LIFE The Great Space Race: How the U.S. Beat the Russians to the Moon

By The Editors of LIFE

Forged in the cauldron of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Gulag-and fueled by the development of nuclear weapons during the Cold War-The Great Space Race is an epic drama filled with triumphs and tragedies, both technological and deeply human, that riveted the U.S. even as it seemed the fate of the free world (perhaps even the world itself ) hung in the balance.

The book features rare, exclusive photographs and thrilling reporting, reflecting LIFE's insider access to the astronauts, their families, and their missions: Go behind the scenes as John Glenn trains for his historic flight, and marvel with Joan Aldrin as her husband, "Buzz," becomes the second man to set foot on the lunar surface. Join Anne Morrow Lindbergh and her aviator husband, Charles, as they visit the Apollo 8 crew on the eve of their historic holiday mission. Watch from the top of the rocket launcher as LIFE's photographer captures the launch of the first manned trip to the moon....and much more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Life
• Release date: Sep 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781683304722

Book preview

Geographic/Getty.

FROM MISSILES TO THE MOON: THE U.S. VS RUSSIA

HOUSTON CHRONICLE/AP

WE CHOOSE to go to the moon, President John F. Kennedy announced in his famous speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas, on September 12, 1962. And it will be done before the end of this decade.

Forged in the cauldron of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet gulag, the Great Space Race between the U.S. and the USSR during the Cold War was fueled by two very different but equally driven young men: the rocket scientists Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev.

A member of Hitler’s SS and the creator of the deadly V-2 missile, von Braun narrowly escaped Germany—with a badly broken arm, no less—in the wake of World War II. Korolev, falsely accused of anti-Soviet activities and imprisoned in a Siberian forced-labor camp, was saved from almost certain death when Josef Stalin tasked him with replicating von Braun’s killing machine. As the eventual architect of the American space program, von Braun appeared on TV with—of all people—Walt Disney, even as Korolev toiled tirelessly in the Soviet shadows. Excluded from the praise his peerless work had wrought, Korolev was known only as the Chief Designer until his life was cut short—perhaps in part because of the torture he’d endured as a political prisoner.

But these disparate men shared the same unlikely dream. Even as they created weapons for antagonistic superpowers, they privately—and dangerously—imagined using the same technology to travel to the moon.

This is now all a matter of record, but at the time the facts were obscured by the thrilling, terrifying competition of the Space Race itself: a series of moving triumphs and tragedies, both technological and deeply human, that riveted the nation even as it seemed the fate of the free world hung in the balance. Which nation’s rockets would reach the moon first? And would these same rockets blow us to smithereens before anyone got the chance? But the divisive drama paradoxically united the human race, if only because—unthinkable now—we were all paying attention to the same things at the same time. The millions of Americans who in 1962 watched in fear as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded on TV watched with joy as Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon in 1969.

Through it all, LIFE had exclusive access to the heroes behind what the magazine called history’s greatest exploration. Our reporters were VIPs at the Cape Canaveral launch sites and drank with Alan Shepard, America’s first man in space. Photographer Ralph Morse (many of whose images are featured on these pages) spent time in the astronauts’ flight simulators and in their homes. (Armstrong was particularly interested in cameras and photography.) Two weeks after the moon landing, LIFE published what was at the time the definitive account of America’s extraterrestrial triumph.

In our fragmented, often distracted world, it may seem almost quaint to imagine an epic, heroic triumph that was pursued in part simply because it was epic and heroic, but we hope that in the following pages, you’ll travel back to a time when—for a while, at least—anything seemed possible.

FRITZ GORO/LIFE/THE PICTURE COLLECTION

NO, IT’S NOT A TELETUBBY. It’s a technician in 1961 testing a space suit for the future moon mission, with the Mojave Desert standing in for the lunar surface.

Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it.

—PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY, 1962

ITAR-TASS PHOTO AGENCY/SOVFOTO

THE ALWAYS SMILING Yuri Gagarin at Baikonur, the Soviet launch area in Kazakhstan, after his historic 1961 space flight. The victory proved an embarrassment to the new U.S. President, John F. Kennedy.

MPI/GETTY

THE ORIGINAL space cowboy, Alan Shepard, sprints from his capsule shortly after his