Cosmic Perspectives from Amid the Stars:
Astronomy Blog

Apollo 13 was supposed to be NASA’s third time landing a crew on the Moon. Instead, it turned into a mission of survival that became one of the most intense chapters in the history of human space flight. An explosion in the oxygen tank put the fate of the mission and its crew in peril. Along the way on their mission to return home safely, the crew of Apollo 13 became the humans to travel farthest from Earth, a record that stood until April 6, 2026, when the crew of Artemis II

The Space Race was the Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to achieve superior space travel technology, which eventually culminated in the first manned Moon landing and potentially contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even today, our space programs are built upon the base established during the period. But why was the Space Race so important to both nations, and who ended up winning it?