Space Race

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977), technical director of Nazi Germany's missile program, became the United States' lead rocket engineer during the 1950s and 1960s

The origins of the Space Race can be traced to Germany, beginning in the 1930s and continuing during World War II when Nazi Germany researched and built operational ballistic missiles capable of sub-orbital spaceflight.[15] Starting in the early 1930s, during the last stages of the Weimar Republic, German aerospace engineers experimented with liquid-fueled rockets, with the goal that one day they would be capable of reaching high altitudes and traversing long distances.[16] The head of the German Army's Ballistics and Munitions Branch, Lieutenant Colonel Karl Emil Becker, gathered a small team of engineers that included Walter Dornberger and Leo Zanssen, to figure out how to use rockets as long-range artillery in order to get around the Treaty of Versailles' ban on research and development of long-range cannons.[17] Wernher von Braun, a young engineering prodigy, was recruited by Becker and Dornberger to join their secret army program at Kummersdorf-West in 1932.[18] Von Braun dreamed of conquering outer space with rockets and did not initially see the military value in missile technology.[19]

During the Second World War, General Dornberger was the military head of the army's rocket program, Zanssen became the commandant of the Peenemünde army rocket center, and von Braun was the technical director of the ballistic missile program.[20] They led the team that built the Aggregat-4 (A-4) rocket, which became the first vehicle to reach outer space during its test flight program in 1942 and 1943.[21] By 1943, Germany began mass-producing the A-4 as the Vergeltungswaffe 2 ("Vengeance Weapon" 2, or more commonly, V2), a ballistic missile with a 320 kilometers (200 mi) range carrying a 1,130 kilograms (2,490 lb) warhead at 4,000 kilometers per hour (2,500 mph).[22] Its supersonic speed meant there was no defense against it, and radar detection provided little warning.[23] Germany used the weapon to bombard southern England and parts of Allied-liberated western Europe from 1944 until 1945.[24] After the war, the V-2 became the basis of early American and Soviet rocket designs.[25][26]

At war's end, American, British, and Soviet scientific intelligence teams competed to capture Germany's rocket engineers along with the German rockets themselves and the designs on which they were based.[27] Each of the Allies captured a share of the available members of the German rocket team, but the United States benefited the most with Operation Paperclip, recruiting von Braun and most of his engineering team, who later helped develop the American missile and space exploration programs. The United States also acquired a large number of complete V2 rockets.[25]

"Chief Designer" Sergei Korolev (left), with the "father of the Soviet atomic bomb" Igor Kurchatov, and "Chief Theoretician" Mstislav Keldysh in 1956

The German rocket center in Peenemünde was located in the eastern part of Germany, which became the Soviet zone of occupation. On Stalin's orders, the Soviet Union sent its best rocket engineers to this region to see what they could salvage for future weapons systems.[28] The Soviet rocket engineers were led by Sergei Korolev.[28] He had been involved in space clubs and early Soviet rocket design in the 1930s, but was arrested in 1938 during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and imprisoned for six years in Gulag.[29] After the war, he became the USSR's chief rocket and spacecraft engineer, essentially the Soviet counterpart to von Braun.[30] His identity was kept a state secret throughout the Cold War, and he was identified publicly only as "the Chief Designer."[30] In the West, his name was only officially revealed when he died in 1966.[30]

After almost a year in the area around Peenemünde, Soviet officials conducted Operation Osoaviakhim and later moved more than 170 of the top captured German rocket specialists to Gorodomlya Island on Lake Seliger, about 240 kilometers (150 mi) northwest of Moscow.[31] They were not allowed to participate in final Soviet missile design, but were used as problem-solving consultants to the Soviet engineers.[32] They helped in the following areas: the creation of a Soviet version of the A-4; work on "organizational schemes"; research in improving the A-4 main engine; development of a 100-ton engine; assistance in the "layout" of plant production rooms; and preparation of rocket assembly using German components.[31] With their help, particularly Helmut Gröttrup's group, Korolev reverse-engineered the A-4 and built his own version of the rocket, the R-1, in 1948.[33] Later, he developed his own distinct designs, though many of these designs were influenced by the Gröttrup Group's G4-R14 design from 1949.[33] The Germans were eventually repatriated in 1952–53.[33] Details of the German achievements and potential contributions to the Soviet rocket and space program were evaluated after their return from Gorodomlya.[34]

