While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were preparing to leave the Moon in July 1969, a Soviet robot called Luna 15 was descending toward another lunar sea in a final attempt to bring soil home first; it crashed after 52 orbits, ending a race that continued above the Moon even after Apollo 11 had landed

While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were preparing to leave the Moon in July 1969, a Soviet robot called Luna 15 was descending toward another lunar sea in a final attempt to bring soil home first; it crashed after 52 orbits, ending a race that continued above the Moon even after Apollo 11 had landed

The most famous week in spaceflight had a second contestant that almost no one was watching. In July 1969, while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were on the surface of the Moon and preparing to leave it, a Soviet robotic craft called Luna 15 was circling overhead, working towards a landing of its own in a different lunar sea. Its job was to scoop up soil and rush it back to Earth, and if it could, to return the first Moon samples before the Ameri…