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Recommended: The space race
In 1957 the Soviet Union sent a satellite into space, this made the United States want to surpass the Soviet Union. This competition between the Soviet Union and United States is what we know as the Space Race. Each country wanted to have the best technology and be the first to get a man in space. Humans were very skeptical of going into space, so instead they sent animals into space to test if it was safe for humans. The monkeys weren’t forgotten, even after the first humans reached space in 1961.
Approximately sixty years ago the United States sent two monkeys, a Rhesus and Squirrel monkey, into space. The monkeys were named Able and Baker, they were shot into space about 360 miles up and experienced about nine minutes of weightlessness.
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The Space Race started with the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in October of 1957, this was quickly followed by Sputnik II which carried a canine passenger. This was soon surpassed by the first human in space in 1961. The USA on the other-hand failed to respond effectively, it took several attempts before launching its own satellite, Explorer I, in January 1958.
Although men have gone into space, they were not the first ones there. Scientists sent a number of different animals up into space including monkeys. Both America and the Soviet Union sent monkeys into space, but the Soviet Union is more famously known for sending dogs. Many of the animals sent into space died on impact or in space. The first monkey that the USA sent that actually passed the Karman line and made it into space was Albert II. He was sent up in 1949 and died on impact. The USA chose monkeys because they were the closest relative to humans. They believed that sending monkeys into space would help prove that humans could survive in space. The first monkeys to survive in space and the trip back were Able and Miss Baker in
The feud between the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) lasted from the end of World War II until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The fuel that powered their feud was the desire to be the greater superpower. After World War II ended, the USSR gained control of Eastern Germany. On the night of August 13, 1961, a wall was constructed that divided the already separate East and West Berlin. This wall would become what was known around the world as the Berlin Wall. It stood as a barrier to freedom from the East Berliners. The Berlin Wall in Germany caused the USSR to lose the Space Race to the United States in 1969 because the USSR was communist, they alone had control of East Germany, and the United States was tough competition. With the Berlin Wall making tensions high in Germany during the 1960s, the USSR had a lot more business to take care of than they had thought.
"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," said by Neil Armstrong as he took his first steps on the moon during the NASA Apollo 11 expedition to the moon. No man has ever been to the moon before and NASA, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was the first to get someone to land on the moon. NASA has had many great accomplishments in exploring the "new frontier" that have affected the United States ever since it was first created in July 1958. The idea for NASA first started when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite on October 4, 1957. United States started up its own space travel program and started to work on its own projects that would be better in than the Soviet Union's. This all started the great space race. It was a big race between the Soviet Union and the United States to see who could learn and discover the most. The United States and Soviet Union started building and sending satellites and space ships. Then they tried to see who could make a suit and ship that would be able to allow a living thing to go up in space. They tested out all of the equipment with monkeys and dogs, seeing what would work. Many animals did die in the process but by the results of their testing they were able to build suits and ships that allow human beings to go up in space. Even though they were able to create these machines, that doesn't mean that they didn't have their difficulties and dangers. Two space shuttles were crashed or blown up. There were many key factors that they had learned to fix that resulted in the crashing of those ships. They have made many discoveries and accomplishments like having the first astronauts walk on the moon.
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 in the American public, resulting in the creation of NASA in the late 1950’s. This opened the door for space exploration today and for future generations. After World War II, the Cold War created tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States leading to extreme national pride and competition, culminating in the space race which began with the launch of Sputnik 1.
Early on in the race, the USSR was very successful. In 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, which triggered the start of the space race (John F. Kennedy). The United States began to scramble, trying to catch up with the Soviets. However, soon after, the Soviet Union completed another huge success. They sent the first man to orbit Earth (John F. Kennedy). In 1961 the USSR’s Yuri Gagarin became the first human to ever orbit the Earth (John F. Kennedy). The United States was still unsuccessful and beginning to look weak. After that, America got serious. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy asked Congress for around eight billion dollars to build up the space program over the next five years (John F. Kennedy). The president declared, “This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth” (John F. Kennedy).
