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By the mid-1950s, space travel had moved from the realm of science fiction to the realm of possibility. The United States had publicly stated its intention of launching the world's first artificial satellite duriong the international geophysical year. This event was an eighteen-month period from July 1, 1957 to December 31, 1958, during which time a number of international projects to study the Earth and its atmosphere were scheduled. Then, much to the surprise of the world, the former Soviet union beat the United States to the task with the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. This event marked the beginning of space race, a twenty-year long contest for superiority in Space travel that paralleled the cold war between the two world superpowers.
For several years Soviet Union held an indisputable lead in the space race. Even as the United States launched it's first satellite, Explorer1, on January 31, 1958 the Soviet Union continued with even more impressive accomplishments, particularly in the arena of lunar exploration. In the early 1959, the Soviets launched the Luna 1, the first lunar fly-by. Over the next seven years, a series of 24 luna space probes thoroughly explored the moon and the space around it. These probes accomplished a number of "firsts" in the unpiloted space exploration, including orbiting, photographing, and landing on moon. Two luna crafts even deposited robotic moon cars that crossed the lunar surface, analyzing soil composition.
On April 12, 1961, Th Soviets scored another major victory in the space race by sending the first person, Yuri Gagarin, into space. In response, the U.S. space program went into high gear. Then-president John F. Kennedy vowed that not only would the United States match the Soviet accomplishment, but also that the United States would put a man on moon by the end of the decade. The Apollo program was begun for that purpose and become the focus of the national Aeronautics and Space Administration's efforts during the years 1967 to 1972.
Over next three years after Apollo 11's successful moon landing, five more Apollo mission landed ten more American on the moon. The Soviets became progressively more pessimistic about the chances of getting one of their own cosmonauts to the moon. At the end of the 1960s, the Soviets Quietly gave up their quest and shifted their focus to a series of space stations.
During the 1970s, the space race slowed down considerably for a number of reasons. First, both the United States and the Soviet Union needed to recover after their completion of their exhausting and resource-intensive lunar landing efforts. And toward the end of the Apollo series, the U.S. space program was faced with a decline in funding and waning interest. Meanwhile, the Soviet space program suffered a great loss at the death of its founder and chief engineer, Sergei Korolev. Also around this time, the field of participants in space exploration was widened to include the emerging space powers of Japan, China, India, and the European space agency, which diluted the intensity of the previous head-to-head contest between two superpowers. Along with the slowdown in the space race, the space programs of the United States and the Soviet Union took a divergent paths in the 1970s, each, despite the slower pace, accomplishing important goals.
By many accounts, the space race ended in 1975, with the unprecedented U.S.-Soviet link-up in space: the Apollo-Soyuz Test project. This joint venture, in which the U.S. Apollo 18 and the Soviet Soyuz 19 docked for a historic "handshake in space," came to symbolize a new era of peaceful relations in the space programs of two nations.
A spirit of international cooperation has dominated the 1980s and 1990s. One example of this is the Russian MIR space station. In operation since 1986, it has hosted numerous visitors from other stations, including the United States. Perhaps the greatest symbol of international cooperation, however, is the International Space Station, slated for completion early in the next century. The partners in this permanent international laboratory in space include the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, and the fourteen member nations of the European Space Agency. Once the space station is operational, six astronauts at a time will be able to spend periods of three to five months each there while conducting scientific research.