The Year Of 1957: The Great Space Race

This historical investigation traces the emergence of American nationalism in the United States within the concept of The Space Race during The Cold War. It aims to analyse the factors that fueled the Space Race between USSR and the US, such as America’s general anti-communist ideology, national security of the United States, the sense of nationalism and the threat to U.S. dominance on the world scale, whilst answering the following research question: To what extent did American nationalism contribute to the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War?

"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.

On October 4th, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first ever satellite, Sputnik. The launch of Sputnik sent the United States into a frenzy, beginning the Space Race, and the innovation of technology as a whole. The Space Race most importantly had a major impact on the evolution of the United States’s defense technologies through the launch of Sputnik. The Space Race sparked the United States battle for technological superiority against the USSR, and lead to improvizations in their satellite and satellite defense technologies.

The Space Race was a competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space. From 1955 until 1975, both sides battled it out to be the leader in the competition. Fueled by the Cold War and other causes of the beginning of the race, the Soviet Union and the United States fought for authority in a very public manner through the media. There were many achievements at this time and it led the way for many great things to come afterwards.

There were many wars in the United States of America occurring. After World War two things began to change. The Soviet Union and United States of America had many differences. Even the world after World War Two was very different than before. A doctrine of containment was developed and programs began to be put in place due to this doctrine. There was also a Cold War and there were many important causes that lead to this war. The United States also had a lot going on because of the Civil-rights revolution. This caused the Supreme Court to make decision for the rights of African Americans. The Civil Rights Movement was a success in the early stages; however, as time preceded people began breaking these rights. Racism was a major issue, and caused black power to rise. With this being said, these issues have left a mark on the United States of America because many of them have not been resolved, and are still affect the Unites States of America in today’s world.

Following the detonation of two atomic bombs over Japan and the closure of World War II, the United States of America and the Soviet Union entered a period of ideological conflict, the Cold War. The United States sought to preserve and protect democracy throughout the world while the Soviet Union established communist satellite states. During the Cold War, the United States government pushed for the expansion of the United States space program in an attempt to demonstrate power and innovation over the Russians, and in doing so, accelerated the process of space exploration and endangered the lives of their astronauts.

The Space Race, occurring between 1957 and 1975, allowed both the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and The United States of America to develop technology and spread their respective communist and capitalist ideologies. The Space Race allowed the two nations to compete for superiority in a non-lethal arena. Unlike other confrontations, the Space Race also gave both parties the platform to prove their superiority to their own nations through frequent propaganda use in the form of film, television, paintings, cartoons, posters, ect. Propaganda allowed both nations to influence people's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours by injecting their own political ideology.

The Civil War still has major impacts on America today. For example, an immediate response to the war was the ending of slavery and the beginning of equality in education, jobs, and many other aspects of life. On the negative side, some traces of racism still exist today. Black people are still reminded of their ancestors and their past of slavery before the war and segregation after the war.

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.

America’s space program is undoubtedly one of its greatest modern achievements. Few people cannot recall the famous quote “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” or do not know where it came from. The story leading up to the moment a man walked on the moon, as well as everything that came after, is just as interesting and important as the moment itself. The significance of the history of America’s aeronautics programs cannot possibly be overestimated, and their story is one that is incredibly important to the modern world of today. It would not be the nation that it is, with the technology it possesses, without its crucial involvement in the “space race”. If the technology that sent a man to the moon did not exist, our daily lives would be impacted and basic tools would be missing. Beginning with America’s first official aeronautics organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (or NACA) and continuing through to the present day and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (or NASA), the story of America’s aerospace programs is interesting and extremely important. It is a story that spans many years and giant leaps in technology, and involves important locations like Wallops Flight Facility and Kennedy Space Center. From the early beginnings of NACA and Wallops, and continuing on to the rise and success of NASA and Kennedy Space Center, aeronautics

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

The Brown v Board of Education case was a landmark case. This case stated that separate schools for black and white students was unequal. This is the start of integrating African American students into white schools. Advances for African Americans in the South were almost always met with massive resistance from the white population (Schultz, 2013). African Americans and any white sympathizers were beaten, picketed and even killed (Schultz, 2013). White Citizens’ Councils were created to defend segregation, and The Ku Klux Klan was revived. There were even those schools in the South that closed rather than integrate African Americans into the schools.

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.

The Space Race was a war of firsts between the United States of America and the Union Soviet Socialist Republics. But it was also the culmination of the dreams of man for many millennia and the team who worked on the space programs were able to discover what so many of the people that came before and after them could only dream of. It was an endeavor that all of humanity was invested in at the time. It was a testament to the power of the human spirit and it showed how nothing was impossible if we persevered and strived to be better.