I bet you are wondering why I am writing this–I am, too. But let’s get into why we lost the Space Race.

The United States faced off against the Soviet Union in the Cold War in an attempt to stop the spread of Communism to the rest of the world. The ensuing “Space Race” resulted in technological advancements, but are somewhat stumped with creations such as Nuclear Reactors, Nuclear Weapons, Modern Night Vision, and Helicopters. Among these achievements are those in space exploration, which are considered some of the greatest in history. Many consider the U.S. to be the “winners” of this race for being the first to put a man on the Moon. But compared to Soviet achievements, the results seem modest in retrospect.

For one thing,  Soviet astrophysicists actually launched the first satellite into orbit, the Sputnik, beating the U.S. in that department. They also put the first animals, man, and women in space, namely sobakas Belka and Strelka, Yuri Gagarin, and Valentina Tereshkova. They also went to the moon long before the U.S. with the first moon landing(not with humans though!) in the form of the Luna 2 probe, in 1959, compared to our landing in 1969. They also performed the first spacewalk, accomplished by Alexei Leonov. And they even put the first rover on a “Celestial Body”. The rover was named Lunokhod 1, and it landed on the moon.