Timeline (Foreign Ambassadors)

1961

 * Soviet Union lauches Yuri Gagarin into space, winning the first space race.


 * At a meeting of Soviet politcians and rocket engineers a plan is drawn up to put a man on the moon.


 * Kennedy makes his famous speech about how the US will commit itself to landing a man on the Moon and return him to Earth.

1962-7

 * Development of both the Soviet(N1 Baiko) and the American(Saturn V) rockets are near completion. Nothing is yet known about the N1 in the west.


 * Chief Soviet rocket designer, Korolev, undergoes minor surgery and returns to work days later.


 * First test of the Saturn V rocket is succesful. N1 follows with a similar test days later.

1969

 * A Saturn V rocket (apollo 10) flies around the moon, but does not land.


 * July 16, Apollo 11 is launched in Florida in front of the world press. Their target, the Sea of Tranquaility on the moon.


 * July 17, the N1 Baiko rocket, codenamed Rodina, is launched at the moon with Yuri Gagarin as captain of the three man crew.


 * July 18, the Rodina overtakes Apollo 11. Soviet Union announces it's launch. The claim is slandered by the world press.


 * July 20 19:17, the Soviet lander, the Engels, touches down on the lunar surface. Yuri Gagarin steps out of the lander and the first words spoken on the Moon are Russian. "We have reached the radiant future, join me comrades!" The landing is broadcast live in the USSR and all its successor states as Gagarin plants the Soviet flag on the Moon. In American an astounded NASA watches in horror as they lose what they thought was a one-horsed race.


 * July 20 20:17, the American lander, the Eagle, touches down. Neil Armstrong emerges and (not being told he is not the first on the Moon) says "One small step for (a) man. One giant leap for mankind". Here he is told that he is not the only man on the Moon.


 * July 21, By complete chance the two lunar landers are less than four kilometres apart. Gagarin along with Valentin Petrov walked to the Eagle and met the American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. There is now no doubt in anyone's mind that the Soviet Union was first on the Moon.