A million people from across Florida gather around Cape Kennedy to watch the Saturn 5 rocket blast into space and usher in a "new era of civilization” Quoted by Vice President Spiro Agnew as he watched the launch of Apollo 11. Three soon-to-be famous heroes soar into the clear afternoon sky. Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. All three went into space as we watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon for the first time. “In 1959, the Soviet space program reached a new milestone with the launch of Luna 2, the first space probe to reach the Moon. In April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the Earth, traveling aboard the capsule-like Vostok 1 spacecraft. For the U.S. effort to send a man into space, dubbed Project Mercury, NASA engineers designed a smaller cone. capsule shaped much lighter than Vostok; they tested the craft with chimpanzees and made a final test flight in March 1961 before the Soviets could begin the Gagarin launch. On May 5, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space (but not in orbit). » The space race, a battle between the United States and the Soviet Union to land first on the Moon, was won thanks to the strength of American astronauts and their endurance through difficult training. There were multiple goals and reasons behind space, the United States, and the Soviet Union and the different reasons for wanting to win the space race. The United States wanted to be the first civilized country to place men on the lunar surface. They also wanted to be ahead of all emerging countries. They wanted to lead the space race between all the countries trying to get in the middle of paper... and give them a glimpse of what lay ahead. Finally, on July 16, 1969, at the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida, the three astronauts took off, launched by a Saturn V rocket. The Space Race, a battle between the United States and the Soviet Union for landing first on the Moon, was won by the strength of American astronauts and their endurance through difficult training. The space race was a mixture of several different elements. Each side had its own history and reasons for wanting to win the space race. There was a difficult and difficult decision as to which astronauts would be the first three to land on the moon, until they finally chose Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. And the intense training of all the astronauts and the immense time it took to fully prepare them for whatever might happen on the Moon and during its descent..