With Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet Union has taken a step ahead of the United States, but the US do not intend to stop there.
Thus, on May 21, 1961 John F Kennedy president of the USA prononces a speech in front of the Congress in which he announces to make land a man on the MOON and to make it return safe on Earth before the end of the decade.
This Space project will be the largest, the most difficult and the most expensive project ever undertaken.
It is a huge challenge, everything is to be done but the Congress validates the program

Alan Shepard and Gus Grisson will go in Space in 1961 but they will not make anything comparable to Yuri Gagarin.

On February 20, 1962 after several failures, John Glenn was the first American astronaut to circumnavigate the Earth and return safely despite several major technical problems.

In 1963,  Valentina Tereshkova was sent to Space aboard Vostok 6 and was to meet astronaut Valeri Bykovsky aboard Vostok 5.
Valentina will be considered as a heroine and , she will say much mater that she wants to go to Mars.

In 1963, the American program Mercury and the Soviet program Vostok are very close with however a light advance for the Soviet Union.

The Gemini missions will allow the United States to get  a head start : the astronauts will stay longer and longer in Space , they will do spacewalks and will perform scientific experiments.

In March 1966 a certain Neil Armstrong was part of the Gemini 8 mission.
Armstrong and David Scott manage to dock their spacecraft to a stage of the Agena rocket but a major technical problem will force the two spaceships to separate. In this adventure Neil Armstrong will show an exemplary cold blood.

At the end of 1966, the Gemini program allowed the USA to make huge progress. The Soviet Union knew delays on the Soyuz program but it succeeded in putting two probes on the Moon.

The missions in Space remain very dangerous and the missions Apollo 13 for the USA and Soyuz 11 for the Soviet Union will remind it cruelly.