How The Space Race Changed American Culture

On July 20, 1969, three brave American astronauts, “Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, became the first humans ever to land on the moon” (1). The Space Race changed the American people by climaxing tensions between America and the USSR during the Cold War, gave hope to the American citizens that the nation could withstand and challenge, changed American culture and also gave many engineers and scientists of the age work and stability.

The idea of traveling to the moon came to light on May 25, 1961 in a special joint Congress session (1). John Kennedy, the president, made an appearance at this joint meeting to show support his overwhelming support for the advances in space technology. After this sitting, NASA promptly started working on blueprints to travel to the moon. NASA then administered the first Apollo mission, “testing the structural cohesion of the first proposed launch vehicle and spacecraft amalgamation” (4). Sadly, on January 27, 1967, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, a fire started during a manned launch-pad test of the new Apollo spacecraft. Three astronauts were killed in the fire. Despite this complication,

The objective of the Moon landing was a technological dispute, a provocation thrown down before our worldwide adversary, the Soviet Union. Although it is declared that we won this challenge, the profound effects of our victory are not often considered. Despite the Soviets claims to the contrary, it is clear that during the early sixties, the Soviets had accepted America’s challenge. “The breathless competition in space at that time was conducted with a seriousness that we can scarcely credit these days” (3), with each new “first” that America or USSR brought to the table being seen as the key to space triumph and in the end global