Illustration by Alessandro Gottardo for TIME
TIME

Dueling Superpowers, Rival Billionaires. Inside the New Race to the Moon

NASA’S rockets are constructed at the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building in Fla.
Christopher Payne for TIME NASA’S rockets are constructed at the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building in Fla.

It’s easier to love Apollo 11 if you were around to see it happen. For those who didn’t camp along the Cape Kennedy causeway to watch the Saturn 5 liftoff on July 16, 1969, or huddle around a rabbit-ear TV to watch Neil Armstrong climb down the ladder and walk on the surface of the moon four days later, it’ll always have a whiff of cable-channel documentary. And yet it doesn’t for Elon Musk.

Read the full TIME cover story here.

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