Until 1989, Russians claimed they were not trying to reach the Moon first and that the U.S. was in "a one-nation race." Until 1989, a group of American aerospace engineers went to Moscow and finally saw the Soviets' failed lunar-landing craft for themselves. President John F. Kennedy kicked off the moon race in 1961 by announcing the U.S. would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. From then on, NASA's program to reach the moon before the Soviet Union was public information. In contrast, the Soviet Union didn't publicize its own program, or even officially admit it had one. After the U.S. reached the moon on July 20, 1969, the Soviet Union continued its lunar-landing program into the early '70s while still publicly denying its existence.