Yuri Gagarin

of the Cold War and at the beginning of the “space race” between the United States and the Soviet Union, were enormously significant. The Soviet satellite “Sputnik” had been beeping overhead for 4 years, and only one year prior Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become…

flight”, one of NASA’s failed attempts back in November 1960(28). The failed Mercury-Redstone 1 was followed by a semi-successful attempt which was written off as successful because the rocket had somehow survived (34). Russia on the other hand sent Yuri Gagarin (1961) in orbit, thereby crowning him as the first human in space. Kranz admits that the American Space Task Group viewed the Russian success with both frustration and admiration (36). The author then brings to light the progress made by…

The end of the Second World War brought an economic and political crisis to the Soviet Union. The Cold War added forty-five years of geopolitical tension between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. The Soviet Union and the United States of America fought as allies in the Second World War. However, their relationship during the war was simply the result of having Nazi Germany as a mutual enemy. Rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States of America to become the…

meteorology and other purposes” [4], and was not limited to military options. Soon after NASA’s creation, work began on the Mercury Project, with the goal of achieving human spaceflight. However, they were beaten again by the Russians, who launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit on April 12, 1961. It was almost year later that the US achieved an orbital flight, manned by John Glenn. This delay was largely due to a series of launch failures by the Mercury program, leading to heavy criticism [5]. However…

By the 1890’s, America had absolutely the world’s most productive economy. The industry in the United States produced twice as much as Britain. On the other hand, Americans did not have any interest to expand their territory. America Justified its rise as a world power through three time periods; First, the rise of American imperialism that includes the Spanish-American war, and WWI. Second, WWII which will discuss the neutrality and the involvement of the U.S. in the second World War. And…

Refrigerators impact in the 20th century, especially its contribution to population growth and human development are often overlooked. For the former, many reasons are normally cited for the explosive increase of population. Listing some, the end of World Wars are major factors to baby booms, inventions and innovations during wars which were transformed to peaceful applications like trains and planes which carried soldiers/ weapon and dropped bombs respectively, were commercialized to transfer…

Two Sides of the Moon The book titled “Two Sides of the Moon: Our story of the Cold War in Space” is the result of a collaboration between an Astronaut and a Cosmonaut. It is a fascinating account of two men from two opposite sides of the space race. In this book, the American astronaut David Randalph Scott’s (Dave Scott) account of the space race is intertwined with the account of Russian Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. The reader learns through the book that Alexei Leonov was actually the first…

Space. More than just stars and stuff. Space is awesome. Both in scale and my opinion. Humans have dreamed of space travel, used stars for navigation and just generally drooled over the sky for thousands of years. There is a void surrounding us that is so large we call it “space”. But it’s not an empty, cavernous expanse, it’s filled with a multitude of stuff: from stars to planets, comets to black holes, there’s even a Super Sized Space Puddle.[1] Yet, some people aren’t interested in what is…

For millennia, humans have been looking up to the skies, wondering what is out there in the universe, and thinking about the glory of the moon and stars. During the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union, huge advancements in outer space technology were made, including the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. In 1958, the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, put America ahead in the space race against the Soviet Union, and set a worldwide standard for space…

On September 19, 1783, people gathered around Versailles. They eagerly awaited the exciting demonstration: the first hot air balloon flight with animals inside. They filled the balloon with hot air while the mesmerized people waited patiently. Flight was a foreign concept to them and people were skeptical if land animals could survive the flight. After they fastened basket on the bottom, they put a rooster, duck, and sheep into it. The flight began and astronomers reported it got up to 1600 feet…