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American Sputnik Essay

889 Words4 Pages

In any field, competition is something that is bound to come up. Even in something as varied as math, many famous mathematicians would compete to prove that they are the best. Likewise, the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States was not only a competition but a stepping stone in the United States’ development. When the Soviets launched Sputnik on October 4, 1957, it changed many things about the United States of America. The Sputnik launch marked the start of the space age and the US-USSR space race and led to the creation of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). With this loss, we realized we needed to work harder on expanding our knowledge and research. We not only wanted revenge but wanted to go farther …show more content…

The president at the time, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in support of this effort, approved a plan to orbit a scientific satellite as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) for the period July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958, a cooperative effort to gather scientific data about the Earth. Although President Dwight Eisenhower had tried to downplay the importance of the Sputnik launch to the American people, he poured additional funds and resources into the space program to catch up. The U.S. Government suffered a severe setback in December of 1957 when its first artificial satellite, named Vanguard, exploded on the launch pad, serving as a very visible reminder of how much the country had yet to accomplish to be able to compete militarily with the Soviets. He believed Space exploration reflected a genuine American desire for free civilian …show more content…

agencies secretly put all effort into the military options these projects would present: photographing enemy territory using reconnaissance aircraft and satellites. The United States spent about $30 billion on the space race from the time the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik satellite in 1957 until the moon landing in 1969. There had been strong resistance to federal aid to education, but as public opinion demanded government action in the wake of Sputnik, the Senate once again moved ahead with its education bill. Just a year after Sputnik, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), a $1-billion spending package to bolster high-quality teaching and learning in science, mathematics, and foreign languages. The National Defense Education Act became one of the most successful legislative initiatives in higher education. It established the legitimacy of federal funding of higher education and made substantial funds available for low-cost student loans, boosting public and private colleges and

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