Cold War (1953–1962) human on the moon. The first of the Lunar missions was Luna 1, which launched on January 2, 1959. Its successful mission established the first rocket engine restart within Earth orbit and the first man-made object to establish heliocentric orbit. Luna 2, which launched on September 14, 1959, established the first impact into another celestial body (the moon). Finally, Luna 3 launched on October 7, 1959 and took the first pictures of the dark side of the moon. After these three missions in 1953, the Soviets continued their exploration of the moon and its environment in 21 other Luna missions.
Luna 2 onto the Moon. At that time the closest Americans had come to the Moon was about with Pioneer 4. Khrushchev, on his only visit to the U.S., gave president Eisenhower a replica of the Soviet pennants that "Luna 2" had just placed onto the lunar surface. "Luna 2" and its predecessors all came to be used throughout the USSR and around the world as pro-communist propaganda. Donald W. Cox explains, in his book "The Space Race", “Although the Sputniks and Luniks did not themselves provide better cars, refrigerators, color TV sets, and homes for the peasants and laborers of the