Sylvia Engdahl, in her book series Americans at War, relayed that during the landing of Apollo 11 on the lunar surface, the television broadcast of the event was “beamed to an estimated 600 million people in thirty-three countries on six continents” (182). Considering that this vast group of people, largely comprised of Americans, was tuned into this monumental event proves that the space race was captivating for its audience and the subject of utmost public attention. For Americans, the space race was a basis from which new technological developments would soon proliferate, and it served as an arena for cold war competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Consequently, when it came to innovative advancements in the US’ progress …show more content…
Americans soon became worried, as it was close to the beginning of what would become to be known as the Cold War, of the fact that if the Soviet Union was in possession of missiles as powerful as the one used to launch the Sputnik mission (Balogh 14). As many feared, what was stopping them from using a similar missile on the United States in the event of political adversity? Likewise, during the beginning of the space race, there was a general lack of understanding behind the science of space. Many were enthusiastic for the new adventure, but even more knew nothing about space except what they had learned in science fiction novels and films (Engdahl 180). A combination of this fear of the Soviet Union’s missile capacity and a general dubiety regarding space exploration led to diverse opinions regarding America’s involvement in the space …show more content…
Project Mercury claimed several suborbital flights before John Glenn's flight into orbit on February, 20, 1962 (Engdahl 181). Project Mercury, the name given to the United States program aimed at sending a man into space, continued its aerospace research by developing a new capsule, one that was more compact and far lighter than the Soviet Union’s Vostok. The capsule was tested with chimpanzees and completed its final test flight in March 1961. Flying in this new cone-shaped craft, Astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to reach space on May 5, 1961 (“The Space”). The success of this monumental flight was the first of multiple United States space accomplishments to
From the start of the Space Race, the Soviet Union had the United States beat by sending the first satellite, the Sputnik, and the first man, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, into space. However, President Kennedy would not stand by as the Soviet Union began to run away with the space race. Kennedy addressed the nation by consulting Congress to “increase NASA’s budget by nine billion dollars”(Cox). This bold move made by Kennedy enabled the United States to make it to the moon first. Going to the moon first was a much higher feat than simply going into space because it required much more “precision while launching and higher equipped technology to go the extra distance”(Exploring Space). Due to the extra skill required to go to the moon, it showed how by the end of the Space Race the United States had superior technology. Since the Cold War was a fight for Global Power, going to the moon was a significant move for the United States because it showed that they had exceptional machinery. With this admirable technology, it solidified the United States’s reputation as a Global
The Space Race exacerbated the tense relationship between the USA and USSR from 1957 to 1969 because the advancements made in Space technology were used as a means to indicate political and ideological superiority. (Garcia & Lusigan, 2005). The yet-to-be-discovered Space became the perfect arena in which each ideological system, namely Capitalism
The launch of the Sputnik had such a big impact on America because “America thought of themselves as the world’s technological leaders” (Richerme 35). Also “the Soviets, after all, were not supposed to be good at technology” (DeGroot 3). This scared America and brought them into a big crisis or as some call a race. This race was known as the space race and it was a very long and twisted path that it bared on its shoulders.
The Space Race was a 20th century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States of America and the Soviet Union. This competition was held between 1955 until 1972 and enabled these two rivals to advance their ability of spaceflight and their exploration out of the Earth’s reach. The competition covered several ways in taking human life out of Earth’s orbit and to successfully bring them back home in the process. The Space Race brought about several controversial topics relating to how the USSR copied the methods conducted by the United States, how the United States retaliated against the USSR and the man landing was purposely staged or not. These factors contribute to a large extent on how the space race was won. The Space Race
In 1955 both the Soviet Union and the United States were building ballistic missiles that could be used to launch objects into space. This became the starting line for the race into space. Four days apart in unrelated announcements, both the Soviets and the Americans announced their plans to launch artificial Earth satellite by 1957 or 1958. On 29 July 1955, James C. Hagerty, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s press secretary,
The American and Soviet Union space programs were in a race to space during the cold war. This space race reflected many political, social, and economic aspects of the cold war. The fact that both countries were in the middle of a cold war didn’t help.
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
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik, and the space race was on. The Soviet’s triumph jarred the American people and sparked a vigorous response in the federal government to make sure the United States did not fall behind its communist rival.
The cold war served as a catalyst for the Space Race. The United States and the Soviet Union ran neck and neck to launch their way into Earth’s orbit. The launching of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union placed them in the lead of the race. No sooner than a decade later, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, making it one of mankind’s greatest accomplishments. The Apollo program (source B) opened up the vault of a billions of dollars investment.
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?
During the Cold War between 1947-1991, the Space Race took place between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, the two superpowers of the world. The Cold War was a time of political tension between both nations; the Space Race is just a small segment of the story to be explained of the forty-four year time period. The Space Race was never intentionally made between the two powers, but became a natural stand to show who is the more commanding country. The main reason of the Space Race was to see which country had the most potential in not only spaceflight, but as an overall country. The significance of the Space race was to show dominance over either country by placing a satellite into orbit, sending the first men to space, and
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 news came as an ugly surprise to the Americans, who were not expecting the Soviets to beat them to space, but the United States responded quickly with a project of their own. Less than a year after Sputnik’s launch into space the US launched their own satellite, Explorer 1 into the atmosphere. Later that year, on the 29th of July, president Eisenhower signed off on the creation of National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA. For the years following the launch of Explorer 1 the Soviets and Americans would send many satellites and probes into space, each more impressive than the last. On May 25th, 1962, President John F. Kennedy addressed congress, attempting to boost the funding for NASA.
During the Cold War, the United States and Russia had a severe space race between one another. Every time one country would be a step ahead of the other, and somehow one of the countries would catch up to the more advanced country at the time. During the early years of the space race, success was measured by what nation did what first: To the alarm of the United States, each of the early adventures were achieved by the Soviet Union. And all of those events triggered the United States to drive and catch up with to surpass the Soviet Union. This sort of see-saw method happen throughout the space race. Throughout this paper, there will be a discussion on the space race between the United Stated and
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.