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How China Will Get To the Moon Before a Google Lunar XPrize Winner
An anonymous reader writes in with this link about the advances in China's lunar program. "A $30 million Google-backed competition to land a spacecraft on the moon may be about to be scooped. China's Chang'e 3 probe successfully put itself into lunar orbit on Friday in preparation for an attempted touchdown around Dec. 14. China won't be winning the prize money, which is reserved for privately funded, previously enrolled teams, not government agencies."
I stand corrected, the clause was already dropped:
A recent update in the teams’ legal agreement with the X Prize Foundation removed a $5 million penalty if a government entity got to the surface of the moon first.
its widely recognized that US beat the Soviets in the early space race
By whom?
First artificial satellite: Sputnik
First human in space: Yuri Gagarin
First human in orbit: Yuri Gagarin (He gets mentioned twice because he achieved this before the US managed even a suborbital flight)
First lunar flyby: Luna 1
First impact on the moon: Luna 2
First spacewalk: Aleksei Leonov
First soft landing on the moon: Luna 9
The commitment to boots on the moon led to Gemini turning things around in the mid '60s, but before that the Soviets did quite well, especially with Earth-orbit tech.
Also first woman in space: Valentina Tereshkova
Also:
Venera 3, first manmade object to impact another planet's surface.
Venera 4, first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet.
Venera 7, first spacecraft to successfully land on another planet.
The Russians sent a sample return mission in 1970. Luna 16.
More importantly, the Russians who had ample reason to do so... have never challenged the Apollo accomplishment.