Milestones to the Moon: The Real Story of the Space Race – clip

Daniel Breen / Brandeis University


When many of us think of the “Space Race,” we conjure images of President Kennedy’s stirring 1961 call to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade, followed by John Glenn’s orbital flights in Friendship 7 and culminating—seven years later—with Neil Armstrong’s famous “giant leap” on to the Moon’s surface. In fact, the space race with the Soviet Union was much more than this, and it was a “race” that could easily have been lost. As late as 1966, in fact, the Soviets appeared to most of the world to be very much ahead.

Daniel Breen

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