The American professor Robert H. Goddard had worked on developing solid-propellant rockets since 1914, and demonstrated a light battlefield rocket to the US Army Signal Corps only five days before the signing of the armistice that ended World War I. He also started developing liquid-propellant rockets in 1921, yet he had not been taken seriously by the public.[35]

Von Braun and his team were sent to the United States Army's White Sands Proving Ground, located in New Mexico, in 1945.[36] They set about assembling the captured V2s and began a program of launching them and instructing American engineers in their operation.[37] These tests led to the first photos of Earth from space, and the first two-stage rocket, the WAC Corporal-V2 combination, in 1949.[37] The German rocket team was moved from Fort Bliss to the Army's new Redstone Arsenal, located in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1950.[38] From here, von Braun and his team developed the Army's first operational medium-range ballistic missile, the Redstone rocket, that in slightly modified versions, launched both America's first satellite, and the first piloted Mercury space missions.[38] It became the basis for both the Jupiter and Saturn family of rockets.[38]

The Cold War (1947–1991) developed between two former allies, the Soviet Union and the United States, soon after the end of the Second World War. It involved a continuing state of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition, primarily between the Soviet Union and its satellite states (often referred to as the Eastern Bloc) and the powers of the Western world, particularly the United States.[39] The primary participants' military forces never clashed directly, but expressed this conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, extensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, a nuclear arms race, and economic and technological competitions, such as the Space Race.[39]

In simple terms, the Cold War could be viewed as an expression of the ideological struggle between communism and capitalism.[40] The United States faced a new uncertainty beginning in September 1949, when it lost its monopoly on the atomic bomb.[40] American intelligence agencies discovered that the Soviet Union had exploded its first atomic bomb, with the consequence that the United States potentially could face a future nuclear war that, for the first time, might devastate its cities.[40] Given this new danger, the United States participated in an arms race with the Soviet Union that included development of the hydrogen bomb, as well as intercontinental strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of delivering nuclear weapons.[40] A new fear of communism and its sympathizers swept the United States during the 1950s, which devolved into paranoid McCarthyism.[40] With communism spreading in China, Korea, and Eastern Europe, Americans came to feel so threatened that popular and political culture condoned extensive "witch-hunts" to expose communist spies.[40] Part of the American reaction to the Soviet atomic and hydrogen bomb tests included maintaining a large Air Force, under the control of the Strategic Air Command (SAC). SAC employed intercontinental strategic bombers, as well as medium-bombers based close to Soviet airspace (in western Europe and in Turkey) that were capable of delivering nuclear payloads.[41]

For its part, the Soviet Union harbored fears of invasion. Having suffered at least 27 million casualties during World War II after being invaded by Nazi Germany in 1941,[42] the Soviet Union was wary of its former ally, the United States, which until late 1949 was the sole possessor of atomic weapons. The United States had used these weapons operationally during World War II, and it could use them again against the Soviet Union, laying waste to its cities and military centers.[42] Since the Americans had a much larger air force than the Soviet Union, and the United States maintained advance air bases near Soviet territory, in 1947 Stalin ordered the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in order to counter the perceived American threat.[32]

Soviet R-7 ICBM, and its derivative launch vehicles for Sputnik, Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz

In 1953, Korolev was given the go-ahead to develop the R-7 Semyorka rocket, which represented a major advance from the German design. Although some of its components (notably boosters) still resembled the German G-4, the new rocket incorporated staged design, a completely new control system, and a new fuel. It was successfully tested on August 21, 1957, and became the world's first fully operational ICBM the following month.[43] It was later used to launch the first satellite into space, and derivatives launched all piloted Soviet spacecraft.[44]

The United States had multiple rocket programs divided among the different branches of the American armed services, which meant that each force developed its own ICBM program. The Air Force initiated ICBM research in 1945 with the MX-774.[45] However, its funding was cancelled and only three partially successful launches were conducted in 1947.[45] In 1950, von Braun began testing the Air Force PGM-11 Redstone rocket family at Cape Canaveral.[46] In 1951, the Air Force began a new ICBM program called MX-1593, and by 1955 this program was receiving top-priority funding.[45] The MX-1593 program evolved to become the Atlas-A, with its maiden launch occurring June 11, 1957, becoming the first successful American ICBM.[45] Its upgraded version, the Atlas-D rocket, later served as a nuclear ICBM and as the orbital launch vehicle for Project Mercury and the remote-controlled Agena Target Vehicle used in Project Gemini.[45]

