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.
The origins of the Space Race can be found in Germany in the 1930s. During World War II, Nazi Germany was researching and building operational ballistic missiles and experimenting with liquid-fueled rockets. As early as 1942 and 1943, the rocket Aggregate-4 became the first vehicle to reach outer space and Germany began mass producing it as a ballistic missile. They called it Vergeltungswaff 2 which translates to Vengeance Weapon 2. It travelled at four thousand kilometers per hour and, because radar detection provided little warning, there was no defense against it. After the war, the Soviet Union and the United States used the V-2 as the basis of their rocket designs. As World War II was ending, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union all competed for Germany’s engineers and rockets. While all three Allies gained from this, the United States gained the most with Operation Paperclip. During this operation, the United States recruited Werner von Braun, the technical director of Nazi Germany’s missile program, as the lead rocket engineer as well as a large number of the V-2 rockets. The Soviets secured Sergei Korolev, a member of space clubs and early Soviet rocket design in the 1930s before he was arrested and imprisoned for six years, as their chief rocket and s...
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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.
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.
The 1960’s were full of questions, and one of the biggest questions the world was pondering about was regarding the Space Race: was the USA going to beat their communist enemy, the Soviet Union? The Space Race was a series of events that helped to symbolize and determine in the worlds’ eyes which form of government was better, communism (Soviets) or democracy (United States)? In the beginning of the race, the Soviets had the lead, and it was not looking good for America. Then the United States picked up the pace and spent well over eight billion dollars funding the space studies. This period of time made many scientists and astronauts heroes in the eyes of Americans. The Space Race was a combination of determination, intelligence, space projects, and American pride, all used to reach our exploration goals and surpass the Soviets.
At the end of WWII in 1945, the USA and the Soviet Union emerged as the world’s superpowers. This was a time of great tension, rivalry and distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was a time of political, diplomatic, military and economic rivalry where both nations wanted to emerge as the world’s new superpower. Hence, the Cold War would be of profound significance in the development of the space race as the space race was a key element in the rivalry of political, economic and social dominance.
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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.”
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
...unar surface Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder and with humanity's first step on the moon he said famously "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" (Neil Armstrong 1969). Whilst America was doing well the Soviets had quite a few problems, including the death of their lead rocket scientist, and several failed launches. This is what allowed America to pull ahead and finish far ahead.
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
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.
The race for space began with Russia’s launch of Sputnik, the world’s first space satellite, on October 4, 1957. This launch caught the attention of the United States for multiple reasons; not only did this mean that Russia had surpassed the US in space technology, but it also signified that Russia had the capability of launching nuclear weapons at the
When one thinks about the space race one’s mind automatically envisions connotations of the cold war; the Soviet Union battling against the USA for technological supremacy in spaceflight capabilities. This was not only a strategic race for national defence reasons but was also seen to be a pivotal stand point of national superiority. This is also the main basis of the majority of space law still in force today. But the reality is there is a space race occurring right now in the present day, not for national supremacy but instead for commercial supremacy no longer is there a search for strategic advantage it is now a race for profit gain.
Kennedy Space Center Story. 1991. The. 15 February 2010 http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/history/story/kscstory.html>. The "Reading Eagle" JFK Cites Red Threat: Declares Russia Will Lead Space Race for Some Time 13 April 1961: 1. The life of Konstantin Eduardovitch Tsiolkovsky.
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...
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 .