The Soviets Nearly Did it Again
When Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the Soviets shrugged. They said the United States was running a “one-country race” and they weren’t planning a lunar landing. But cosmonaut Vladimir Komorov revealed in 1966, “I can positively state that the Soviet Union will not be beaten by the United States in the race for a human being to go to the moon. The U.S. has a timetable of ‘1969 plus X, but our timetable is ‘1969 plus X minus one!” The Soviets had most ‘firsts,’ like Sputnik, first man and woman in space, and first probe moon landing, Luna 9. But the USA beat their ‘moon walk’ goals. The Soviet Union stuck to their “well, we weren’t even trying” position until 1989 and MIT aerospace engineers saw one of the abandoned lunar landers during a visit to Moscow. Soviets finally admitted they tried to win the Moon Race, too.