The Space Race: A Surrogate Superpower War - HISTORY

America's competition with the U.S.S.R. for technological dominance spurred the U.S. to achieve the world's first-ever moon landing.

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President Kennedy establishes his New Frontier with a challenge to venture into outer space. John Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit the earth, one step in America's endeavor to land on the moon.

While he has pushed publicly for making a top priority out of landing a man on the moon, President John F. Kennedy expresses doubt to NASA Administrator James Webb in a recorded meeting at the White House on September 18, 1963.

As the space shuttle program comes to a close, Endeavor makes its final landing on June 1, 2011. Commander Mark Kelly, who guided the shuttle to Earth, comments on the historic flight.

On May 28, 1959, in an experiment that would lead the way to manned space flight, the United States launched two monkeys to an altitude of 300 miles. A Voice of America news report details the travels of the two primates who survived the space flight and were the first in history to return safely to Earth.

On April 12, 1981, NASA launched the world's first reusable manned spacecraft. In the minutes before takeoff, Kennedy Space Center launch control communicates with astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen as they prepare to take Columbia on its first test flight into space and back.

Upon his return to Earth from the International Space Station on May 9, 2001, California millionaire Dennis Tito speaks at a press conference about his experience as the world's first space tourist. The tycoon reportedly paid the Russian space program $20 million for the trip into outer space.

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