Essay On Space Exploration

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Space Exploration: An Odyssey (June 12th, 2016)

The end of Second World War brought one of the most significant periods in human history. The world was filled with excitement about the new ideas and a zeal to turn those ideas into reality. Most of the countries were experiencing prosperity through high economic growth, financial stability, and a baby boom. Colonialism was diminishing with each passing day as colonies were becoming independent with Asian countries leading the torch of freedom. However, peace is by nature short-lived; the bonds between the Soviet Union and the United States of America bound by the imminent danger from the Nazi regime, started weakening again and the two champions of the war now started seeing each other as adversaries …show more content…

New records and breakthroughs were being created every week, only to be broken by the new ones. The Soviets continued making new strides in space with achievements such as the first man in space and first spacewalk. However, the stress levels were still high on the other side of Pacific, where the onsets of 60 's brought a new life for the American space ambitions. After the initial losses, the American program started picking the pace and in order to beat the Soviets a brand new program was conceived - Project Apollo. Project Apollo envisioned landing humans on the surface of the moon within a decade.Soon, the Soviets also started their own program for a manned landing on the moon. However, it is said that Khrushchev was more interested in first achievements rather than creating a solid foundation. This lack of long-term planning, in addition to the ongoing tussle in Soviet scientists for leadership, started the Soviet space ambitions to fizzle. As a result, while the Soviets were nowhere close to the moon; Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, and created history. The Americans had won the race to the moon and thus, came the space race to an …show more content…

In response, the Nixon administration slashed NASA budgets and ordered them to focus on a reusable Shuttle program. On the other side, the Soviets moved to unmanned landings on Mars and Venus and beat the Americans to launch the first space station - Salyut 1. Nonetheless, the innovation in space started to decline from this point forward. The space community faced a double whammy from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the inaction of successive American administrations. The situation improved a little in Clinton administration when the construction of International Space Station (ISS) started. However apart from the US, no other major country was involved in space

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