Short And Long Term Effects Of Sputnik

“HIstory more often records the brilliant successes and spectacular defeats of contending forces rather than the effect of war on the common people”-Mildred Cable. The Cold War was a conflict which started on March 17th, 1947 and ended December 26th, 1991. It started due to ideological differences between The Soviet Union and The United States, The Soviets wanting the world to be communist ruled while The United States wanting the world to consist of mostly capitalist countries. The Soviets had already started to turn countries they liberated from the Nazi’s into communist countries under their rule, these countries consisted of Ukraine, Georgia, Belorussia, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan,

In 1957, the Soviets had created a satellite by the name of Sputnik 1 which was the first manmade object in space, to launch this satellite they used a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile. This launch alarmed all Americans because, space was supposed to be the next frontier that America could conquer, that was not the only concern with the launch of Sputnik. A much larger concern was that if the R-7 could reach the heights of space there would be no problem for it to reach The United States, so the U.S. began gathering Soviet intelligence to insure that if they were going to attack the U.S. would be the first to know. About a year later the U.S. launches its own satellite into the Earth’s orbit engineered by the U.S. Army under supervision of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. The same year president Dwight D. Eisenhower made the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) an agency dedicated to space exploration. In addition to creating NASA Eisenhower decided to make two national security based space programs that would operate at the same time as NASA, the first of these two programs was led by the U.S. air force to find a potential military use for space. The second of the two programs was led by the CIA. A brand new organization named the National Reconnaissance Office (kept secret for another thirty years) which was code named Corona: it made it

The Arms Race began in 1949 and reached its peak when United States officials thought that the Soviets had better missile capability, but it was soon disproven by the CIA,not before it had already raised concerns within the country and frightened many many people. Politicians had used this as an opportunity to gain office and gain power through the citizens' fear. At the start of the Cold War the Soviet Union lacked the resources and knowledge to build atomic bombs, so they established spies inside of the U.S. to gather intel on how to one, and after they got the information they needed they quickly began production on it because of America's success in World War Two with the nuclear weapons like fat man and little boy. The U.S. continued the production of atomic bombs, and made an entirely new and more destructive one using hydrogen, and tested it in 1952. The Arms Race reached an entirely different level in 1962 when the JFK administration tried to usurp power from Cuba’s premier Fidel Castro, and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev signed an agreement to place Soviet missiles inside of Cuba to discourage another attempt to overthrow the Cuban government by the United States. As the missile bases were under construction the United States implemented a blockade surrounding Cuba and to avoid further John. F Kennedy and Krushchev exchanged demands. The