Film Lesson: "The Right Stuff"

The US and Russia were competing in a space race in the movie "The Right Stuff". Russia was winning the race because the US spaceships kept crashing. They would go up a little then go down and explode. Russia was winning because they sent a man into space about a day or two after the US sent a chimp into space. The scene in this film that made me remember this Cold War event was when the US kept sending ships into space and they kept coming back down and exploding. When they finally sent a chimp into space and it came back down was funny because everyone kept taking pictures of it like it was very important.