No decade saw faster, more dramatic progress in manned space travel than did the 1960s.  The 1957 launch of Sputnik kicked off a Russian-American Space Race that, by the Sixties' onset, was moving at warp speed.  The decade's first half saw the Soviets take a commanding lead with the first man in space, the first woman in space, the first space walk, the first two-manned spacecraft and numerous other breakthroughs.  But America's determination, coupled with technological and engineering advances made possible by the flexibility of the country's open society and free enterprise system, allowed the United States to come from behind and ultimately seize the greatest prize of all:  the Moon.

Plastic model manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic were more than eager to satisfy the public's hunger for kits of the latest manned spacecraft.  The following collection chronicles the amazing progress of both the American and Soviet manned space programs during this more turbulent and exciting of decades.

R-7 VOSTOK (1961)

VOSTOK SPACECRAFT (1961)

MERCURY-REDSTONE (1961)

MERCURY SPACECRAFT (1961)

EXPLORER 18 (1963)

GEMINI ASTRONAUT (1965)

AMERICAN ASTRONAUT  (1966)

SATURN V w/TOWER & CRAWLER (1967)

SOYUZ SPACECRAFT (1967)

SATURN V (1967)

LUNAR MODULE (1969)

U.S. SPACE MISSILES (1969)

Real Space

1900-1930

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000 and Beyond