The Space Race : A Struggle For Dominance Continued After World War II

This investigation will explore the question: How did the Space Race impact the Cold War? The years 1957 to 1969 will be the focus of the investigation, to analyze the Space Race during the Cold War, as well as how the USSR and NASA both reacted to it.

In the early 20th century new technologies like the airplane, electric grids, and automobiles made the World start to think they could achieve the impossible. A new idea was to use rockets, previously used in ground warfare, to send objects into space. Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, and Oberth grandfathered the idea of rocketry and illustrated the possibilities of rocketry in the modern world. The ideas the scientists argued did not get much attention until the Second World War. With the German V2 rocket program, the world discovered the militaristic

for approximately forty-five years. The two sides fought in a series of proxy wars, using their money to fund battles either for or against communism as a way of showing the strength of their respective sides and the technology they had developed. During the Space Race the rival nations funded massive projects to launch rockets into space, this quest to the final frontier lasted for over ten years, making it one of the longest lasting conflicts in the cold war. While some disputes lasted a decade or more, others were short lived. For instance, the Cuban Missile Crisis, a major panic in the United States when the newly communist nation of Cuba allowed the soviets to set up missiles aimed at the USA just ninety miles from the shores of America,

During the Cold War, political and military tension ensued between the United States and the Soviet Union. The rivalry lead to proxy wars, massive propaganda, and events like the Space Race. The Space Race, lasting from 1955 to 1972, was a technological competition between the United States and the Soviet Union for spaceflight discovery and capability. Both countries strived to construct spacecraft to execute a certain task, from a weather satellite to sending animals into space. Although frequently viewed as a leap in science and technology, the Space Race was a useless and selfish attempt for the United States or the Soviet Union to help prove themselves the most dominant technological superpower because of the high expenses and minimal benefits

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.

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".

The Space race was a very important factor in the 1950ś one of the most important factors was Neil Armstrong he was the first man to lay foot on the moon. Also astronaut Neil Armstrong developed a obsession with flight at an early age. And he got his pilot license at age 16. Armstrong joined the NACA in 1955, Armstrong was an engineer, test pilot, astronaut and administrator for NACA and its successor agency,

At the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II scientist started to develop new ways to to react to wars.Scientist like Julius Robert Oppenheimer with the help of Albert Einstein created the first atomic bomb called the “Little Boy” and the “FatMan”. Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. He was incharge of gather the best minds to develop weapons of mass destruction. Oppenheimer along with 200 other physics developed weapons that would change the world forever.

The atomic bomb was built during ww2 and was a major factor in winning the war against the japanese. Germany began to develop the atomic bomb and roosevelt caught wind of this and he put a group of scientist together to develop the atomic bomb before the germans developed it. Einstein found proof that the germans were going to use uranium to build the atomic bomb “I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines, which she has taken over”(Einstein).Soon a letter from albert einstein after hearing about the germans trying to build a bomb said that “through the work of Joliot in france as well as fermi and szilard in america-- that it may be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium”(Einstein). After a while of working on the first atomic bomb it was finally made and codenamed “Gadget” and tested in the mexico desert on a unpopulated landscape. The development of the atomic was made a secret by roosevelt and the name of the project for the development of the nuclear bomb was called the manhattan project .

First, Von Braun was the most important source of information on rocketry in the U.S. after World War Two. Why? Well, he had experience in launching rockets. Years after world war 2, von Braun helped the Army develop ballistic missiles. In 1960, he helped build Saturn rockets and he became the chief designer of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that would propel astronauts to the Moon. Von Braun engineered the surrender of five hundred of his top rocket scientists to the Americans. His rocket team and himself went to Fort Bliss, Texas. There they worked on rockets for the Army. As a student at the Berlin Institute of Technology, he

Von Braun was clearly making

Wernher von Braun was born on March 23, 1912, in Wirsitz Germany. He was born into a very wealthy family. From an early age, von Braun always showed a great interest in science. This interest however increased after his mother got him a telescope as a gift. Later at the age of 11, von Braun was enrolled in the Französisches Gymnasium. While he was there he showed a decent ability to perform in math and sciences. Soon, when he grew a little older his father moved him to another school where he truly excelled and grew in his math and science abilities. His great interest inspired him to read books in his favorite fields. One of his favorite books was Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Planetary Space) by Hermann Oberth. However, he soon realized that he would need to master his skills to be

Wernher Von Braun was born into a wealthy family in Wirsitz, Germany on March 23, 1912. Von Braun first developed an interest in astronomy at a young age when his mother bought him his first telescope. In the late 1920s he enrolled at the Berlin Institute of Technology and later graduated with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1932. He then decided to enrolled at the University of Berlin to study physics, during this time he conducted and in-depth research on rocketry. In 1934 he received his doctorate degree in physics, in that same year he led a group that successfully launched two fuel-filled rockets more than 1.5 miles.

Hermann Oberth known as the ‘German father of rocketry and astronautics’, ‘a great space pioneer’, he gained a lot of recognition throughout his time, inspiring a new generation of rocket scientists through his breakthrough works and concepts. Oberth was born in Romania but moved to Germany where he spent most of his life studying and working. At the age of 14 Oberth’s interest in aeronautics and rocketry was initiated when he read Jukes Verne’s ‘From the Earth to the Moon’. This intrigued, inspired and drove 14 year old Oberth to independently develop and design the ‘recoil rocket’ concept, a rocket which could propel itself through expelling exhaust gases from its base. Oberth applied himself early studying mathematics and physics, eventually concluding liquid fuelled rockets could be developed.

Von Braun the leader of the scientists had discussed with the other chief designers about the possibility of surrendering to the Americans. Cadbury states that the German scientists decided that the best solution would be to go to the Americans because they had the capabilities of creating a functional space program (14). In order to achieve this they would have to be very careful not to get caught because if they were it would be considered treason and they would be executed by the government. A few months before the war ended the entire V2 experimental team and their research made the move from Peenemünde to Mittelwerk which was the production base for the V2 missile which was made with slave labor. At Mittelwerk the German scientists were “guarded” by the SS who had orders to shoot them rather than let them fall into enemy hands. The German scientists meanwhile made plans for their getaway by buying an abandoned mine in order to store the years of research that they had gained and also turned their guards away from their mission and had them become regular soldiers and surrender to the Americans alongside them. The U.S army and the Soviet intelligence agency NKVD had been tracking the rocketeers and had been trying to recruit them. On the second of May the German scientists finally encountered the Americans and they were all taken by the American Army into