Space exploration was born out of the intense competition between the two great superpowers of the 20th century. The space race was a byproduct of the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Both sides devoted immense resources and manpower to attempt to surpass the other in astronautical achievement. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the approach towards space exploration changed dramatically. What began as a fierce competition between major powers became a partnership involving many nations working together. Space exploration projects, like the International Space Station, are only feasible through international joint effort, and because of this have helped to foster more cooperative relations between countries – not only diplomatically, but also economically.
I have gathered you all here to persuade you that space exploration is indeed worth the risk despite what a few people think. Those people think that exploration is a complete waste of time and money, but I would have to completely disagree with them because it has many benefits for the human race. Exploration is worth the risk, because it will give us information and resources that we didn’t have access to before we explored that place.
This worked out exceptionally well as NASA helped quite well through the usage of the research and the Apollo program. With the use of this exceptional program, for the first time in man-kind history, people had left Earth, orbited it as well as, to a great surprise, had also landed on the moon. Overall these trips, especially the ones involving human beings travelling in space, continue to help NASA and scientists investigate further.
As humans, we are born with a natural desire to learn and discover. With space exploration, we are able to do just that. In an online essay called “Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost”, Dr. Joan Vernikos,
After WWII, the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies engaged in a series of political, economic, military and technological competitions collectively known as the Cold War, which ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. One product of the Cold War, in particular, is of unique interest: the Space Race. Initially, the Space Race seemed to be extensions of U.S. and Soviet military programs; it then transformed into a technological and political competition between the two aforementioned countries; eventually, the Space Race transcended the concept of competition, and became an international effort of space exploration, and especially, a means for the U.S. and USSR to make amends to their broken relationships.
International cooperation has the potential to provide significant benefits to all participants as well as help develop space programs. Such cooperation can provide benefits in the form of monetary efficiency, programmatic and political sustainability, and workforce stability over a period of time to those countries who chose to approach it as mutually beneficial undertaking. International cooperation must be an essential partaking
In the early 60s, President John F. Kennedy led America into a space race against the Soviet Union. American men and women across the nation backed this goal, allowing NASA to take great leaps in advancing its space exploration programs. This unified nation fulfilled its goal, and Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. However, since then, America’s space exploration has only declined. Funding for NASA has been drastically cut, thus greatly limiting the opportunities for exploring the cosmos. Understanding and exploring the universe is detrimental to the advancement of the United States and opens the door for vast possibilities. If the government chooses to limits its own advancement, then that responsibility must fall
We are discussing space exploration, and looking at it through the lens of social science and the lens of the humanities.
Carl Sagan once said “every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds.” The National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA, is executing Sagan’s words every day. President Dwight D. Eisenhower created NASA in 1958 with the purpose of peaceful rather than military space exploration and research to contribute to society. Just 11 years after the creation, NASA put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, the first humans to
The next major feat in space exploration was applying the motivations of the United States to combine with international forces and construct the International Space Station. Fathered by President Ronald Reagan in his State of the Union Address 1984, he argues, “America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade” (Reagan). The country was able to set goals and achieve them. The party-goers of the 20s would have never considered conquering the last frontier, but WWII enlivened the preposterous ambitions.
The period after World War Two, known as the Cold War, was a period of brinkmanship between the world superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States. This conflict was fought across the world as these two powers tried to advance their ideologies while blocking the others through military battles and by social prestige. Among the arms race between these powers, a technological battle unfolded, called the Space Race. This race sent humans into space as the two sides took huge risks to outperform the other, giving humanity some of its greatest achievements. This paper will look at the events and outcome surrounding the space race and answer three main questions. First, what led up the Space Race and the Soviet Union’s early victories? Second, how did the United States respond? Fourth, how did the Space Race affect the Cold War? Fourth, what made the United States Space Program more successful compared to the Soviet Union’s?
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.
The Cold War was a new conflict that began to rise after the horrific and globally destructive World War II in the mid-20th century between two powerful countries, the democratic United States of America and the communist government of the Soviet Union. Both countries highlighted its superiority through a thriving threat of nuclear weapons and wide-ranging espionage and counter-espionage between the two countries. In the 1950’s, space became the platform for the competition of supremacy to validate each country’s dominance in innovative technology, military firepower, and political-economic system. Space was seen by David Beers, in the book Blue Sky Dream: A memoir of America’s Fall from Grace, as the next frontier which was a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration. The rise of the aerospace industry became the icon of national reputation and a dream for the blue sky tribe, who benefitted from the space race, which then later on led to disappointment and betrayal in the 1990s.
The Space Race is a pivotal part of the Cold War’s history. During the ending of World War II, both the United States and the Soviet Union initiated a military, political, and technological supremacy battle. There was no physical fighting, instead both superpowers competed through space exploration. Between 1957-1969 the United States and the Soviet Union battled to overcome and take control over space which led to tensions alleviating in the 1970’s causing the pressure and necessity to decrease resulting in both superpowers collaborating in many tasks. Many of the technology that dealt with space exploration began with military affiliations. The