With the Cold War as an engine for change in the ideological competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, a coherent space policy began to take shape in the United States during the late 1950s.[47] Korolev took inspiration from the competition as well, achieving many firsts to counter the possibility that the United States might prevail.[48]

In 1955, with both the United States and the Soviet Union building ballistic missiles that could be utilized to launch objects into space, the stage was set for nationalistic competition.[49] In separate announcements four days apart, both nations publicly announced that they would launch artificial Earth satellites by 1957 or 1958.[49] On July 29, 1955, James C. Hagerty, President Dwight D. Eisenhower's press secretary, announced that the United States intended to launch "small Earth circling satellites" between July 1, 1957, and December 31, 1958, as part of the US contribution to the International Geophysical Year (IGY).[49] Four days later, at the Sixth Congress of International Astronautical Federation in Copenhagen, scientist Leonid I. Sedov spoke to international reporters at the Soviet embassy and announced his country's intention to launch a satellite as well, in the "near future".[49] On August 30, 1955, Korolev managed to get the Soviet Academy of Sciences to create a commission whose purpose was to beat the Americans into Earth orbit: this was the de facto start date for the Space Race.[49] The Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union began a policy of treating development of its space program as classified information.

Initially, President Eisenhower was worried that a satellite passing above a nation at over 100 kilometers (62 mi) might be construed as violating that nation's sovereign airspace.[50] He was concerned that the Soviet Union would accuse the Americans of an illegal overflight, thereby scoring a propaganda victory at his expense.[51] Eisenhower and his advisors were of the opinion that a nation's airspace sovereignty did not extend past the Kármán line, and they used the 1957–58 International Geophysical Year launches to establish this principle in international law.[50] Eisenhower also feared that he might cause an international incident and be called a "warmonger" if he were to use military missiles as launchers. Therefore, he selected the untried Naval Research Laboratory's Vanguard rocket, which was a research-only booster.[52] This meant that von Braun's team was not allowed to put a satellite into orbit with their Jupiter-C rocket, because of its intended use as a future military vehicle.[52] On September 20, 1956, von Braun and his team did launch a Jupiter-C that was capable of putting a satellite into orbit, but the launch was used only as a suborbital test of reentry vehicle technology.[52]

Korolev received word about von Braun's 1956 Jupiter-C test and, mistakenly thinking it was a satellite mission that failed, expedited plans to get his own satellite in orbit. Since the R-7 was substantially more powerful than any of the US boosters, he made sure to take full advantage of this capability by designing Object D as his primary satellite.[53] It was given the designation 'D', to distinguish it from other R-7 payload designations 'A', 'B', 'V', and 'G' which were nuclear weapon payloads.[54] Object D dwarfed the proposed US satellites, having a weight of 1,400 kilograms (3,100 lb), of which 300 kilograms (660 lb) would be composed of scientific instruments that would photograph the Earth, take readings on radiation levels, and check on the planet's magnetic field.[54] However, things were not going along well with the design and manufacturing of the satellite, so in February 1957, Korolev sought and received permission from the Council of Ministers to build a Prosteishy Sputnik (PS-1), or simple satellite.[53] The Council also decreed that Object D be postponed until April 1958.[55] The new Sputnik was a metallic sphere that would be a much lighter craft, weighing 83.8 kilograms (185 lb) and having a 58-centimeter (23 in) diameter.[56] The satellite would not contain the complex instrumentation that Object D had, but had two radio transmitters operating on different short wave radio frequencies, the ability to detect if a meteoroid were to penetrate its pressure hull, and the ability to detect the density of the Earth's thermosphere.[57]

