Timeline of the space race
A look at the timeline of the race to the Moon enables us to appreciate the pressures experienced by the technological teams of both nations. For the first three years they were merely trying to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.

1962 Failure of the three US Ranger 4, 5, and 6 spacecraft, attempting to take pictures of the lunar surface.
1963 The first and failed attempt to make a soft lunar landing – as a result the Soviet Moon probe Luna 4 entered a heliocentric orbit.
1964 Another failed US attempt to take lunar pictures by the Ranger 6 craft. Only the fifth attempt by Ranger 7 was successful.
1965 Ranger 8 and 9 continued shooting the lunar surface. All probes were shooting in free fall mode above the lunar surface from 2,500 km altitude to several hundred metres.

The Soviets were also unsuccessfully trying to master a soft landing on the Moon: four of their consecutive missions Luna 5, 6, 7, and 8 failed.

However, Soviet Zond 3 spacecraft photographed one-third of the previously unknown far side of the Moon, which helped to create the first complete lunar map and Moon globe, but with blank spots at the poles.

So far not a single soft lunar landing, and only three and a half years left before landing a man on the Moon!

1966 The year of pilgrimage to the Moon.
February 3 the Soviet Luna 9 probe made the first historic soft landing on the Moon. It was found that the lunar surface was solid and the lunar dust was not metres deep. The first TV images of the lunar landscape and the surface were transmitted with a resolution of up to 1mm.

The Luna 10 craft became the first artificial satellite of the Moon; it was joined by Luna 11 and 12 that same year.

On December 24 Luna 13 repeated a soft landing.

The Americans also celebrated success. On June 2, Surveyor 1 performed the first US soft landing on the Moon, although the next probe Surveyor 2 crashed.

Explorer 33 failed to enter lunar orbit and did not become an artificial Moon satellite; although Lunar Orbiter 1 and 2 succeeded.

The Soviet program once again was in front, both in soft lunar landings and in launching artificial Moon satellites. Yet so far the parties had made progress in execution of only two phases of future missions – entering lunar orbit and soft landing of relatively simple and light objects.

1967 The American year in the space race.
Lunar Orbiter 3, 4, 5, and Explorer 35 became the next US artificial satellites of the Moon.
Surveyor 3, 5 and 6 performed soft lunar landings, Surveyor 4 crashed.

1968 A significant year in the history of the race to the Moon.
For a start Surveyor 7 had landed softly, bringing the US program score of soft landings and crashes to 5 to 2 (Surveyor 2 and 4 crashed).

In April 1968, the Russians put into orbit Luna 14 – the fourth artificial satellite.

The Zond 5 spacecraft, an analogue of the Soyuz spacecraft, specially designed for a manned lunar flyby, completed a test flight with passengers. The first living creatures orbiting the Moon were Russian tortoises – on September 21, 1968 these were successfully returned to Earth. The first ever return to Earth from lunar orbit.

In November, the Zond 6 spacecraft was launched, which after a lunar flyby was supposed to be the first to land on the ground in Kazakhstan (and not splash into the ocean). But due to the premature parachute jettison, at an altitude of 5km the craft crashed. Scheduled for December 8, 1968 the launch of the manned Zond 7 lunar flyby was cancelled, despite a written petition of the crew to the Politburo to grant permission for the Moon flight. Permission was not granted. Passions ran high.

Then – without any previous unmanned or "tortoise-type" testing in lunar orbit – between 21-27 December the United States accomplished the first manned flight around the Moon with Apollo 8 and a crew of three astronauts.

1969 – The final year of the race to the Moon.
In May 1969, Apollo 10 completed the second manned mission around the Moon with the undocking and docking of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) to the CSM. But no other full-scale testing of the LM was ever carried out.

In July, the Soviet Luna 15 probe attempted to return lunar soil back to Earth. The first attempt to return from the surface of the Moon back to Earth failed. It turned out that the return of even a light craft without a life-support system was no ordinary engineering task.

In July 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 allegedly accomplished the first manned mission to the Moon.

Race over.