The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for supremacy in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that occurred following World War II, enabled by captured German rocket technology and personnel. The technological superiority required for such supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of ideological superiority. The Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, unmanned space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon. The competition began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year, by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4, 1957 orbiting of Sputnik 1, and later beat the US to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961. The Space Race peaked with the July 20, 1969 US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. The USSR tried but failed manned lunar missions, and eventually cancelled them and concentrated on Earth orbital space stations. A period of détente followed with the April 1972 agreement on a co-operative Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, resulting in the July 1975 rendezvous in Earth orbit of a US astronaut crew with a Soviet cosmonaut crew. QUESTIONS:

Q1:
1. What competition began in 1955?
2. What started in 1955?
3. What was set in motion in the year 1955?
Q2:
1. On what date did the space race begin?
2. What was the date of the start of the space race in 1955?
3. On what day in 1955 did the Space Race begin?
Q3:
1. When did the Space Race peak?
2. When was the peak of the Space Race?
3. In what year did the Space Race hit its peak?
Q4:
1. On what date did the Space Race peak in 1969?
2. What was the date when the Space Race peaked in 1969?
3. What date in 1969 was the one when the Space Race hit its peak?
Q5:
1. Who competed in the Space Race?
2. Who were competitors in the Space Race?
3. Who was the Space Race a competition between?
Q6:
1. Were the US and the USSR rivals?
2. Was there a rivalry between the US and the USSR?
3. Did the US and the USSR always feel in competition with one another?
Q7:
1. What war had the US and USSR been rivals in?
2. During what war did the rivalry between the US and the USSR begin?
3. When was the rivalry between the USSR and the United States born?
Q8:
1. Which satellite went into space first?
2. What satellite was the first to go into space?
3. Which satellite was the first to be launched into space?
Q9:
1. Who made the first satellite launched into space?
2. Who made Sputnik 1?
3. Who were Sputnik 1's creators?
Q10:
1. Was an American the first man to go into space?
2. Was the first man to visit space an American?
3. Was the United States the country that sent the first man into space?
Q11:
1. Who was the first man in space?
2. What was the name of the first man in space?
3. Who was the first man to visit space?
Q12:
1. When did Yuri Gagarin visit space?
2. In what year was Yuri Gagarin sent into space?
3. What year was Yuri Gagarin launched into space?
Q13:
1. On what day in 1961 was Yuri Gagarin launched into space?
2. What was the date in 1961 when Yuri Gagarin went into space?
3. What was the exact date of Yuri Gagrin's 1961 trip into space?
Q14:
1. Which country got to the moon first?
2. Who was the first country to put a man on the moon?
3. Which nation put an astronaut on the moon first?
Q15:
1. What was the name of the spacecraft that landed on the moon?
2. What spacecraft did the United States land on the moon?
3. On what spaceship did the US first sent men to the moon?
Q16:
1. Did the USSR ever arrive at the moon?
2. Did the USSR ever succeed at putting a man on the moon?
3. Did any Soviet cosmonauts ever make it to the moon?
Q17:
1. Did the USSR never give up on lunar missions?
2. Did the USSR continue trying to put a man on the moon?
3. Did the USSR persist indefinitely in their attempt to land on the moon?
Q18:
1. What did the USSR focus on instead of the moon?
2. Where did the USSR direct their energy towards, and away from lunar missions?
3. What did the USSR choose to focus on, instead of lunar missions?
Q19:
1. What took place in 1972?
2. What did the USSR and the US do in 1972?
3. What arrangement took place in 1972?
Q20:
1. What was the result of the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project?
2. What did the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project result in?
3. What came out of the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project?
Q21:
1. When did US astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts travel space together?
2. In what year did the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project produce results?
3. In what year did Americans and Soviets travel through space together?