Korolev was buoyed by the first successful launches of the R-7 rocket in August and September, which paved the way for the launch of Sputnik.[58] Word came that the US was planning to announce a major breakthrough at an International Geophysical Year conference at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C., with a paper entitled "Satellite Over the Planet", on October 6, 1957.[59] Korolev anticipated that von Braun might launch a Jupiter-C with a satellite payload on or around October 4 or 5, in conjunction with the paper.[59] He hastened the launch, moving it to October 4.[59] The launch vehicle for PS-1 was a modified R-7 – vehicle 8K71PS number M1-PS – without much of the test equipment and radio gear that was present in the previous launches.[58] It arrived at the Soviet missile base Tyura-Tam in September and was prepared for its mission at launch site number one.[58] The first launch took place on Friday, October 4, 1957 at exactly 10:28:34 pm Moscow time, with the R-7 and the now named Sputnik 1 satellite lifting off the launch pad and placing the artificial "moon" into an orbit a few minutes later.[60] This "fellow traveler," as the name is translated in English, was a small, beeping ball, less than two feet in diameter and weighing less than 200 pounds. But the celebrations were muted at the launch control center until the down-range far east tracking station at Kamchatka received the first distinctive beep ... beep ... beep sounds from Sputnik 1's radio transmitters, indicating that it was on its way to completing its first orbit.[60] About 95 minutes after launch, the satellite flew over its launch site, and its radio signals were picked up by the engineers and military personnel at Tyura-Tam: that's when Korolev and his team celebrated the first successful artificial satellite placed into Earth-orbit.[61]

The Soviet success raised a great deal of concern in the United States. For example, economist Bernard Baruch wrote in an open letter titled "The Lessons of Defeat" to the New York Herald Tribune: "While we devote our industrial and technological power to producing new model automobiles and more gadgets, the Soviet Union is conquering space. ... It is Russia, not the United States, who has had the imagination to hitch its wagon to the stars and the skill to reach for the moon and all but grasp it. America is worried. It should be."[62]

Eisenhower ordered project Vanguard to move up its timetable and launch its satellite much sooner than originally planned.[63] The December 6, 1957 Project Vanguard launch failure occurred at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, broadcast live in front of a US television audience.[63] It was a monumental failure, exploding a few seconds after launch, and it became an international joke. The satellite appeared in newspapers under the names Flopnik, Stayputnik, Kaputnik,[64] and Dudnik.[65] In the United Nations, the Soviet delegate offered the US representative aid "under the Soviet program of technical assistance to backwards nations."[64] Only in the wake of this very public failure did von Braun's Redstone team get the go-ahead to launch their Jupiter-C rocket as soon as they could. In Britain, the US's Western Cold War ally, the reaction was mixed: some celebrated the fact that the Soviets had reached space first, while others feared the destructive potential that military uses of spacecraft might bring.[66]

William Hayward Pickering, James Van Allen, and Wernher von Braun display a full-scale model of Explorer 1 at a Washington, DC news conference after confirmation the satellite was in orbit

On January 31, 1958, nearly four months after the launch of Sputnik 1, von Braun and the United States successfully launched its first satellite on a four-stage Juno I rocket derived from the US Army's Redstone missile, at Cape Canaveral.[67] The satellite Explorer 1 was 30.66 pounds (13.91 kg) in mass.[67] The payload of Explorer 1 weighed 18.35 pounds (8.32 kg). It carried a micrometeorite gauge and a Geiger-Müller tube. It passed in and out of the Earth-encompassing radiation belt with its 194-by-1,368-nautical-mile (360 by 2,534 km) orbit, therefore saturating the tube's capacity and proving what Dr. James Van Allen, a space scientist at the University of Iowa, had theorized.[67] The belt, named the Van Allen radiation belt, is a doughnut-shaped zone of high-level radiation intensity around the Earth above the magnetic equator.[68] Van Allen was also the man who designed and built the satellite instrumentation of Explorer 1. The satellite measured three phenomena: cosmic ray and radiation levels, the temperature in the spacecraft, and the frequency of collisions with micrometeorites. The satellite had no memory for data storage, therefore it had to transmit continuously.[69] In March 1958 a second satellite was sent into orbit with augmented cosmic ray instruments.

On April 2, 1958, President Eisenhower reacted to the Soviet space lead in launching the first satellite by recommending to the US Congress that a civilian agency be established to direct nonmilitary space activities. Congress, led by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, responded by passing the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which Eisenhower signed into law on July 29, 1958. This law turned the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It also created a Civilian-Military Liaison Committee, appointed by the President, responsible for coordinating the nation's civilian and military space programs.[70]

On October 21, 1959, Eisenhower approved the transfer of the Army's remaining space-related activities to NASA. On July 1, 1960, the Redstone Arsenal became NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, with von Braun as its first director. Development of the Saturn rocket family, which when mature gave the US parity with the Soviets in terms of lifting capability, was thus transferred to NASA.

