A New Space Age

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." This quote was made by John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962, and it encompasses the dedication the US had to winning the Space Race, a space technology race between the United States and Soviet Russia. The Space Race would soon become a huge competition led by many big factors and decisions. Overall, The Space Race started with the USSR's launch of Sputnik, an event which fueled nationalism in both countries, and ended with the United States landing a man on the moon.

For the social science lens, we will be looking at the shift in the economics for space exploration in the recent years.

The Space Race was a competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space. From 1955 until 1975, both sides battled it out to be the leader in the competition. Fueled by the Cold War and other causes of the beginning of the race, the Soviet Union and the United States fought for authority in a very public manner through the media. There were many achievements at this time and it led the way for many great things to come afterwards.

The space is always full of mysteries embellished with humans’ fantasy. Developing from the ancient theory of “round sky and square earth” to the Big Bang theory and even sending astronauts to other planets, humans use their intelligence to satisfy their curiosity towards the universe. The new discoveries and achievements along with the space programs show the competence of humans and prove the necessity to keep exploring the universe with human. Although plenty of opponents claim that it is worthless to send humans into the space, they have overlooked the significance of manned space exploration in a broad perspective. Working more efficiently to advance the progress in science, enhancing

Walking, that’s the original mode of transportation. The only things that could be moved are the things that can be carried and the furthest part of the world was the furthest part a human could walk to. Then came sailboats and wheels and the world was drastically changed forever. Everything changed. No one could walk on water so sailboats were the first things used to travel the rest of the world. There was more land and more water than anyone man could walk to. Sailboats helped with that. When someone arrives in those places how is he or she supposed to carry everything? That is when the wheel became so important. People had carriages and wagons and animals to pull those things which are on wheels. The entire world changed as transportation

The concept of space exploration was first introduced to the American public in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy famously stood before congress and vowed that America would put a man on the moon “within the decade.” With hopes of defeating the Soviet Union in the “Space Race” and gaining a leg-up in the Cold War, NASA funding reached its all-time high in 1965-1966 when about four percent of the federal budget was devoted to exploring space. Since then however, funding dedicated to exploring space has nose-dived to about one-half of a percent of the federal budget (Tyson), with plans to cut that figure by an additional $260 million in 2017 (cite NASA funding cuts). Experts in the space-sciences field argue that increased funding in space exploration would re-ignite the American economy and return America to the scientific prominence it was once known for, while, on the other end of the spectrum, naysayers suggest that exploring space is an economic sink-hole that the United States can no longer afford to deposit to given its own earth-bound troubles.

Space exploration needs to start happening again because the US is starting to fall behind other countries such as Russia and India. Neil Degrasse Tyson says in his book, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, “The Soviets sent the first multi-person crew and the first international crew into orbit. They made the first spacewalk, launched the first space station, and were the first to put a manned space station into long-term orbit” (Tyson 122). The Soviets beat the US to everything other than the moon. The Space Race was a competition between mainly the US and Russia. Neil Degrasse Tyson says in his book, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, “the USSR held that high ground until 1969, when, courtesy of von Braun and colleagues,

With the growing number of commercial space industry companies sharing the goal of developing and operating reusable launch vehicles (RLV) for commercial space travel for humans, Congress passed the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act (CSLAA) to help promote this growing industry and to establish clear regulations for the industry to develop and operate the means to advance the aspect of human space travel and ensure the safety of the uninvolved public. This paper will discuss how the Commercial Space Launch Amendment Act of 2004 came to be and how it has encouraged the growth of commercial space travel.

The space race continues today, as the Soviet Union launches sputnik3. This comes as a devastating blow as the U.S. launched the explorer2 ten days ago, but failed to reach orbit. This now just leaves the question of, what next? Who will be the first to successfully land life on the moon? The Russians announced that the next object they will attempt to launch into space is some sort of a craft that will orbit the sun. Will the U.S. be able to catch up in this race to space? The U.S. has launched Explorer1, but can we go further?

Did you know that the Soviet Union was the first to launch something outside of Earth’s orbit? In the 1960’s, the Soviet Union speed up the advancement of space science, faster than the United States ever could, during the Space Race. First of all, they were the first to start the Space Race and continually kept going onward to try new concepts and/or more concepts. On the other hand, the Soviet Union were more focused on witnessing who’s better. Finally, the Soviet Union were the ones who sent multiple of inventions into space, but still had a bunch of trial and error and learned what worked and what didn’t work.

The world today revolves around technology and is in an ever upward spiraling path of new advancements. This path is now at what some people call the “final frontier”, or the space age. The discoveries being made on this front are overwhelming in comparison to the technology that the world had only twenty years ago. Space exploration was once left up to the governments, as they battled to be the first country in space, but with national debts raising and the cuts made in response, space exploration is beginning to become new grounds for private business owners. Private companies are already beginning to send off rockets at a fraction of the cost that government does, but if more money was put into the government space program, then they

Finding minerals is only one small step of privatized space law that is starting to become more popular. Deep space travel and sending normal citizens on “space trips” is also something that can be happening very soon.

The point I would travel back to if time travel existed, would be the space age, which started in 1957 and continues to this day. It is believed that the event that started the space age was the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Russian satellite. The space age would be one of the best times to experience because it was one of the most competitive times between the Russians and the Americans to see who could get to space the fastest or to see who could land on the moon the first. There were a lot of advancements in both technologies and theories about space. It also boosted the moral of the American people since the president at that time promised to put a man moon, and even though he was assassinated the next president fulfilled his

August 20, 1969. The scene is the front yard of a cozy suburban home. Little Thomas lies in the grass and gazes to the stars. Only a month before, Neil Armstrong uttered the famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” These words inspired Little Thomas. He gazes to the stars. Gazes and dreams, dreams of a time when he would bounce between stars, moons, and planets like there was no distance between them at all. Thomas thinks, “I can’t wait! I’m gonna be an astronaut! I’m gonna go to the Moon! To Mars! I’m gonna go all the way to Pluto! Distance is gonna mean nothing, by the time I’m all grown up, I’m gonna be able to go anywhere in the universe I wanna!”

. . to advance the goal of long-distance space travel, but also to benefit mankind.” Because the problems of space travel have root in nearly every aspect of daily life, the knowledge and experience required to solve them is also extremely diverse. This precludes public sector space agencies from providing all of the solutions to tangled orbit of problems. With the combination of private organizations, independent researchers, and open scientific dialogue, a domino effect of development can be ignited for the Space Revolution, as has happened with the Industrial Revolution and Information Revolution. Private research has a cycle of the emergence of harmonious developments with sweeping effects on technology as a whole.