Even as far back as 1960, NASA was making plans for a three passenger spacecraft that would fly to the moon. By the closing of the Gemini program on November 15th, 1966, spacecrafts were ready to be tested for the next program, Project Apollo.

Now up until this time in the space race, both countries were extremely successful in their missions. Every flight on both sides was launched, flown, and recovered with only minor problems. Hundreds of hours had been logged in space with only minor glitches. Unfortunately for both countries, that was going to change. In America, on January 27th, 1967, three astronauts, Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee, were doing a routine ground test inside the spacecraft that they were scheduled to fly the first Apollo mission in the very next month. During testing, while locked inside the spacecraft with a pressurized, oxygen-rich environment, a fire began in the mash of wires under Grissom's seat. The fire spread quickly, and the three astronauts died of asphixiation. This trajedy caused NASA to take a step back and look at it's priorities. Yes, the space agency had a schedule to keep that was proposed by the late President Kennedy, but to allow carelessness and shoddy workmanship to take lives was not part of the plan. NASA redesigned the entire Apollo program before moving on, and it would be eighteen months before an American would fly for Apollo again.

On the other side of the world, the Soviet Union was starting a new project called Soyuz(union). The secretiveness of the Soviet space program caused NASA to believe they were planning something big. As it turned out, the Soyuz program was mainly focused on Earth orbital missions which would involve more scientific experiments than anything else. Although the Soyuz spacecraft could carry three passengers, the first flight only carried one. On April 23,1967, Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov flew a one day mission. But after re-entry, the spacecraft's parachute lines became tangled, causing Soyuz I to hit the ground at over 200 miles per hour, which killed the cosmonaut instantly. This flight was so secret, even Komarov's wife didn't know he was flying it. Coincidentally, it would also be eighteen months before another Soviet would fly in space again.

The Apollo tragedy was later designated as Apollo I. In the months that followed the fire, three successful unmanned test missions were launched. It was October, 1968, and it was time for NASA to carry out the Apollo program's new objectives; to land a man on the moon and retuen him safely to Earth, and do it before the end of the decade. Two rockets would be used for the Apollo missions; the Saturn 1B for Earth orbital missions, and the mammoth Saturn V , designed and engineered by Wernher von Braun and built by three separate companies, it would launch the missions to the moon. The first manned mission, Apollo 7, launched on October 11th, although only orbiting the Earth, was a huge success and it brought NASA one step closer to the moon.

After Apollo 7, three more successful manned missions were launched. Apollo 8 tested the command module in lunar orbit, Apollo 9 tested the command and lunar modules in Earth orbit, and Apollo 10 teasted both spacecrafts in lunar orbit. The next and final step would be to land on the moon, fulfill the promise made to President Kennedy, and win the space race.

It was 9:32 a.m. eastern daylight time, July 16th, 1969, when Apollo 11, with astrnauts Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin, and Michael Collins aboard, launched by a Saturn V, began it's historic mission to the moon. It took the spacecraft four days at 25,000 miles per hour to travel the quarter of a million mile journey, and on July 20, at 4:18 p.m. E.D.T. the lunar module "Eagle" landed on the moon. Over six hours later, at 10:56 p.m., Neil Armstrong made the first footprint on the moon. Edwin Aldrin followed Armstrong, and they both walked on the moon for nearly three hours. The mission ended when Apollo 11 splashed down off the coast of Hawaii on July 24th after a triumphant flight of eight days, three hours, and nineteen minutes. The space race was now over, and America had won.

Six flights were flown after Apollo 11, five of which landed on the moon. Apollo 13's moon landing was aborted due to an oxygen tank explosion, but the astronauts were safely recovered.

By the close of project Apollo in July of 1975, an estimated 45 billion dollars was spent and three lives taken on America's space efforts. Since the Soviets were no longer trying to reach teh moon after 1966, there really wasn't much of a "Space Race' to run, only a promise to keep. During the Apollo program, plans were in the works for an American and Russian joint mission in space. This plan became a reality with the Apollo Soyuz Space Project in 1975, and it marked a fitting end to the Apollo era. The two countries that faught so hard to win the conquest of space now shook hands through the docking module of their two spacecrafts. While this project only lasted one mission, it laid the foundation for a mutual cooperation between the two rival countries, a cooperation which is commonly shared in space today.