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The Soviet Union started the Space Race with Sputnik. The idea of a man made object whizzing overhead interested America. The fact that it was Soviet terrorized it. In the years after, the United States hoped to get a man into space ahead of the Soviets. Long term plans would be space, space stations, and landing on the moon by the mid-1970s. Once again, the Soviets beat Americans to space. Initially, America could only respond with a suborbital flight. While the US could tout this as achievements, the general mood was that the Russians were ahead of NASA, and were embarrassing the United States because of that lead. The Soviets also made the first spacewalk before the Americans could.

All these Soviet leads emboldened the United States to start and pursue it's Lunar program on a crash course. No longer would it be a long term side goal for some point in the decades ahead. It would be the goal, and dominate American space policy in the 1960s. However, what if it were the United States that made those early leads. Not necessarily a satellite before the Soviets, but what if the United States had the first man in space and took the lead from there? Would the United States have still been enticed to pursue a strong space program because of the newness and interest of space, and the competition with the Soviets? Or would we have been more apathetic? What would our space program look like if we put the first man up there, after the Russians had already had Sputnik? And how would the Russians have responded?
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