John Glenn, the first American in orbit, 1962

American Virgil "Gus" Grissom repeated Shepard's suborbital flight in Liberty Bell 7 on July 21, 1961. Almost a year after the Soviet Union put a human into orbit, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, on February 20, 1962.[92] His Mercury-Atlas 6 mission completed three orbits in the Friendship 7 spacecraft, and splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean, after a tense reentry, due to what falsely appeared from the telemetry data to be a loose heat-shield.[92] As the first American in orbit, Glenn became a national hero, and received a ticker-tape parade in New York City, reminiscent of that given for Charles Lindbergh. On February 23, 1962, President Kennedy escorted him in a parade at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where he awarded Glenn with the NASA service medal.

The United States launched three more Mercury flights after Glenn's: Aurora 7 on May 24, 1962 duplicated Glenn's three orbits, Sigma 7 on October 3, 1962 six orbits, and Faith 7 on May 15, 1963 22 orbits (32.4 hours), the maximum capability of the spacecraft. NASA at first intended to launch one more mission, extending the spacecraft's endurance to three days, but since this would not beat the Soviet record, it was decided instead to concentrate on developing Project Gemini.

Replica of the Vostok capsule

Gherman Titov became the first Soviet cosmonaut to exercise manual control of his Vostok 2 craft on August 6, 1961.[93] The Soviet Union demonstrated 24-hour launch pad turnaround and the capability to launch two piloted spacecraft, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4, in essentially identical orbits, on August 11 and 12, 1962.[94] The two spacecraft came within approximately 6.5 kilometers (4.0 mi) of one another, close enough for radio communication.[95] Vostok 4 also set a record of nearly four days in space. Though the two craft's orbits were as nearly identical as possible given the accuracy of the launch rocket's guidance system, slight variations still existed which drew the two craft at first as close to each other as 6.5 kilometers (3.5 nautical miles), then as far apart as 2,850 kilometers (1,540 nautical miles). There were no maneuvering rockets on the Vostok to permit space rendezvous, required to keep two spacecraft a controlled distance apart.[96]

Valentina Tereshkova

The Soviet Union duplicated its dual-launch feat with Vostok 5 and Vostok 6 (June 16, 1963). This time they launched the first woman (also the first civilian), Valentina Tereshkova, into space on Vostok 6.[97] Launching a woman was reportedly Korolev's idea, and it was accomplished purely for propaganda value.[97] Tereshkova was one of a small corps of female cosmonauts who were amateur parachutists, but Tereshkova was the only one to fly.[97] The USSR didn't again open its cosmonaut corps to women until 1980, two years after the United States opened its astronaut corps to women.

The Soviets kept the details and true appearance of the Vostok capsule secret until the April 1965 Moscow Economic Exhibition, where it was first displayed without its aerodynamic nose cone concealing the spherical capsule. The "Vostok spaceship" had been first displayed at the July 1961 Tushino air show, mounted on its launch vehicle's third stage, with the nose cone in place. A tail section with eight fins was also added, in an apparent attempt to confuse western observers. This spurious tail section also appeared on official commemorative stamps and a documentary.[98]

The Voskhod 1 and 2 space capsules

The greater advances of the Soviet space program at the time allowed their space program to achieve other significant firsts, including the first ever "spacewalk". Gemini took a year longer than planned to accomplish its first flight, allowing the Soviets to achieve another first, launching the first spacecraft with a three-cosmonaut crew, Voskhod 1, on October 12, 1964.[108] The USSR touted another technological achievement during this mission: it was the first space flight during which cosmonauts performed in a shirt-sleeve-environment.[109] However, flying without spacesuits was not due to safety improvements in the Soviet spacecraft's environmental systems; rather this innovation was accomplished because the craft's limited cabin space did not allow for spacesuits. Flying without spacesuits exposed the cosmonauts to significant risk in the event of potentially fatal cabin depressurization.[109] This feat was not repeated until the US Apollo Command Module flew in 1968; this later mission was designed from the outset to safely transport three astronauts in a shirt-sleeve environment while in space.

