In the year 2007, the world is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik , which was the first
manmade spacecraft put into an earth orbit by the then USSR. This soon prompted an American response to put its own spacecraft Explorer 1 in earth orbit in the year 1958. The race to space intensified further when the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, became the first human to circle the earth in the year 1961 and within a few months, American astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. also circled the earth in the year 1962. Thus putting man in space as a prelude to stepping on the moon, was realized by both the space powers.
Political intensity of space race became high pitched when President John F. Kennedy announced "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth." This singularly directed goal was eminently achieved when in the year 1969, Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr landed on the moon to create another path breaking historical event. This was followed by a few more Apollo missions so that by 1973, twelve astronauts walked on the surface of the moon. World became richer with the knowledge of moon rock samples which were brought back to earth, photographs of the topography of moon, experience with lower lunar gravity field effect and a host such new informations. The American moon program practically ended around this time.
The manned moon mission program of USSR was initiated around the same time as the Americans, but initially these were unmanned to generate the necessary technology for a manned lunar mission. There were around twenty six such unmanned missions till early 70s with varied degree of success. Their lunar ambitions were confined to large robotic sample-return, rover, and some orbiter missions. The Russians also halted the lunar program around 1974 and started concentrating on building up space station like Salyut.
The abrupt ending of the lunar program by both the space powers after spending billions of dollars also indicated that the lunar program had a dominance of political prestige that originally triggered the race between the two super powers. The interest on moon remained dormant for more than two and a half decades thereafter.
References NASA – Wikipedia, free encyclopedia
Proceeding of the 58th International Astronautical Congress- 2007, Hyderabad, India
Soviet space program – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Apollo program - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia