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The Space Race: Sputnik to Apollo 11

The Space Race from Sputnik in 1957 to Apollo 11 in 1969: Soviet firsts, America's response and NASA, Kennedy's Moon goal, and how it ended in cooperation.

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Key takeaways

  • NASA dates the start of the space age to 4 October 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite.
  • The first US satellite, Explorer 1, launched on 31 January 1958, and Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act in July 1958, creating NASA.
  • Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space on 12 April 1961; Kennedy set the Moon-landing goal on 25 May 1961.
  • Apollo 11 launched on 16 July 1969, landed on the Moon on 20 July and returned on 24 July, meeting Kennedy's goal before the end of the decade.
  • Wikipedia notes many observers treat the 1975 Apollo–Soyuz docking as the final act, though competition gave way to cooperation only gradually.

The Space Race was the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, from the late 1950s, to lead in spaceflight. NASA dates the start of the space age to 4 October 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite; Wikipedia traces the competition itself to 29 July 1955, when the United States announced plans to launch satellites for the International Geophysical Year and the Soviets answered within days. Its best-known finish line was 20 July 1969, when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.

Wikipedia stresses where it came from: the ballistic missile race that followed the Second World War. Spaceflight was, among other things, a demonstration of rockets that could also carry warheads — one strand of the Cold War.

Sputnik and the shock of 1957

NASA's "Dawn of the Space Age" describes Sputnik 1 as about the size of a beach ball, 58 cm across, weighing 83.6 kg (183.9 pounds). The rocket's large core stage also reached orbit, and NASA notes most observers actually saw that rather than the satellite. Sputnik carried no scientific instruments, only a transmitter sending a "beep-beep" that radio amateurs worldwide could hear.

Even NASA's own pages differ on one detail. "Dawn of the Space Age" says Sputnik took about 98 minutes to orbit Earth; NASA's 65th-anniversary article says it orbited "every 90 minutes." The same two pages describe the planned Vanguard satellite as a 3.5-pound payload and a "6-inch, 3-pound satellite." Small discrepancies like these are normal; quote the one you use with its source.

The size gap is the point. NASA says Sputnik's mass was "more impressive than Vanguard's intended 3.5-pound payload," and the public feared that a rocket able to orbit a satellite could deliver nuclear weapons to the United States. The arithmetic: 184 ÷ 3.5 ≈ 53, so Sputnik weighed about fifty times what the first American satellite was meant to. A month later, on 3 November 1957, Sputnik 2 carried the dog Laika; NASA gives its mass as 1,121 pounds, about six times Sputnik 1's, and notes Laika possibly survived only a few hours.

America's answer: Vanguard, Explorer and NASA

The first US attempt failed in public. On 6 December 1957, NASA records, the Vanguard rocket rose about four feet, lost thrust and exploded on the pad. A parallel Army effort under Wernher von Braun built the Juno rocket in 84 days, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Explorer 1 launched on 31 January 1958 — 119 days after Sputnik. Its instruments, from James Van Allen, revealed the radiation belts now named after him. NASA also notes that a team of women mathematicians at JPL computed Explorer's trajectory.

Having two rival programmes, NASA says, showed the need for a single civilian agency. Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on 16 July 1958, Eisenhower signed it on 29 July, and NASA opened for business on 1 October 1958.

Gagarin, Kennedy and the Moon goal

The Soviets kept the lead. Wikipedia records that on 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin made a single 108-minute orbit in Vostok 1, becoming the first human in space. Alan Shepard became the first American in space on 5 May 1961, on a suborbital flight; John Glenn was the first American to orbit, on 20 February 1962.

Gagarin's flight changed Kennedy's view. On 25 May 1961, Wikipedia notes, he asked Congress to commit to "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" before the end of the decade — the goal NASA names as Apollo 11's primary objective. Further Soviet firsts followed, including Alexei Leonov's spacewalk from Voskhod 2 in March 1965 and Luna 9's first soft landing on the Moon in 1966.

Apollo 11, July 1969

Apollo 11 launched on 16 July 1969 with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin, landed on 20 July — "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed" — and returned to splashdown on 24 July, NASA records.

How close was Kennedy's deadline? From 25 May 1961 to 20 July 1969 is 2,978 days, a little over eight years. Counting "before the end of the decade" as 31 December 1969, the landing came with 164 days to spare. Wikipedia counts to the 24 July splashdown instead, since the goal included the safe return, and gets 2,982 days with 161 to spare — the gap is just a choice of endpoint and of whether to count the last day. Wikipedia adds that the Soviet crewed lunar programme, built around the N1 rocket, never succeeded and was cancelled, while the United States landed five more Apollo crews.

From race to rendezvous

Wikipedia describes a period of détente beginning with the April 1972 agreement on the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, which led to the July 1975 rendezvous of an American and a Soviet crew in Earth orbit. Many observers, it says, treat that as the Space Race's final act — though competition was replaced by cooperation only gradually, through to the 1993 agreements on Shuttle–Mir and the International Space Station. Whether 1957 or 1969 is the bigger turning point is a fair argument. The wider technological story sits in the history of inventions timeline.

World History Timeline Sim, our app, includes scientific discoveries among its event categories, so the Space Race can be read alongside the Cold War crises of the same years. Its what-if scenarios are simulations, not history, and it is built as a companion to coursework. More is collected under education and brain training.

Good to know

Frequently asked questions

Why did Sputnik alarm the United States?
NASA says the launch caught the American public off guard, that Sputnik's size was more impressive than the 3.5-pound payload intended for the US Vanguard satellite, and that the public feared a Soviet ability to launch satellites meant an ability to launch ballistic missiles carrying nuclear weapons to the United States.
What were the main Soviet firsts in the Space Race?
From the NASA and Wikipedia accounts: the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, on 4 October 1957; the first animal in orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2, on 3 November 1957; the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on 12 April 1961; the first spacewalk by Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 in March 1965; and Luna 9's first soft landing on the Moon in 1966.
Who won the Space Race?
It depends on the finish line. The Soviet Union achieved most of the early firsts, but the United States met Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth with Apollo 11 in July 1969 and, Wikipedia notes, landed five more crews; the Soviet N1 crewed lunar programme never succeeded and was cancelled.
When did the Space Race end?
There is no single date. Wikipedia says many observers consider the July 1975 Apollo–Soyuz rendezvous the final act, while noting that competition was only gradually replaced with cooperation, culminating in the 1993 agreements on Shuttle–Mir and the International Space Station after the Soviet collapse.

Sources

  1. Dawn of the Space Age (opens in a new tab)NASA — accessed
  2. 65 Years Ago: Sputnik Ushers in the Space Age (opens in a new tab)NASA — accessed
  3. Apollo 11 (opens in a new tab)NASA — accessed
  4. Space Race (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia — accessed

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