Space Race Essay

“We were worried about the Americans, we wanted our colleagues to reach success because they represented human kind, and we understood that,” said Alecie Leonov, talking about the Apollo Eleven mission. Alecie was the first person to go on a space walk, a Russian cosmonaut. Even when the Russians and Americans were trying to beat each other in the space race when America went to the moon it was an achievement for all of human-kind. The space race is an important event in American history because America was the first country on the moon, but it was not a simple task, there were also lots of events that led to it and as a result we got many things that we use everyday today.
The U.S. was the first country to put a man on the moon and it gave

According to 100 Years, 100 Events, which is a project that documented 100 major events in the 1900’s, the very first rocket was a German war invention meant to go to London (“100 Years, 100 Events-1960’s”). Russia was the next major first with the first satellite, Sputnik. There were three Sputnik satellites, the first launched on October 4th, 1957 that weighed 184 pounds, the second launched on November third, 1957, and the third launched on May fifteenth, 1958, it weighed 2926 pounds (Sputnik). The second satellite actually carried the first living thing in orbit, it was a dog named Laika. Laika was a stray dog found in Moscow and was never returned to Earth. The Third Sputnik carried many tools and instruments for study of Earth's upper atmosphere. Russia was leading the space race for the first part. Russia had the first satellite, living thing, man, woman, and space walk. America was soon to catch up though because they put a monkey and then a man in space, John Glenn(“100 Years, 100 Events-1960’s”).. All of these events eventually led up to the first man on the moon.The journey to a man on the moon was not a simple one. A lot of small steps had to be made by each country involved to get where people are

A lot of technology that is used today, and developed from the space race, was not designed for people on Earth, it was designed about half of a century ago (Spencer). Not only were new technologies invented because of the space race, but lots were also improved by it. Some examples of these technologies are medical imaging techniques, more durable healthcare equipment, artificial limbs, water filtration systems, solar panels, shock absorbers, home insulation, air purifiers, infrared thermometers, weather protection on airplanes, and many others. One of the biggest examples is that the space race gave us a form of digital photography that is used in one third of all smartphones. The digital camera was first thought up by Eugene Lally. He originally wanted it to be a small, lightweight image sense made to withstand the extreme conditions of space. It was the idea of this image sense that later made the digital camera that one third of people have on their phones. Along with lots of technology for us, the space race gave us what people know as space exploration today, with even private space exploration companies like SpaceX (Spencer). The technology that was needed in the space race actually had more use than just in the space race, it created a lot of technologies that people use today. Without these advancements from the