The Moon Race

In some quarters over the past four decades, some people have argued there was in fact no race to the Moon, that in fact the Soviet Union never intended to put a man on the Moon. Researcher Charles Vick has a different view.

Vick has gone through Soviet archives and interviewed engineers involved with the Soviet space program, and he says the Soviets authorized the building of a huge booster in 1960. In 1964, that booster was tasked with launching a manned lunar mission. It was to have been a tw0 man affair, with one man walking on the lunar surface. American intelligence kept close tabs on Soviet space efforts, he says, and the White House paced the U. S. effort partly on its knowledge of Soviet progress.

Between 1969 and 1972, according to Vick, the Soviets tried to test launch the booster-- the N-1-- three times. Each time ended in disaster. The program was canceled in 1974.