The Space Race during the Cold War was about success, not animosity. The Soviet Union beat the US with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, but the US landed humans on the moon. A Russian space probe, Luna 15, tried to collect data but failed to land and crashed into a mountainside. Alan Shepard was the first person to golf on the moon, and in 1975, the US and Soviet Union cooperated, ending the space race.
The Space Race was an aspect of the Cold War that was more about success than animosity. The Soviet Union beat the United States with Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, and Yuri Gagarin, the first person to travel in space. But America came back strong, landing humans on the moon in the summer of 1969. What’s less known is that as the Apollo 11 astronauts accelerated on their lunar journey, a Russian space probe known as Luna 15 was already arriving, with the aim of touching and collecting data. The probe entered orbit around the moon on July 17, 1969 – two days before Armstrong took his famous “small step” on the surface – but problems prevented it from landing and collecting the soil samples that would have earned it a place in the history books. Instead, it faced one delay after another, as the Soviets were unable to come up with a surefire plan for dropping the probe onto the pockmarked ground. It wasn’t until the Apollo 11 crew was preparing to return home that the spacecraft made its descent, but even then problems remained: as Luna 15 tried to descend, communication was suddenly lost, apparently because the probe crashed into a mountainside.
Inside the Space Race:
“Astronaut” means “sailor of the stars”, while “cosmonaut” means “sailor of the universe”.
Alan Shepard was the first person to golf on the moon, driving two balls “miles and miles” after his Apollo 14 lunar landing in 1971.
In 1975, an Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soyuz capsule, signifying a move towards US-Soviet cooperation and an end to the space race.
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