On October 4, 1957, a group of scientists from the U.S. and the Soviet Union gathered at the Soviet Union’s embassy in Washington, D.C., at the end of a week-long international scientific conference. Most walked into this meeting expecting an ordinary evening- but by the end of the night, everyone there realized that the occasion would turn out anything but ordinary. At 6:00pm, a reporter from the New York Times who was attending the reception, named Walter Sullivan, ducked out to answer a phone call from his Washington Bureau chief. When he came back in some time later, he went straight to Richard Porter, a member of the American team trying to launch an American satellite and whispered in his ear two simple words that would change everything, …show more content…
The Cold War, which began at the conclusion of World War II, was a battle for ideology, technology, and military superiority between the Soviet Union and the United States. Space was becoming an important battleground for competition between the two superpowers, for two main reasons. The first was that space was yet another arena to attempt to prove superiority over the other. Whoever was able to become dominant in space first could claim leadership in a major technological field and enjoy an instant boost in nationalism, something that meant a lot during this unconventional war. The second was that many believed that objects launched into space would either be able to spy on the other country or, if necessary, to launch an attack (“Sputnik, 1957”). And indeed, when Sputnik was launched, Americans immediately began to fear that if the Soviets could attach a satellite to an intercontinental ballistic missile, they would be more than capable of sending a nuclear warhead into U.S. airspace (“The Space Race”). If Sputnik had been launched twenty, thirty, or forty years later, it likely wouldn’t have caused such a stir, but in the context of the time, the Soviet announcement had resounding
The Soviet’s were responsible for putting man on the moon, rovers on Mars, and launching the Hubble Space Telescope. Indeed, it was the United States’ foes that drove the U.S. to accomplish perhaps the greatest feats of the twentieth century. Following the defeat of Germany and Japan in World War II, tensions between former allies, the United States and the Soviet Union, began to grow. In the following decades, the two superpowers would duke it out in competitions and tremendous shows of nationalism. They formed unmatchable rivalries in politics, economics, sciences, and sports. These rivalries would become clear when two countries competed in the space race, a competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union concerning achievements in the field of space exploration. The Soviet’s took the early lead as they put the first satellite, Sputnik 1, into space. The launch of Sputnik 1 established a sense of fear into the American Public, resulting in the creation of NASA in the late 1950’s which opened the door for space exploration today and for future generations.
In 1980, it seemed like the United States was not as dominant in the world as it had been before. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union began after World War II. The two nations had joined forces as members of the Allies, but tensions arose after the war. The Americans were very worried about the spread of Soviet communism, and tried to prevent it with a policy of containment, where the United States would protect countries from outside oppression. The Cold War also expanded to include the race between the Soviets and Americans to create atomic weapons. Furthermore, there was a race between the two countries to put the first man in space, which was accomplished by the United States in 1961 (“Cold War History”). The Cold War was a standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union to try to prove their dominance in the world. Each country wanted to have more power and diminish the power of the other. At home, Americans were paranoid with the thought of Soviet spies and communists hiding amongst them, dubbed the “Red Scare.” President Richard Nixon and the Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic A...
Following the conclusion of the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union made it a priority to outdo each other in every possible facet from arsenals of missiles to international alliances and spheres of influences. Yet when the Soviets launched Sputnik on October 4th, 1957, the world changed forever. The first manmade object was fired into space, and it appeared that American technology and science had fallen behind. Yet, the public feared that not only were they now technologically inferior to the Soviets, but also deduced that if a satellite could be launched into space, a nuclear missile could just as likely reach the mainland United States. Less than a month later, the Soviets pushed the bounds of technology yet again by
The “Fairness of Taxation or Wealth Tax” is where taxes are calculated by the net worth of the person or the couple (household). This would be hard for tax collectors to determine each and every component of net worth of a person.
The cold war by the late 1950s had weaved into the everyday life of society for both countries. The announcement from the US that they will launch a satellite into orbit was challenged by the Soviets. On October 4th 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. This was the world’s first artificial satellite and man-made object to be in earths orbit. The launch was unexpected to the US, having caught them off guard. As a result Sputnik began to raise fears amongst the public, fearing the possible event of a nuclear attack, due to previous cold war
The Space Race is remarkably similar to that of the arms race because of the parallel between the creation of the atomic bomb and the goal of reaching the moon. The United States’ bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki effectively established its place as the technologically superior nation; however, major milestones in space achieved early by the Soviets damaged America’s reputation. In 1957, Soviet scientists shocked the world by successfully launching the Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, beyond the Kármán Line (the boundary of space). This amazing breakthrough “rattled American self-confidence”. It cast doubts on America’s vaunted scientific superiority and raised some sobering military questions.”
Recruiting 1,600 Nazi scientists in order to prevent their knowledge falling into Soviet hands, at the time the USA and the Soviet Union’s relationship was on a thin line. The ex-scientists were offered sanctuary, documents/visas in exchange for their advanced knowledge.
