While the Russians launched on an ambitious
program to send satellites and manned 
spacecraft around the Earth and to the Moon,
American space endeavors in the 1950's were 
largely preoccupied  with the build-up of a 
nuclear arsenal of intercontinental ballistic 
missiles (ICBM's), as well as the odd satellite.

The launch of Sputnik changed the pace of the 
American space program, but still the Russians 
were able to send the first man into orbit -- the 
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, on  April, 1961.