Gender Boundaries In The Space Race

In the 20th century, there was a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union for supremacy in spaceflight capability. The race for space exploration gave birth to many advancements in science and technology that are still relevant today. This rivalry also created advancements in gender boundaries for women. But also brought a new wave of worries and problems such as safety and environmental hazards. Although technology would reach great heights in a shorter period of time than ever before and break gender boundaries, the Space Race brought along many negatives such as environmental hazards, mechanical failures, and medical hazards.

It is well known that throughout history women have been considered of lesser value than men in the space program. It was not until the United States government was in a race against the Soviets that this attitude began to change. The Space Race

With every attempt to explore more about space, more machines have ended up cluttering the atmosphere which then lead to an increased risk of collision for future space exploration (Ibid). Due to normal space operations there are hundreds of thousands of pieces of space debris floating in the atmosphere (Ibid). There have been two examples of space debris falling to Earth in recent history (Lovell 43). A 10-kilogram piece of a rocket belonging to the third stage of a Russian rocket crashed in an inhabited area of Finland (Ibid). Furthermore, there is also the time when the red-hot piece of Sputnik IV crashed in Wisconsin (Ibid). Given these incidents, and the uncontrolled space junk the near-Earth atmosphere may become too hazardous for future space operations (Reynolds, Rice, Edgecombe 117). Similarly to the dangers of space pollution, the Space Race also initiated an era of mechanical failures and malfunctions that would last for