Sputnik And The Space Race

Since the beginning of time, humans have had a fascination with cosmos. Many great scientists have helped with our lust and wondering of the great beyond. For example Galileo Galilei- a sixteenth-century Italian Astronomer, who invented his telescope to help cure his curstoutiy of the stars in the sky. Scientists with his common interests are what made it possible to travel into an outer domain. When looking at space travel, it is important to look at what made the soviets decide to travel into space, determine who won the space race and what the United States gained by winning the race. World War II was coming to a closing in the mid-20th century, as a new conflict was arising, this conflict was known as the Cold War. This war was between …show more content…
The United States were honestly well behind the Soviets. On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. A 184 pound cannonball that circled the earth every 96 minutes. Sputnik was launched by a R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile( Kennedy 7). This was the world’s first artificial “satellite”, and the first man-made object to be position into the earth’s orbit. The states were concerned that the Sputnik was a spying device. Sputnik’s launched came as a shock, not a very delightful one either. To the United States, space was seen as the next step up. It was a revenant expansion for the american tradition of exploration. America was trying to be crucial not to lose ground with soviets. With this demonstration of power of the R-7 missile, this missile seem to be capable of hitting the States with a nuclear weapon( ). The united states believed they could redeem much of their lost prestige in the space in the space race by scoring the first in the field of satellites ( Logsdon 89). In 1958, the states launched a satellite, called Explore I, it was designed under the U.S Army, under the supervision of Wernher Von Braun a rocket scientist. This same year, was when President Eisenhower signed the public order creating NASA, National Aeronautic and Space Administration. NASA is a federal agency that’s dedicated to the space exploration.Eisenhower had created two national security-oriented space programs. They would operate as one with …show more content…
The states had “officially” won the space race by landing on the moon. That all started with the soviets first launching the sputnik in 1957. It was a close thought that the United States would actually fail. The soviets had made a total of four miss failed attempts to launch their lunar spacecrafts, between the years 1969 to 1972. This includes one major mishap with the explosion of a launch-pad in 1969. From being to the end of the space race. This had america’s people deeply involved with the public's attention. The programs and ideas by both the soviet and the U.S were heavily covered everywhere by the national media. This was an exciting era, people were extremely interested in this, it was honestly encouraged for people to use this as a new hit for television. “ Astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American heroes, and earth-bound men and women seemed to enjoy living vicariously through them. Soviets, in turn, were heavily pictured as the ultimate villains with their massive, relentless efforts to surpass america and prove the power of the communist system.” ( History.com Staff 4). In 1975, there was a mission conamed the Joint Apollo-Soyuz. The mission involved three U.S astronauts, who aboard the Spacecraft Apollo. Apollo docked (joined with another spacecraft) in orbit with the space vehicle the soviets had made named Soyuz. When conjoined the two commanders of the spacecrafts, greeted each other. Those two