Apollo 11 brought humans onto the surface of the Moon for the first time in 1969. Shown here is Buzz Aldrin setting up the Solar Wind experiment as part of Apollo 11, with Neil Armstrong snapping the photograph. Until 1966, however, the Soviet Union was far ahead in the space race. In just three years, the United States leapfrogged and surpassed them. (NASA / APOLLO 11)

This Is Why The Soviet Union Lost ‘The Space Race’ To The USA

The Soviet Union’s space program was years ahead of the USA’s. So how did they lose the space race?

Here in the United States and all across the world, humanity is currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of the culmination of the Space Race: the quest to put a human being on the Moon and safely return them to Earth. On July 20, 1969, our species achieved the culmination of a dream older than civilization itself: human beings set foot on the surface of another world beyond Earth.

If any nation was going to do it, most thought it would be the Soviet Union. The Soviets were first to every milestone in space before that: the first satellite, the first crewed spaceflight, the first person to orbit the Earth, the first woman in space, the first spacewalk, the first landers on another world, etc. After the disastrous Apollo 1 fire, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the Soviets would be the first to walk on the Moon. Yet they never even came close. Why not? The answer is a name you’ve probably never heard of: Sergei Korolev. Here’s what you should know.