzees, and held a final test flight in March 1961 before the Soviets were able to pull ahead with Gagarin’s …show more content…
Retrieved April 10, 2015. Suddenly, President John F. Kennedy made the daring, courageous claim that the United States of America will place a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. This launched the foundations of Apollo into place. Due to a dramatic budget increase, and with some 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 employees of industrial and university contractors, Apollo was off to a great start. Although there was a setback where 3 astronauts were killed in a fire during a launch stimulation, the tables have really turned as the United States of America was in the lead of the Space Race. “Meanwhile, the Soviet Union’s lunar landing program proceeded tentatively, partly due to internal debate over its necessity and to the untimely death (in January 1966) of Sergey Korolyov, chief engineer of the Soviet space program.” History.com Staff. (2010). The Space Race. Retrieved April 10, 2015. On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 took Neil Armstrong, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, and Michael Collins up on a successful attempt to land on the moon, with Neil Armstrong being the first man to walk on the moon. Ultimately, the Space Race was a race for mental dominance over space between the United States of America and the Soviet