About 2.5 meters in diameter and less than 400 kilograms in weight, the first “mooncraft” may look like the result of a high-school project, but it did bridge the distance between earth and space.

Boris Chertok helped build the spacecraft. At 97, he still remembers all the intricacies of the launch and its political significance.

“It may have seemed an easy hit, but before the launch we hadn’t slept for 6 days. Starting from January 1958, we’d had 5 failed launches and it was very hard to figure out all the technical glitches,” Chertok recalls.

“Our goal back than was to use our space achievements to show the benefits of socialism before a decaying capitalism. But we were also hoping that the successful launch, and therefore the demonstration of our military capability, would help end the Cold war,” he adds.

The Soviet leadership didn’t miss an opportunity to parade its achievement. Three days after the launch, Nikita Khrushchev arrived in the United States, presenting President Eisenhower with replicas of Soviet pennants that the spacecraft took to the moon.

“Competition with the Americans was a major factor in our success. The two countries were going neck and neck. I think the Americans could have easily been the first to reach the moon, but in late the 1950s they just happened to be less lucky,” space reporter Igor Lisov says.

It took the spacecraft about two days to reach its destination, setting a speed record and giving the Soviet Union one of its first trophies in the race to the moon. A race that half a century later has become even more intense.

Now it’s no longer a rivalry between two: China, Japan, India have all been sending probes to the moon and drawing plans for lunar bases. But if 50 years ago the race to the moon seemed like a sprint, nowadays it’s more like a super marathon, with no finishing line in sight yet.