It gained momentum when the USSR sent the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space with the orbital flight of Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. The competition gained Western public attention with the " Sputnik crisis", when the USSR achieved the first successful satellite launch, Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957. ![]() The launching of satellites was enabled by developments in ballistic missile capabilities since the end of World War II. Four days later, the Soviet Union responded by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The competition began on July 30, 1955, when the United States announced its intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year. Public interest in space travel originated in the 1951 publication of a Soviet youth magazine and was promptly picked up by US magazines. The Space Race brought pioneering launches of artificial satellites, robotic space probes to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and ultimately to the Moon. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security and became part of the symbolism and ideology of the time. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II. The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. Expendable and reusable launch vehicles. ![]() Clockwise, from top left: Model of the Sputnik 1 satellite Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon US Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to the Soviet Mir Earth orbital space station US and Soviet crews of Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, first joint rendezvous and docking mission Part of a series on
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