Seriously though - there was never any official/legitimate/specific "space race". Both countries celebrated their own successes as propaganda victories at the time. Then afterwards the US declared the moon to have been the goal and declared itself the winner in its own textbooks.
The USSR did shutter its own moon landing program after the US did it because the cost of doing it didn't justify itself - doing it second wasn't worth it and it was risky and expensive. So by that point the US had caught up and outpaced the USSR. But the idea that the moon landing was the ultimate achievement or that everyone agreed the US had "won" is post-hoc propaganda.
...Did an American tell you that?
Seriously though - there was never any official/legitimate/specific "space race". Both countries celebrated their own successes as propaganda victories at the time. Then afterwards the US declared the moon to have been the goal and declared itself the winner in its own textbooks.
The USSR did shutter its own moon landing program after the US did it because the cost of doing it didn't justify itself - doing it second wasn't worth it and it was risky and expensive. So by that point the US had caught up and outpaced the USSR. But the idea that the moon landing was the ultimate achievement or that everyone agreed the US had "won" is post-hoc propaganda.
bad move on their part tbh, the 'muricans are always saying they're the only country to have landed on the moon.