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How Did The Sputnik Impact The Space Race

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When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik , the world's first artificial satellite, on October 4, 1957, many Americans believed that this Cold War event signaled dangerous weaknesses in American science, the failure of American schools and complacency in American political leadership. Most disturbing was the fear that the Soviet Union had grabbed a decisive lead in the development of long-range missiles. Robert Divine analyzes the space race in the early 1950’s with Russia and how it affected the American space race program as a whole. Sputnik had a long-lasting effect on American life, spurring a national debate over the state of education, science, space exploration and security that lasted well into the 1960s. The principal focus of this clear-sighted …show more content…

For instance, although Divine used many budgetary examples, I would have liked to see more references to the effects of the U.S. budget after the Explorer I success. This was a key part of the space history, as it shifted some of the fears and doubts of the American public, and changed the space race with Russia permanently. I also would wish Divine had spent more of this book discusses the counterpart in this subject: Russia. Although he briefly analyzed the effects Russia had on our nation, I would like to have read more about how Russia was influenced by the Space Race, and its eventual defeat as the Americans were the first to land on the moon. This subject would play a key role in Divine’s thesis, as it specifically affected the actions and motives behind President Eisenhower and his administration during the Cold War and space exploration …show more content…

Both have many similarities in the timeline of events in the 1950’s. For example, when Sputnik was launched, the Russian leader threatened to destroy all capitalism in the world. At the time, this become influential in the actions of the United States. The American people were in fear of these threats, as they believed the Russians had made a technological breakthrough, as expressed in The Sputnik Challenge. Furthermore, both books discuss the dialogue between the Russian leader and the United States President. The Russian leader had granted a false promise to a meeting with Eisenhower. Eisenhower’s response was to meet personally with Khrushchev to solve the dilemma. However, Khrushchev failed to meet at the 1960 summit conference and refused to meet with Eisenhower. The Sputnik Challenge discusses the frustration of President Eisenhower during this time. Moreover, both pieces of literature analyze the amount of budgeting and excessive spending during this time period. The U.S. increased the NASA and space race budget by millions of dollars following Sputnik. Eisenhower further spent over $1.1 million each year on ICBM testing. The textbook later elaborated on Eisenhower’s farewell speech. Eisenhower worried that the United States would face many dangers if they continued to spend excessively on the

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The schools started changing; their curriculums became much stronger in math and science. It was more a goal to develop an engineer than attorney; it just really affected our schools.” From this quotation one can see that the space race influenced the education in the United States and changed it for the better. Bradt says, “Though Sputnik was a relatively simple satellite compared with the more complex machines to follow, its beeping signal from space galvanized the United States to enact reforms in science and engineering education so that the nation could regain technological ground it appeared to have lost to its Soviet rival” (Bradt). Although the Sputnik was not known to be technologically advanced it was the first thing to orbit the earth, it stunned people in the United States and caused an instant response.

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