Benefits of space exploration earth and space have increased. The list of missions to the moon begin as early as 1958 and continued into the current age. A few successful lunar missions, by the USSR, include missions such as, the Luna 1 space craft that completed the first flyby of the moon in 1959, the Luna 3 lunar probe that took the first pictures of the far side of the moon in 1959, the Luna 10 orbiter that was the first orbiter of the moon in 1966, and the Lunokhod 1 lunar rover in 1970, which was the first rover that explored the surface
Moon landing in October 1963 that the USSR was "not at present planning flight by cosmonauts to the Moon," while insisting that the Soviets had not dropped out of the race. Only after another year would the USSR fully commit itself to a Moon-landing attempt, which ultimately failed. At the same time, Kennedy had suggested various joint programs, including a possible Moon landing by Soviet and U.S. astronauts and the development of better weather-monitoring satellites. Khrushchev, sensing an attempt by Kennedy to steal Russian space technology, rejected the idea: if the USSR went to the Moon, it would go alone. Sergey Korolev,