On October 4, 1957 Russia launched a rocket named Sputnik ( faculty etsu, 2001). The United States (U.S) was caught off guard. Sputnik had the ability to orbit the Earth in just 96 minutes and transmit a frequency easily heard with an amateur radio (Figure 1). If the Russian could launch a satellite under our noses without our knowledge and have the ability to send a signal into our homes in 1957 it was clear that the U.S. was unprepared and had under estimated the ability of their adversaries. We clearly needed a new way of doing business, a new way of defending our country and our families. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had now received a wakeup call, it was time to act. Our enemy could now be thousands of miles away, and still able to get into our homes. The enemy could get to our families without even stepping foot into our homes. The world as we knew it would never be the same.
The Americans took a much more urgent approach after seeing what the U.S.S.R. was truly capable of. The United States would respond with various satellites including those of the Explorer Series and more. However, the Soviet Union would again one-up the United States, and all of their now seemingly feeble satellite launches, by putting the first man into outer space, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961. Now the quest gained an even more competitive drive and the United States soon put Alan B. Shepard into space twenty-three days later. The Space Race was truly a trek for the firsts of history, essentially just exterrestrial one-ups throughout an extended period of time. That very same year, John F. Kennedy founded NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, just for that purpose, to explore the world beyond their own, while maintaining the central aim, to beat the Soviets outright. JFK was a leading power in this race, and “by giving NASA programs top priority, his actions essentially played on American fears of communism and implicitly inferred that the Eisenhower administration had not done enough to meet the Sputnik challenge. Too many Americans were beginning to feel a need to vindicate the ‘long-standing communist boast that theirs was the superior system for galvanizing human productivity’” (Koman 43). Winning this space race was way more than just an extraterrestrial victory, it would hopefully squander the communists’ hopes and assert true American dominance. The United States sought to eliminate any presumption of communist superiority and did so in the near future by winning this Cold War space race, thanks to the execution of a truly unimaginable
Nevertheless, the first steps were taken by John F. Kennedy and Krushchev after the Cuban missile crisis, firstly by installing a Hotline between the two countries in order to encourage a more fluid communication between the Soviets and the Americans. After the tensions, both sides realized how primitive their direct communication methods had been. For inst...
The expansion of the television in the 1950s brought civil rights to the attention of americans. From the media coverage of the Rosa Parks incident to the first ever TV show hosted by an African American in 1950 were the first sparks of a movement that would catch fire in the 1960s (“1950s”). Another prominent technological invention of the 1950s was the hydrogen bomb invented on November 1st 1952. After the United States invented the hydrogen bomb in less than a year, on August 12th 1953 the Soviet Union detonated their first hydrogen bomb. Throughout the 1950s the Cold War was going on between the United States and the Soviet Union and the invention of the hydrogen bomb started an arms race to see who could make the most bombs in the shortest amount of time. This technology further escalated the Cold War and brought it to a tipping point in the next decade (Shmoop Editorial Team). Another technology that intensified the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was the launch of the first satellites Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 by the Soviet Union which started the space race. The launch of Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 caused a massive uproar in the american public which lead to the launch of America’s first satellite Explorer 1 on February 1st 1958 and the creation of NASA on July 29th 1958 a year after Sputnik 1 and 2 in 1957 (Virginia and Hugh pg. 19-20). All these technological
Politically, the Soviet Union and the United States were in an arms race as well as a space race which impacted the two countries greatly(413). After the USSR launched Sputnik, U.S. tried make more advancements in the space race. Meanwhile, Russia’s dive into creating the intercontinental ballistic missile put America in a tight spot. America however countered ICBM with its own version. Because of the arms race between the
Civilization. Jan./ Feb. 1995: 30 - 39. Smirnov, Yuri, Adamsky, Viktor. “Moscow’s Biggest Bomb: The 50-Megaton Test of October 1961.” Cold War International History Project.
In a world where global power is often wielded like a carving knife, James Gillray's 1805 satirical masterpiece "The Plumb-pudding in Danger" serves up a biting critique of imperial ambition, transforming the Earth into a plum pudding to be greedily devoured by two of history's most iconic leaders. Through this striking metaphor, Gillray not only skewers the voracious appetites of Britain and France, but also invites viewers to ponder the ethical and emotional ramifications of their unquenchable thirst for domination. Through the symbolic depiction of the Earth as a plum pudding, Gillray critiques the voracious greed of the British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, successfully analyzing the symbolism
The space race was the product of the Cold War. It was an effort to prove technological superiority but on the other hand, it was also feared on both sides that weapons of mass destruction will be placed in orbit. In 1957, the Soviet Union sent the 184 pound Sputnik 1 satellite into Earth’s orbit. It was the first artificial satellite and the first manmade object to be placed into Earth’s orbit. Following that, they also sent the first animal into space, Laika the dog. In 1958, the United Sates also launched their first satellite into orbit, dubbed Explorer 1. The Soviet space program advanced once again in 1959. The Soviet Union launched Luna 2, which was the first space probe to hit the moon. In April 1961, the Soviet Union had the ultimate success, sending the first human into space. The name of the Russian cosmonaut was Yuri Gagarin, who made a 108 minute suborbital flight in a Vostok 1 spacecraft. One month after that, Alan Shepard became the American in space aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft. Continuing from there, each nation step...