the.com/space race

means The 20th-century competition between the US and USSR to achieve superior spaceflight capabilities, from satellites to crewed moon landings, as a proxy for technological and ideological supremacy.

from A straightforward compound of 'space' (outer space, the final frontier) and 'race' (a contest of speed), modeled on the older 'arms race.' The term crystallized after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, catching the US off guard and triggering a scramble that the press quickly dubbed a 'race' — because it was, quite literally, about who got there first: first satellite, first man in orbit, first on the Moon.