The Space Race was actually started when the USA and USSR began to compete to gain the upper hand in weapons and space technology. The space race started on the 4^th of October, 1957, and lasted till late 1969. During this period of time, both USA and USSR believed that whoever gained the upper hand in the Space Race would proceed to gain the upper hand over the other country in the long run. The Soviets started out strong in this campaign, being the first country to send a man, Yuri Gagarin, to orbit the Earth successfully. This changed the mindset of most of the other neutral countries, as it showed that the Soviet space programme was also very successful. However, the reigning president of USA for much of the Space Race, John F. Kennedy, believed that a successful manned mission to the Moon ahead of the Soviets would give USA a technological, economic and political advantage over USSR, and pumped billions of dollars to speed up space exploration from a science and technological perspective. All these result in the origin of the Space Race.