In 1975 the end of the space race between the United States and Russia was marked by their first joint mission.

In 1955 the “cold war” had a new frontier when the two super-powers began the race for supremacy in space in what became known as “the Space Race”. On the 29^th of July 1955 the United States of America announced plans to launch an artificial satellite into orbit. On the 2^nd of August 1955 the Soviet Union announced plans of their intentions for their own satellites. This marked the beginning of the space race as each power strove to beat the other as a mark of their superiority.

After WWII the United States and the Soviet Union had gathered German missile technology and personnel in order to create their own rockets. In the 1940’s and 50’s attempts were made by both sides to reach space with some success. They had even attempted to send organisms into space but more often than not the rockets and their inhabitants would not survive the journey. On the 22^nd of July 1951 Russia successfully sent the first “higher” organisms into space with two dogs, Tsygan and Dezik, both of which survived and were recovered. Neither side had managed an orbital space flight which brought questions of at what point was it an invasion of a nations airspace. With the Cold War fully established neither side wanted to provoke the other. Therefore completely new spacecraft, separate from the military rockets and designed solely for space exploration had to be used.    

On the 4^th of October 1957 the Soviet Union won the first leg by the successful launch of Sputnik 1 (or fellow traveller 1), the first man made satellite to reach space and orbit the planet. The success of sputnik gave scientist valuable information about our atmosphere which would aid in future space missions. Having lost the first leg to the Soviets, the US were spurned on to get their own rocket into Earth’s Orbit. On the 31^st of January 1958 The United States successfully launched their first satellite, Explorer 1, into space.

On the 3^rd of November 1957 The Soviet Union successfully completed the next stage of the space race which was to put the first living organism into orbit to determine survivability. Sputnik 2 became the second man made satellite and carried a dog called Laika into orbit. The Soviets had not developed any landing technology at this point and so Laika became the first casualty of the space race.

On the 13^th of September 1959 The Soviet Union became the first power to land a man made craft onto an extraterrestrial body. They performed an intentional crash landing of Luna 2 on the moons surface. On the 26^th of April 1962 the United States also performed their first successful landing on an extraterrestrial body. They also performed an intentional crash landing of Ranger 4 on the moons surface.

The next main hurdle in space exploration was to get the first human into space. On the 12^th of April 1961 the Soviet Union launched cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft. On that day Gagarin became not only the first human in space but also the first human to orbit the Earth. 1 hour and 48 minutes after take off Gagarin had completed one orbit of Earth and had returned to earth safely.

The holy grail of the space race was considered to be the landing of a human on the surface of an extraterrestrial body. On the 20^th of September 1962 US President J F Kennedy made a proposal of a joint project to the moon with Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev initially turned down the offer but he had a good relationship with Kennedy and in the weeks that followed he began to see the financial benefits of a joint operation. But before Khrushchev could agree with the proposal the Cuban Missile Crisis (14^th-18^th of October 1962) took place damaging relations. The following year when President J.F. Kennedy was assassinated (22^nd of November 1963) all chance of a joint operation was lost. A joint operation to the moon would have ended the space race and made huge headway in ending the cold war.