Space Race Pros And Cons

The Space Race exacerbated the tense relationship between the USA and USSR to a greater extent. From 1957 to 1969 (the accepted duration of the Race), it created tension because the advancements made in Space technology translated directly into ideological superiority and military power. However, from 1970 to 1979, after the Race had ended and Cold War tensions were easing, collaborations in Space encouraged co-operation between the two countries.

"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.

RQ: How and to what extent did the Space Race have a impact on United States’s defense technologies?

The space race was a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union that occurred during the Cold War. They competed for dominance in space technology and spaceflight, which spurred many significant inventions and events. Some of these inventions and events include the first-ever landing on the moon, the first artificial satellite to be launched into the Earth’s orbit, the establishment of NASA, the invention of the microprocessor computer, the invention of satellite communication technology, and other direct and indirect impacts. Each of the different events and inventions that spawned from the space race have had significant impacts on the United States economy.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is one of the leading organizations in space technology and research. In the past 60 years, NASA has sent numerous satellites, telescopes and crew modules into space. Despite drawbacks in launch failures and lack of funding, NASA continues to focus on its mission in space exploration and technological advancement. One of NASA’s projects is to explore deep space, in which entails a manned missions to Mars, exploration of the asteroid belt, and beyond. With these goals in mind, NASA has engineered new rocketry and even created a program to better allocate costs of such conquests. With these new advancements, NASA has created a new age of how space travel is carried out.

With the emergence of technology the United States has invested heavily in STEM, the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math, as they are known to be the vehicle that continues to expand the economy with constant innovation. By gearing the nation to revolve their educational system on these four principles the United States is attempting to maintain its global leadership and competitive position as it is widely believed that U.S. students are consistently falling behind their contemporaries from other developed nations. A series of three reports published in 2005 argued that the alarming decline of STEM related graduates in the United States and its loosening grip as the world’s nucleus for scientific innovation.

Education plays a vital role in this era. I support that education should not only be focused on books but also on critical sense and practical knowledge. Students should be able to experiment with the technological advancement and its outcomes.

The Space Race was a competition between the Soviet Union and the United States to see which nation could achieve spaceflight dominance before the other. The Race began on August 2, 1955 and ended nearly 40 years later in December of 1991. The Space Race began because of two major factors that would carry it until its end. The Soviet Union’s announcement that they were going to began building and using satellites to use in space days before the United States planned to announce the same thing helped fuel the fire for the competition. The Cold War also played a very influential role in the competitiveness between the countries and would inspire them to be better and work harder than their rival. The general public also played a key role in the race. Reinforcing your country’s involvement in the race gave them the all clear to spend money to build these space crafts, satellites and other technology in order to not only win, but to please the people. If a country has the support of its people they can accomplish anything. Propaganda like posters became a great way of encouraging the people to get involved and stay involved. Posters depicted great spaceships only seen in movies, engrained a hatred for the opposing country, the influence the race had on the future, and astronauts as real life superheroes like Superman. Most importantly the Space Race was a time of great inventions that carry on to

It is often debated whether or not the Space Race was necessary. People have viewed it as a waste of time, money, and resources. America spent over $25 billion on the space program, equivalent to $100 billion today. Many believed that there were far more pressing matters on Earth, and that they should not explore space. Those people only saw the disadvantages that it had (Biddle, 2009). However, the Space Race was beneficial to humanity in various ways. Today Americans can use the knowledge obtained during the Space Race for countless purposes including commercial and military applications (Rabinowitch, 1963).The Space Race changed the face of science, international politics, and technology forever (Schefter 2005). The Space Race was not

In even the most primitive civilizations, the extra-terrestrial has had immeasurable influence on society. Mankind has always had an urge to explore the great unknown, and answer the most fundamental questions of our existence. Space exploration deserves not only to be a top priority in our nation, but much more funding than it already has, because it is rooted with history that has taught us many things and will continue to do so, it will help us advance technology beyond the scope of commercial innovation, and it can answer the greatest questions that every civilization has tried to answer.

Space exploration has exploded in the past 56 years. From the first successful satellite mission in 1961, to the first mission space walk in 1969 a to the first time lettuce was grown and eaten in space in 2015. These are just the beginning steps towards potential space exploration and advancing technology to the maximum.

On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into space called, “Sputnik”. It was the start of one of the biggest races in the world called “The Space Race”. But it isn’t the start of the race that is questionable but the very end. On July 19, 1969 the United States supposedly landed 3 men on the moon. More than a billion people around the globe watched this event occur on their television sets as Neil Armstrong said “That’s one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind.” But was it really a giant leap for mankind? Or was it one of the ways the U.S tried to fool us into believing they really did land on the moon? The Space Race wasn’t only about being the first to land on the moon but would also be a major sign of dominance over the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Many believe the U.S was not capable of accomplishing this so they had no choice but to fool the world into believe they landed on the moon and won the Space Race.

Today’s world economies are so tied together and react to one another that only the brightest and smartest will survive. The better educated a student is in the specific career that they have chosen to earn a degree in will give them the educated edge so that they can out compete with foreign markets. President Barack Obama said "In this kind of economy, countries who out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow. Already, China is graduating eight times as many engineers as we are. By 12th grade, our children score lower on math and science tests than most other kids in the world,” (“Full”). American colleges need to do a better job at improving math and science scores so that the graduating student can better compete in the world market Asian countries are continuously outperforming American students. Gary W. Phillips, chief scientist at the American Institutes of Research said “In this case, the bad news trumps the good because our Asian economic competitors are winning the race to prepare students in math and science,” (Dillon). The better colleges prepare students to edge out competitors in the world market needs to be their priority.

Who said that space travel was only for the US and Russia? To that, I say HA. There were probably over 24 countries in the Great Space Race, but we made it to the moon first. The one space agency that was most interesting to me was JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). "The challenge -- including transporting the components to space -- may appear gigantic, but Japan has been pursuing the project since 1998, with some 130 researchers studying it under JAXA's oversight".

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.