Space Race

The Space Race, an informal competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, lasted roughly from 1957 to 1975. It involved the parallel efforts by each of those countries to explore outer space with artificial satellites, to send humans into space, and to land people on the moon.

Military competition in space

Out of view, but no less real a competition, the drive to develop space for military uses paralleled scientific efforts. Well before the launch of Sputnik 1, both the US and the USSR started developing plans for reconnaissance satellites. The Soviet Zenit spacecraft, which by the dual-use designed in by Korolev eventually became Vostok, began as a photoimaging satellite. It competed with the US Air Force's Discoverer series. Discoverer XIII provided the first payload recovered from space in August 1960 - one day ahead of the first Soviet recovered payload.

Related Topics:
Reconnaissance satellite - Zenit - Korolev - Vostok - Discoverer XIII

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Both the US and USSR developed major military space programs, often following a pattern whereby the US only completed a mockup before its program ended, while the USSR built, or even orbited, theirs:

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• Supersonic Intercontinental Cruise Missile: Navaho (test program stopped) vs. Buran cruise missile (plan)
• Small Winged Spacecraft: X-20 Dyna-Soar (mockup) vs. MiG-105 (flight-tested)
• Satellite Inspection Capsule: Blue Gemini (mockup) vs. Soyuz interceptor (plan)
• Military Space Station: MOL (plan) vs. Almaz (flown somewhat modified as Salyut 2, 3, and 5)
• Military Capsule with hatch in heat shield: Gemini B (tested crewless in space) vs. VA TKS, also known as Merkur space capsule (flown crewless as part of TKS)
• Ferry to Military Space Station: Gemini Ferry (plan) vs. TKS (flown crewless in space, and docked with a Salyut)