By October 16, 1964, Leonid Brezhnev and a small cadre of high-ranking Communist Party officials deposed Khrushchev as Soviet government leader a day after Voskhod 1 landed, in what was called the "Wednesday conspiracy".[110] The new political leaders, along with Korolev, ended the technologically troublesome Voskhod program, cancelling Voskhod 3 and 4, which were in the planning stages, and started concentrating on reaching the Moon.[111] Voskhod 2 ended up being Korolev's final achievement before his death on January 14, 1966, as it became the last of the many space firsts that demonstrated the USSR's domination in spacecraft technology during the early 1960s. According to historian Asif Siddiqi, Korolev's accomplishments marked "the absolute zenith of the Soviet space program, one never, ever attained since."[112] There was a two-year pause in Soviet piloted space flights while Voskhod's replacement, the Soyuz spacecraft, was designed and developed.[113]

On March 18, 1965, about a week before the first piloted Project Gemini space flight, the USSR launched the two-cosmonaut Voskhod 2 mission with Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov.[114] Voskhod 2's design modifications included the addition of an inflatable airlock to allow for extravehicular activity (EVA), also known as a spacewalk, while keeping the cabin pressurized so that the capsule's electronics would not overheat.[115] Leonov performed the first-ever EVA as part of the mission.[114] A fatality was narrowly avoided when Leonov's spacesuit expanded in the vacuum of space, preventing him from re-entering the airlock.[116] In order to overcome this, he had to partially depressurize his spacesuit to a potentially dangerous level.[116] He succeeded in safely re-entering the ship, but he and Belyayev faced further challenges when the spacecraft's atmospheric controls flooded the cabin with 45% pure oxygen, which had to be lowered to acceptable levels before re-entry.[117] The reentry involved two more challenges: an improperly timed retrorocket firing caused the Voskhod 2 to land 386 kilometers (240 mi) off its designated target area, the city of Perm; and the instrument compartment's failure to detach from the descent apparatus caused the spacecraft to become unstable during reentry.[117]

Progress in the Space Race, showing the US passing the Soviets in 1965

Rendezvous of Gemini 6 and 7, December 1965

Though delayed a year to reach its first flight, Gemini was able to take advantage of the USSR's two-year hiatus after Voskhod, which enabled the US to catch up and surpass the previous Soviet lead in piloted spaceflight. Gemini achieved several significant firsts during the course of ten piloted missions:

• On Gemini 3 (March 1965), astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom and John W. Young became the first to demonstrate their ability to change their craft's orbit.
• On Gemini 4 (June 1965), Ed White performed the first US spacewalk.
• On Gemini 5 (August 1965), astronauts L. Gordon Cooper and Charles "Pete" Conrad set a record of almost eight days in space, long enough for a piloted lunar mission.
• On Gemini 6A (December 1965), Command Pilot Wally Schirra achieved the first space rendezvous with Gemini 7, accurately matching his orbit to that of the other craft, station-keeping for three consecutive orbits at distances as close as 1 foot (0.30 m).[118]
• Gemini 7 also set a human spaceflight endurance record of fourteen days for Frank Borman and James A. Lovell, which stood until both nations started launching space laboratories in the early 1970s.
• On Gemini 8 (March 1966), Command Pilot Neil Armstrong achieved the first docking between two spacecraft, his Gemini craft and an Agena target vehicle.
• Gemini 11 (September 1966), commanded by Conrad, achieved the first direct-ascent rendezvous with its Agena target on the first orbit, and used the Agena's rocket to achieve an apogee of 742 nautical miles (1,374 km), the crewed Earth orbit record still current as of 2015.
• On Gemini 12 (November 1966), Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin spent over five hours working comfortably during three (EVA) sessions, finally proving that humans could perform productive tasks outside their spacecraft.

Most of the novice pilots on the early missions would command the later missions. In this way, Project Gemini built up spaceflight experience for the pool of astronauts for the Apollo lunar missions.

