The Space Race tabletop game is a midcentury educational game based on the Space Race of the 1950s and 1960s between the Soviet Union and the United States, housed inside of a hinged wooden box illustrated with planets and Soviet and U.S. rockets. Players are intended to use the game's revolving spring-loaded wooden launcher to launch small plastic rockets into target cups representing various planets and rockets. The Space Race officially began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the announcement made by the United States four days earlier of their intent to launch artificial satellites, by declaring that they would also launch a satellite in the near future. This game features major figures from the Space Race, with the red launch rocket (and corresponding red target cup and accompanying illustration) referring to Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit Earth, and the yellow launch rocket (and corresponding yellow target cup and accompanying illustration) referring to Leroy Gordon Cooper, the U.S. astronaut who piloted the longest and final Mercury spaceflight in 1963. The other target cups have labels (in French) for the moon, Mars, Venus, Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto. The game was created in France (no publisher specified), circa 1960s (undated).

1 Linear Feet 1 box

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