Moon landing the first Soyuz flight in 1967, the co-ordination of the Soviet Moon landing program quickly unraveled. The Soviets built a landing craft and selected cosmonauts for the mission that would have placed Aleksei Leonov on the Moon's surface, but with the successive launch failures of the N1 booster in 1969, plans for a manned landing suffered first delay and then cancellation. A program of automated return vehicles was begun, in the hope of being the first to return lunar rocks. This had several failures. It eventually succeeded with Luna 16. But this had little impact, because the Apollo 11 and
Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World second. Next comes Viktor Korchnoi, who played in the candidate's final match. Next came four players (Lev Polugaevsky, Geller, Vasily Smyslov, and Taimanov) who earned the right to play in the next Interzonal because of their place in the USSR Championship. The last three places were given to players of special merit - Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, and Keres. The first reserve was Leonid Stein, who placed sixth in the USSR Championship, just behind those going to the Interzonal. The second reserve was David Bronstein, who once played in a world championship match . On paper, the match looked daunting for