The Soyuz 11 crew with the Salyut station in the background, in a Soviet commemorative stamp

Having lost the race to the Moon, the USSR decided to concentrate on orbital space stations. During 1969 and 1970, they launched six more Soyuz flights after Soyuz 3, then launched the first space station, the Salyut 1 laboratory designed by Kerim Kerimov, on April 19, 1971. Three days later, the Soyuz 10 crew attempted to dock with it, but failed to achieve a secure enough connection to safely enter the station. The Soyuz 11 crew of Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev successfully docked on June 7, and completed a record 22-day stay. The crew became the second in-flight space fatality during their reentry on June 30. They were asphyxiated when their spacecraft's cabin lost all pressure, shortly after undocking. The disaster was blamed on a faulty cabin pressure valve, that allowed all the air to vent into space. The crew was not wearing pressure suits and had no chance of survival once the leak occurred.

Salyut 1's orbit was increased to prevent premature reentry, but further piloted flights were delayed while the Soyuz was redesigned to fix the new safety problem. The station re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on October 11, after 175 days in orbit. The USSR attempted to launch a second Salyut-class station designated Durable Orbital Station-2 (DOS-2) on July 29, 1972, but a rocket failure caused it to fail to achieve orbit. After the DOS-2 failure, the USSR attempted to launch four more Salyut-class stations up to 1975, with another failure due to an explosion of the final rocket stage, which punctured the station with shrapnel so that it would not hold pressure. All of the Salyuts were presented to the public as non-military scientific laboratories, but some of them were covers for the military Almaz reconnaissance stations.

The United States launched the orbital workstation Skylab 1 on May 14, 1973. It weighed 169,950 pounds (77,090 kg), was 58 feet (18 m) long by 21.7 feet (6.6 m) in diameter, and had a habitable volume of 10,000 cubic feet (280 m³). Skylab was damaged during the ascent to orbit, losing one of its solar panels and a meteoroid thermal shield. Subsequent crewed missions repaired the station, and the final mission's crew, Skylab 4, set a human endurance record with 84 days in orbit when the mission ended on February 8, 1974. Skylab stayed in orbit another five years before reentering the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia on July 11, 1979.

Apollo-Soyuz crew: From left to right: Donald "Deke" Slayton, Thomas Patten Stafford, Vance Brand, Alexei Leonov, and Valeri Kubasov

In May 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev negotiated an easing of relations known as détente, creating a temporary "thaw" in the Cold War. The time seemed right for cooperation rather than competition, and the notion of a continuing "race" began to subside.

The two nations planned a joint mission to dock the last US Apollo craft with a Soyuz, known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). To prepare, the US designed a docking module for the Apollo that was compatible with the Soviet docking system, which allowed any of their craft to dock with any other (e.g. Soyuz/Soyuz as well as Soyuz/Salyut). The module was also necessary as an airlock to allow the men to visit each other's craft, which had incompatible cabin atmospheres. The USSR used the Soyuz 16 mission in December 1974 to prepare for ASTP.

The joint mission began when Soyuz 19 was first launched on July 15, 1975, at 12:20 UTC, and the Apollo craft was launched with the docking module six and a half hours later. The two craft rendezvoused and docked on July 17 at 16:19 UTC. The three astronauts conducted joint experiments with the two cosmonauts, and the crew shook hands, exchanged gifts, and visited each other's craft.

International Space Station in 2010

In the 1970s, the United States began developing the reusable orbital Space Shuttle spaceplane, and launched a range of uncrewed probes. The USSR continued to develop space station technology with the Salyut program and Mir ('Peace' or 'World', depending on the context) space station, supported by Soyuz spacecraft. They developed their own large spaceplane under the Buran program. The USSR dissolved in 1991 and the remains of its space program mainly passed to Russia. The United States and Russia have worked together in space with the Shuttle–Mir Program, and again with the International Space Station.[163]

The Russian R-7 rocket family, which launched the first Sputnik at the beginning of the Space Race, is still in use today. It services the International Space Station (ISS) as the launcher for both the Soyuz and Progress spacecraft. It also ferries both Russian and American crews to and from the station.

Currently, the US Commercial Crew Development and Artemis program are intended to result in the development of a variety of crewed spacecraft. Russia is also developing a Soyuz replacement, and China has sent crewed Shenzhou spacecraft to orbit.

The imagery of the Space Race has remained poignant in the popular imagination of many nations even after the fall of the Soviet Union. In August 2020 Russia announced that they were releasing a vaccine for COVID-19 skipping multiple stages of clinical trials, referring to it as the "Sputnik vaccine" to capture the sense of pride still felt by Russians from their victories in the Space Race. [164]