The Space Race
Savi Krumenauer The cold war saw a competition between the world’s two greatest powers, the democratic capitalist, United States and the communist Soviet Union. Both sides would fight to have the best technology is space and who could achieve it first. As world war II was coming to an end, the Americans and the Soviets captured German rocket engineers and the rocket technology including V2’s. one recruitment of particular value for the Americans was the rocket engineer Wernher von Braun who would lead the U.S. program. The Soviets meanwhile, would recruit Ukraine born Sergei Korolev to lead the Soviet space program. In 1955, both countries announced that they would be launching satellites into orbit, the Soviet Russians took the lead by becoming the first to put a successful satellite into orbit when they launched Sputnik 1 in October 4th, 1957. Unfortunately for the Americans, their successful launch of their first satellite Explorer 1 would come a whole four months later. Next would come another remarkable achievement, and it would go again to the Soviets, the first man in space. In April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the earth, traveling in the spacecraft Vostok 1. When he came back to earth, Gagarin became a hero in the Soviet Union and a celebrity worldwide. The lagging U.S. launched the Freedom 7 three weeks later, and astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space. The Americans were embarrassed at being behind the S.U. and on May 25th, 1961 President John F. Kennedy made a bold claim to congress that America would be the first to land a man on the moon, and they would do it before the end of the decade. The Apollo program was launched. Meanwhile in February 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth, and on June 16th, 1963 Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel in space. NASA now had to increase in its budget to achieve its daunting goal of putting America on the moon first and by the end of the decade. As well as the Apollo program, it launched the Gemini program which would develop the technology needed for the former. Gemini would see the first American Ed White to space although the Soviets achieve the first when Alexei Leonov achieved a space walk for twelve minutes and nine seconds a few months before. Gemini would also see the first docking of two spacecrafts together in earth's orbit. After many test flights, training and experiments, the Apollo 11 spacecraft was launched into space on July 16th, 1969. Onboard were U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. It was not smooth sailing, Malfunctions came up and the lunar module named the Eagle had to be landed manually. On July 20th, 1969, the Eagle had landed on the moon's surface. Neil Armstrong stepped outside, becoming the first man to walk on the moon. He would say those famous words, “ that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” By landing on the moon first, and with Soviet lunar landing attempts, failing between 1969 and 1972, America had won the Space Race, and now that it had been achieved, interest in the lunar missions was dying down. By the 70’s, U.S. -Soviet relations improved and in 1975 a joint program between the two powers called the Apollo-Soyuz mission would send three U.S. astronauts aboard an Apollo spacecraft and dock in orbit with the Soviet Soyuz vehicle. The First joint U.S. Soviet space flight and the handshake between the commanders of both crafts symbolize the improvements of U.S. -Soviet relations in the late Cold War. sources:https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/space-race
http://www.nationalcoldwarexhibition.org/schools-colleges/national-curriculum/space-race/ https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/nasa-langley-and-the-space-race https://www.popsci.com/chinas-race-to-space-domination |
john glenn
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