Timeline of the Space Race

rdf:langString Timeline of the Space Race

rdf:langString This is a timeline of achievements in Soviet and United States spaceflight, spanning the Cold War era of nationalistic competition known as the Space Race. For more extensive lists, see Timeline of Solar System exploration and Timeline of space exploration. This list is limited to (both have to be true): * Missions by the USSR and USA * First achievements And it has to have been important at the time in one of the following senses: * Public perception * Technical innovation Among other things, this excludes first uses of specific on-board equipment and new scientific discoveries, which would make the list considerably longer. The first spacecraft was a V-2 rocket, launched in June 1944, which reached an altitude of 189 km, well over the 100 km Kármán line, which is regarded as the boundary of outer space. However, this was a German craft and not part of the space race (as meant in this article). The first living creatures sent into space were fruit flies, launched aboard a V2 rocket in February of 1947 from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico as part of a research mission.On 29 July 1955, the United States announced its intention to launch an artificial satellite during the International Geophysical Year (1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958). Four days later, the Soviet Union announced its intention to do the same and was the first to achieve this goal on 4 October 1957, marking the start of the space race.After the first multinational crewed mission in July 1975, the competition continued to exist, but transitioned in intensity from a state of intense competition to one of cooperation by the dissolution of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War on 26 December 1991.Until 1989, space exploration was almost exclusively the domain of the USA and the USSR, apart from (taking part in) solar observations in the 1970's (by Germany and the EU) and the Halley Armada in the 1980s (by Japan and the EU). After that, more countries and cooperations followed, mostly by the USA, the EU and separate European countries and Japan, with the biggest cooperation being the International Space Station.