i think people forget to make their points clear. USSR got to the moon first actually... And this is about the space race, not exsitence, also the USA uses a soviet launch vehicle to send Soyuzs up (which was also soviet) so without the soviet union, the U.S would probably still be using the old Saturn 1B. More points I'm going to make: USSR got the First ICBM (R-7 Semyorka) First artifical sattelite into orbit (Sputnik 1) First living thing to orbit (Laika) First human to orbit (Yuri Gagarin) First flyby of the moon (Luna 1 [it failed to hit the moon so flyby instead ]) First object to get to the moon (Luna 2) First landing on the moon (Luna 9) First orbit of the moon (Luna 10) First flyby and return to earth from the moon (Zond 5 [it also had some animals in it ]) First Rover to the moon (Lunokhod 1) First thing to enter the atmosphere of another planet (Venera 3) First lander to mars (Mars 3) First lander to venus (Venera 7) First space station (Salyut 1)