Little Known Fact: The Soviets Reached the Moon Before NASA

"We went to the moon in 1969
Um, not 1968, but a year later
We went to the moon in 1969
That's when the astronauts first walked inside the crater"
Even Stevens-"We Went to the Moon" from the episode "Influenza: The Musical"

It is true that Americans went to the moon in 1969, but what most people don't know is that the Russians actually beat us there, in a manner of speaking. The Space Race was a bit overblown as the United States was much more intent on putting a man on the moon than the Russians. In fact, the space race was really more of a phony, manufactured competition than any organic one. The Soviets most definitely had their troubles getting there and they pretty much pulled out of the race early on in the knowledge that they simply didn't have the technology or money to beat NASA in the race to putting a human being on the lunar surface. But that is not to say that they were totally out of the running. In fact, early on the Soviets held the upper hand, especially in regard to their Luna program that sent rocketships into orbit around the moon long before NASA was capable.

The initial Soviet triumph in the race to the moon came on September 14^th 1959, a full decade before Neil Armstrong made that first giant leap for mankind. That was the date that the Luna 2 became the first piece of machinery touched by human hands to actually land on the surface of another heavenly body. Roughly two months later the United States attempted to duplicate this feat with the Pioneer 5 Orbiter, but it was a massive failure. This failure was common in the early days of the space race when the Soviets were doing just about everything right, while in the US rockets were exploding on a regular basis. Prior to the Mercury missions of John Glenn and the rest of that gang with the right stuff, the Soviets were well ahead of the United States in space technology. The primary accomplishment of Luna 2 was that it was able to confirm theories about solar wind that had been raised by the success of the earlier orbit of Luna 1.