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The successful landing of Apollo 11 is one of the great accomplishments in human history. Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on another celestial body. That achievement was rooted in the great political conflict of the era, the Cold War. Since both sides were precluded from fighting each other because of atomic weapons, conflict manifested itself in the form of just about every possible endeavor. US and Soviet technological competition was one of the most important and consequential aspects and the Space Race cannot be properly understood solely as a scientific foray or a battle for international prestige, it was both.