Space Monkey: The launch of monkeys into space help the advancement for the containment effort in that once a life form can survive the launch into space human life will be able to go up as well. This would help the containment effort because it would give the United States an advantage that the other nations did not have. This advancement could help the United States launch attacks and spy on warring countries from a secure vantage point.
INTRODUCTION Attention-getter: “Space travel benefits us here on Earth. And we ain’t stopped yet. There’s more exploration to come.” (Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek) Credibility: Throughout our childhood as we study space, solar systems, planets we all come to a point of having the dream of exploring the space or learn more about it in the future.
The Space Monkey was the first animal into space for the U.S. The Space Monkey was also known as “Ham”, by his close friends and trainers. Then came that final day and that everyone new Ham would make history. “Ham woke up on January 31, 1961 like the average human did that day” (Life). He ate is breakfast and went on to finish the mission he was born to do. “He then boarded a NASA space capsule and was shot into space at thousands of miles per hour he then traveled more than 150 miles above Earth’s surface” (Life). The mission lasted about a little over 15 minutes. After everybody around the world heard about the mission being a success, they started to do the same. NASA and their employees started to train their animals a lot more to be able to make the mission there and back alive. Ham was one of the animals they started to train more and better. He was a quick, easy learner, and had fun with it. “What made Ham so unique and different than all the other animals was that he was trained on how to use the equipment and to stay away from electrical hazards if a malfunction or a circuit board were to overheat or blow up” (Animals in Space). Ham’s trainers worked very hard day after day, week after week on preparing him so he could s...
In 1957 the Soviets used a missile to launch a satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit around the earth. The arms race then became a space race as the United States rushed to launch its own satellites, some for military purposes.
After World War II both the United States and the Soviet Union realized how important rocket research would be to the military. So they each hired the top rocket scientists from Germany to help with their research. After they hired them both sides were making a lot of progress. The Space Race began in 1955 when the Americans announced that they would start launching satellites into orbit. The Soviets took the US announcement as a challenge and established a group whose goal was to beat the US in putting a satellite into orbit. Even though the United States started the competition the Soviets still won because they launched the first successful satellite into orbit, put a dog into outer space and also put the first man into outer space. Some might say that the United States won because they put the first man on the moon, which was a huge feat made by the Americans. So for winning many missions against the U.S. the Soviets won the Space Race.
Even in the late 19th century, few people believed such a feat was possible, and yet, a mere half a century later, the first man was launched into space (Irvine 5). How did the human race go from just dreaming about space to actually launching human beings into space in such a short time? Surprisingly, the United States’ space program started with the Cold War. The Cold War pushed the United States and the Soviet Union into a space race in which both nations rapidly developed space programs and tried to best each other in space exploration (Cold War 1). The Kennedy Space Center was built in Florida as a control center which handled many of the shuttle launches into space (NASA 1).
In Class None Without Sin Essay The documentary, None Without Sin, describes the choices that the artists Arthur Miller and Elliot Kazan made during the times of the red scare. Although Kazan confesses names to preserve his own Hollywood life, resisting to give names, like what Miller did, is the better choice and is more beneficial in the long run.
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...
Ham became the first chimp in space and also one of the first successful trips to space too. The flight lasted approximately sixteen and a half minutes.
Space travel was born from the flames of war – or in this case, the refrigerators of war. The Soviet Union and the United States were ready to show up each other in the fields of science and engineering, and with the recent advent of rocketry, it was evident that space was the next goal. Russia held the first few victories: including the first man-made satellite and the first man in space. Following these defeats, America picked itself up, and defeated the Russians on the race to the moon.
The first man to travel to space was Yuri Gagarin. History was made on April 12, 1961, when he successfully orbited the earth in the Votsok 1. His flight lasted one hour and 48 minutes and as he circled the earth, his speed was about 17,000 mph on the Votsok 1. Following this mission, Gagarin was killed in a test airplane crash .