13-inch lunar globe, by Räth, East German, c. 1961 Wh.6098 13.5-inch lunar globe, by Lipsky, Russian, 1967 Wh.6683

Abstract

• The forty-year global conflict known as the Cold War had many fronts. Some of them, like proxy wars in Asia and Africa, were hot; others, like the Berlin Wall or the northern North Sea, were indeed cold; but colder still were the battle lines drawn up in space. Famously, the Soviet Union sent shockwaves across the West when the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, entered orbit in 1957. The United States responded by sending humans to the Moon twelve years later. The history of this ‘Space Race’, a cultural competition as much as a scientific endeavour, can be found not only on film and in archives but also in museums.