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Space Race Essay

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The Space Race was a bunch of important events in human history, for The
United States of America, The Soviet Union, and the rest of the world. Soon after World
War II ended, The Soviet Union and The United States of America began a global battle, communism against democracy and socialism against capitalism. Space became a massive entity in the "war." Each side spent billions on besting the other's achievements in what later became known as the "Space Race."
The United States took action
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in
1958 as the federal agency with primary responsibility for the development of civilian aerospace research. Early Soviet successes in the space race had a major impact on
US society and …show more content…

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It would be the Soviets, however, who would win the race to put a man in space. In April
1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to enter Earth’s orbit, in a single-pilot spacecraft called Vostok I.
The 1967 year proves the most deadly of the Space Race for both the US and the Soviet Union. In January, American astronauts Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger
Chaffee die when a fire ignited in their Apollo 1 capsule on the launch pad. Only a few months later the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is also killed when the parachute on his Soyuz 1 capsule fails to open on his reentry into Earth's atmosphere.
But not everything was conflict and problems. With tensions between the US and USSR softening, the first cooperative Apollo-Soyuz mission is launched. With two separate flights, the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft dock in space, and the two commanders Tom Stafford and Alexei Leonov exchange the first international handshake. This act can be seen to symbolically end the Space Race, paving the way for future joint missions, such as the International Space Station and the Shuttle-Mir

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