In June of 1974, the Soviet Union’s approval was given to begin the Reusable Space System (MKS). The project eventually came to be known as Buran, the name of the first shuttle built for the program. Buran was originally created to rival the technology of the United States at the time. Although the Soviet Union seemed to surpass the U.S. in early space exploration milestones such as the launch of the first satellite, the first probe to reach the moon, and the first man to orbit the Earth in space, they quickly fell behind as the U.S. economy became more successful and the Cold War reached its peak. This paper aims to explain firstly the purpose of the Buran Shuttle Program and also why it came to an end before it really even had a chance to begin. Where the shuttles are now and whether they can be repurposed will also be analyzed. A key factor in understanding what happened to Buran lies in the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union. According to aerospace engineer, Jeff Scott, the Buran Shuttle Program may have even contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 (Scott, Jeff. (2010, Oct). Soviet Buran Space Shuttle. Retrieved from http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/spacecraft/q0153.shtml). This aspect will also be explored in this report as well as the implications that this has for the current and future aerospace industries of the US and Russia alike. Keywords: buran, soviet union, space shuttle, space race
Soviet Buran Space Shuttle
Scott, Jeff. (2010,
Where the World Wars and commercialization allowed aviation to develop from the Wrights’ simple aircraft, to large commercial plane, to extremely complex military aircraft. Today, reorganized to form NASA, its main goal is the advancement of space technology and the human exploration of space. Using the private companies to commercialize low-orbit travel and the development of better rocketry, NASA can focus on deep exploration. NASA believes that commercialization is not only a method to be cost effective, but help raise the number of crew aboard the ISS, provide new economic frontiers in space travel, and brings the frontier to civilians. In the near future, with the aid of space commercialization and NASA research, astronauts and spacecraft will become independent of Earth. Meaning, that astronauts and spacecraft will no longer need to reenter Earth’s orbit for resupplies, but are able to self-sustain their systems. This will enable humanity to push further into the depths of space, beyond the asteroid belt or even
The NASA Space Program is one of the most, if not, the most known space program that is currently active. One of the most successful projects was the “Space Race”. In this essay I will discuss what happened on the political side, the economical side, and the social/public side of this event and race to beat and get ahead of Russia and their launch of Sputnik 1.
The Cold War was an all-encompassing face of the 20th century, world politics, and a major idea during this time was domination of the skies. The United States competed against The Soviet Union in a war unlike any other, they didn’t fight with guns, bombs, or war machines but with science and the battlefield was space. The prioritization of the space race on the national agenda was characterized by an urgency, which underscored the commitment to the U.S. to defeat the Soviet Union by all means necessary. This came at the cost of billions of dollars, resources, lives, and political forces.
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?
The Space Race took place between 1957 and 1969, and some of the world’s most famous inventions were created, innovations that have changed the world ever since. In 1957, the U.S., after the Soviet Union launched their space satellite “Sputnik 1,” decided to launch their own satellite into space, “Explorer 1” (“The Space Race”). This was the kickoff of the decade long race between the two world powers for the control of the space. The Space Race illustrated the battle between democracy and communism, and the competition dramatically changed views on these leadership methods. The Space Race not only changed views on communism, but also led to enhanced and refined technology.
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
“Sputnik marked the beginning of the "space race," a period of nearly twenty years during which fierce US and Soviet competition spurred both countries to make rapid progress in aeronautic engineering,” (Lee). This period of time birthed a new program from the American government, called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. NASA has been building rockets, training astronauts, and studying space for the benefit of science, the government, and the people of America since 1958. Unfortunately, many people don't realize how important NASA is, and there have been efforts made to stop the government from funding NASA. This program is essential for increasing knowledge of outer space, protecting planet Earth, and creating
We have dreamt of spaceflight since ancient times. Humans have developed and thought of many ways to acquire this immense feat and it wasn’t till the 20th century mankind were able to build rockets powerful enough to overcome the force of gravity. Since then, we’ve successfully sent mankind to the moon, rovers to mars and space probes deep into the reaches of our solar system. Nations have striven to advance and attain great heights in the field of space exploration. The constant competitiveness between USA and USSR during the cold war led to many major breakthroughs in the history of space exploration beginning with USSR launching the first international space station and USA successfully landing a human on the moon. The international space station (ISS) stands as the basis of how international collaboration can affect space exploration. Even though some nations are unwilling to work together, space exploration provides a platform for nations to form relationships that benefits one another and create beneficial relationships with each other.
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
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.
The shuttle program was under political attack. Congress was dissatisfied with the program, and the president poorly defended it, this led to sever budget cuts. In order to keep the program alive NASA had to prove that it could pay for itself. To attract customers and retain Congressional support, NASA had to prove that it could launch a large number of flights on time. This stressed the already threatened Launch schedule. No one at NASA wanted to be responsible for delays. So when the safety comsernes of a few people threatened delaying an already delayed launch, they were ignored and suppressed as the information moved up the food chain. With a strong "press on" mentality,
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.
From a United States and Soviet Union perspective that conveys that the Space Race had a minor impact on the improvisation of United States defense technologies; the Space Race was in a way responsible for the United State’s production of new technology of missiles and defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles. In the late 1950s the United States Air Force started a series of advanced strategic missile projects under the Weapon System WS-199A called Martin's Bold Orion air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM). Similar to ICBMs the purpose of the ALBM was to destroy satellites sent into orbit that posed a intellectual and physical threat to the US. The ALBM was created due to the increasing pressure that the Soviets were to launch a satellite before the United States, and since the United States would not know of the capabilities of this
The Columbia Space Shuttle was launched on 16th January 2003 outside the earth’s atmosphere to conduct research for 16 days. It was supposed to land in Florida by the end of the completion of the research but the shuttle never made to the destination (Post, June 2014). With 7 astronauts on board, the Space shuttle crashed while entering in the earth’s orbit on its day of return. In the video of the launch, the engineers in NASA noticed that a large and two small debris detached from the space shuttle and hit the left wing causing damage to it. (Columbia Accident Investigation Board, August 2003).
The Goddard Space Flight Center states that there are 2,271 artificial satellites currently in space orbiting the earth. An artificial satellite is a hand-made machine that orbits the planet earth to help in many different ways in communications, documenting information, sending and receiving signals. A satellite is a moon, planet, or a machine that orbit a planet or a star. There are many types of satellites and each one is used for different reasons. Some satellites are used to send and receive television signals. Some other satellites are used in communications by making it possible to send and receive signals from phones, fax, internet and computers to people all over the world. Other satellites are used in forecasting by giving information about the earth’s weather to scientists. Also, there is another type of satellites that take accurate picture of earth to show the environmental situation such as resources, pollution and statistics of crops and water (NOAA, 2014). Satellites improved a lot in the daily life uses such as weather forecasting, documenting information, communication and positioning systems.