Most people think that the space race was won by NASA on July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong , Buzz Aldrin and Micheal Collins reached the moon. However, the Americans might have put a man on the moon first, but the Soviets had already achieved much more in space, most significantly, to send a man into space in April 1961. This makes many other people say that the real pioneers of the space race were actually the Soviet cosmonauts. Although the USA officially "won" the space race, both nations made great achievements in space.