List of space races

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (May 2023)

The following is a list of space races, meaning competitions or rivalries between states or companies involving the development of space travel.

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (April 2018)

• Space Race, the Cold War geopolitical rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union in space primacy
  • Moon Race, the race to have the first human landing on the Moon
• Mars race, the rivalry between teams to put the first humans on or about the planet Mars
• Billionaire space race, the entrepreneurial rivalry for private spaceflight dominance mainly between Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk.

• Amerikabomber contract competition in WWII Nazi Germany Luftwaffe for a space bomber capable of striking the United States from Germany

• Ansari X Prize, the first X Prize Foundation prize for achieving repeated suborbital spaceflights using a space tourism capable vehicle, which was won by the SpaceShipOne team of Mojave Aerospace Ventures composed of Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan, Paul Allen and Vulcan Inc.
• Google Lunar X Prize, the X Prize Foundation prize sponsored by Google to put a robotic rover onto the Moon, currently ongoing
• America's Space Prize, the Bigelow Aerospace sponsored prize to create an American orbital space tourism capable vehicle, won by no team

• Space competition
• NASA Centennial Challenges
• List of vehicle speed records — for literal speed records of space vessels
• List of spaceflight records — for literal speed records of spacecraft

• Caleb A. Scharf (1 May 2013). "Space Race: A Comparison of the Speediest Spacecraft". Scientific American. — a literal spacecraft speed comparison, instead of the metaphorical races for outer space, listed above.