Another tension between these two great powers was the space race which was to be the first to develop the first exploration of space. Russia beat the U.S. in October 4, 1957 with having launched the first satellite, Sputnik, into space. the U.S. now was afraid as the Soviets could launch a missile from anywhere and it hit what they wanted with a missile. The U.S. finally trully caught up to russia in 1961 when Alan Shepard was the second person by 30 days to go into space but in january 31, 1961 Ham the chimp was the first mammal in space. The next part of the space race began with landing on the moon for Russia and the U.S. the U.S. had beaten russia to be the first to land on the moon, the appollo 11 program was the group to land on the moon andwalk on the moon.