Race to Space

The Race Into Space

Austin Stipanovic

Period 2

Introduction

In recent history, numerous countries have competed against each other for weapons, research, and advancement in military power. Among those races is the race to the moon. Taking a back seat behind the nuclear weapon race, the Cold War, and various wars, the lunar landing shined like a diamond in the rough of history. From Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin to Explorer I and Apollo 11, these pinpoints in history are the origin of the astrological era and modern research.

The conclusion of World War II marked the beginning of an arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States of America that stains the textbooks, and forever will. This also triggered a thirst for research in transportation, weapons, and, most importunately, missiles, leading to the largest contribution to science in ages. ICBMs, or Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, pioneered the rocket aspect of travel. The discovery that these missiles could escape the Earth’s atmosphere was groundbreaking. The Soviets had seen the potential of this technology, taking advantage of ICBMs and replacing the explosive aspect with space bound equipment. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, sparking the age of space exploration. This made headlines across the globe, and sent shockwaves of fear throughout the United States, fearing an attack of some sort from above. While the Soviet Union prompted the U.S. to speed up their progress, they quickly sent a dog into orbit in November, the first living thing to be in space. Shortly after in January of the next year, the US launched Explorer I, America’s response to the Soviet Union by the U.S. military, clearly marking the beginning of what we know as the space race. October 1, 1958, NASA is born, giving aeronautic and astrological advancement over to the citizens of the United States, with obvious guidance and funding of the U.S. government and making space a field of knowledge, instead of power and conquest. After several years, and a few small satellite missions by both countries, John F. Kennedy is sworn in as the President of the United States, placing enormous priorities in the space program. With the United States falling far behind in the race, the Soviet Union seems to deem themselves victorious by successfully putting the first human being into space, Yuri Gagarin. With news of this victory reaching President Kennedy, he makes a bold statement to politically combat the Soviets. “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” Kennedy said, ensuring the hopes of the U.S.’s newly founded manned space program. After constant lobbying by JFK to Congress for even more funding for NASA, his petitions were approved with consideration of his previous success in putting America’s first man into space, Alan Shepard, and also putting the first American, John Glenn, into orbit. The Soviet Union began to slow down in space exploration to focus on nuclear research in wake of an impending global conflict. While the U.S. was probing Venus and planning a plethora of manned missions, the U.S.S.R. was still orbiting the moon and repeating previous missions.