Project Gemini, designed to perfect techniques the Apollo flights would use to land men on the Moon, opened a floodgate of progress. In the Soviet Union, the skies darkened. Its space program had managed a few interesting missions, but nothing close to the game changers that had put them so far ahead for so long. By the end of 1966, the Soviets were panicked. For the first time since the Space Race began, they were losing.
