The United States started the Space Race at a disadvantage due to a decision made by Eisenhower regarding rocket platforms and how they'd be used during the Space Race. Eisenhower's initial decision was to maintain separate rocket developments for military and spacefaring use. The main rocket development team for the United States, led by the U.S Army and Wernher von Braun, developed the Jupiter rocket, but was initially prevented from utilizing it for space missions due to Eisenhower's insistence on keeping military and spacefaring platforms separate. As a result, the Naval Research Laboratory's Vanguard rocket platform was rushed into service prematurely, resulting in the failure of the United State's first satellite launch attempt. After a few more tests, the Vanguard rocket platform was cancelled and Eisenhower walked back his decision to keep separate rocket programs. This serves as our general starting point for why the U.S was behind.

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Moving into the manned spaceflight era, The United States and the Soviet Union's competing manned space projects were divided into three major projects for both sides. For the United States, this was Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and Project Apollo. For the USSR, these stages were named the Vostok Programme, Voskhod Programme, and Soyuz Programme. Each of these stages roughly corresponds with the other side's. For instance, Project Mercury and the Vostok Programme were both focused on manned orbital missions. During Vostok and Mercury, the Soviet Union maintained their initial lead from the late 1950s, which was anticipated by those involved in the United States' space program. This lead would materialize into Yuri Gagarin becoming the first man to orbit Earth on April 12, 1961, and would become more apparent when Alan Shepard would reach space but fail to orbit for the United States on May 5, 1961.

Following the initial launches, Mercury primarily focused on extending orbital times while Vostok would focus on some more unique accomplishments. Mercury had four more missions after Alan Shepard's initial launch, each of which achieved manned orbit. Each subsequent flight after John Glenn's initial orbit in February 1962 would seek to surpass the orbital times set by the previous flight. After the fifth Mercury mission, resources from the project would be shifted to Project Gemini in preparation for the next phase of U.S space development. Vostok had multiple missions (3 and 4, 5 and 6) where the Soviet Union put two rockets into orbit at the same time. Once Vostok 5 and 6 concluded, the Soviet Union would move onto the Voskhod Programme.

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Gemini and Voskhod is where the United States had a real opportunity to catch up to the Soviet Union. Voskhod 1 on October 12, 1964 touted the first three-man crew and shirt-sleeve environment (a space environment where spacefarers do not need specialized gear to travel within their cabin), however, Voskhod hit a major snag when Leonid Brezhnev and other high-ranking members of the Communist Party deposed Nikita Khrushchev. Following this coup in the Soviet government, Voskhod 2 would be used as an accelerant to the space race by being the first Extravehicular Activity (E.V.A) mission. Once Voskhod 2 concluded, the Soviet Space Programme went on a two-year hiatus while Brezhnev's regime restructured the way the USSR handled the Cold War.

Project Gemini, which ran into a one-year delay of its own, provided the groundwork for the United States to make it to the moon. Gemini 3 demonstrated the ability to change a craft's position manually in orbit, and Gemini 5 set a spaceflight endurance record at nearly eight days in space, which served as proof that the U.S could create a spacecraft capable of providing life-support long enough for a lunar mission. Gemini 6 and 7 provided the first space rendezvous, and Gemini 7 would go on to lengthen the spaceflight endurance record to fourteen days. While providing achievements and and valuable catch-up time for the U.S space program, Gemini also served to train younger pilots for the upcoming Apollo missions.

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Both the Soviet Union and the United States ran headlong into their lunar mission projects, Soyuz and Apollo. Their haste in rushing into these projects provided more early setbacks in these projects. Apollo 1's crew would be killed in a test of the Apollo capsule on January 27, 1967 when an electrical fire lit ablaze within the pure-oxygen environment of the capsule. NASA would take twenty-two months to resolve the issues that caused this accident. Soyuz 1 in April 1967 would result in the first in-flight space casualty after the craft failed to properly deploy its solar panels, which caused a cascading myriad of electrical and control issues. These issues would result in the mission being aborted. When the craft re-entered Earth's atmosphere, its parachutes became ensnared with each other, preventing their proper deployment. This parachute failure would result in the crash and explosion of the craft. Soyuz 1 would cause an eighteen-month delay in manned Soviet missions.

Within these delay periods, both nations would continue to develop their lunar lander modules, the US's Lunar Module and the USSR's Zond. The Lunar Module would have its initial flights delayed due to design issues, and the Zond would continuously underperform and run into issues during unmanned circumlunar missions, meaning both craft would have delays in their deployment to rectify issues. The Soviet Union, however, would hit an even larger snag than its underperforming lunar craft which would ultimately seal the space race. Their newly designed N1 superheavy rocket failed to launch in two consecutive tests. In a third test on July 3, 1969, the N1 would momentarily achieve liftoff before the engines shutdown, causing the N1 to crash and explode on the pad. This explosion would completely destroy not only the N1 rocket, but also the launch site. This incident was left unpublicized by the USSR at the time, but on July 16, 1969, the US launched Apollo 11, which successfully put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon.

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In conclusion, the lead created early by the Soviet Union would provide them with early achievements and space dominance, however, a regime change during a pivotal developmental period of the space race would put their space program on hold for two years, allowing the United States to close on and pass the USSR in the Space Race during Project Gemini. The slight lead taken by the United States during Gemini would continue when both sides ran into early catastrophes during Apollo and Soyuz. This lead would result in a quicker R&D time for their Lunar Module and rocket system, allowing them to ensure the successful launches and tests needed to lay the groundwork for Apollo 11. The Soviet's rush to regain the lead resulted in more errors in their Zond lunar craft and in the development of their N1 superheavy rocket. The errors during the development of the N1 rocket resulted in the rocket's catastrophic failure, ultimately sealing the space race. Once the United States had its fill of sending men to the Moon, President Richard Nixon would pursue and attain a deal with the Soviet Union for cooperation in further spacecraft development in May 1972, officially ending the Space Race as competition became cooperation.