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Space Race Thesis

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you Jericho Middle School Race to the Frontier: How the United States Won the Space Race Arav Shelat Social Studies: Period 4 Teacher Name: Michelle Vivante Date Due: December 12, 2022 Thesis "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."- Neil Armstrong In the 1950s the USSR launched a satellite called the Sputnik in space. When the US heard of this they were shocked and began to expedite their efforts to go to space thus starting the Apollo missions. The Apollo missions began in the 1960s as NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was directly competing with the SSP (Soviet Space Program). With a team of hundreds of scientists, the Apollo missions were successful in the …show more content…

The space race began somewhere around the 1960’s when the USA announced they would put a satellite in Earth's orbit but unfortunately the Soviets won that part of the race when they launched Sputnik 1. In response Edward Teller, the father of the Hydrogen bomb, described the event as, “a greater defeat for our country than Pearl Harbor.” In 1957 the Soviets also accomplished the first ever space walk. With these events, Senator Mike Mansfield stated that what is at stake is nothing more than our survival. One Congressman even quipped that Soviet’s success was just, "an intercontinental outer-space raspberry to a decade of American pretensions that the American way of life was a gilt-edged guarantee of our material superiority" Indeed, American superiority itself was being challenged when the Soviets began to enjoy the success of their labors by having frequent success with their space program. Great quotes. You need to remember to add your in-text …show more content…

A NASA space engineer named James Oberg who speaks Russian and has written multiple books about the U.S. and Soviet space programs wrote in Reason Magazine, “Many of the same elements that characterized preparations for the Apollo Moon Landings also showed up in the Soviet program.” Mr. Oberg also noted that Soviet cosmonauts during the 1960s spoke as though they were in a race with the U.S. to the moon citing Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, “I can positively state that the Soviet Union will not be beaten by the United States in the race for a human being to go to the moon.” Komorov added, “The U.S. has a timetable of ‘1969 plus X,’ but our timetable is ‘1969 plus X minus one’!.” implying that the Soviets would make it the moon a year before the

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As a result, both countries were constantly in fear of one another because each had the power and resources to destroy the other. If America could get to space first, it would mean we had a huge advantage over the USSR. Reagan put forth the ‘Space Defense Initiative’ which would protect us from the USSR space missiles (The History Rat, “Ronald Reagan and the Space Defense Initiative). Unfortunately, the USSR made it to space before us, but America was not far behind. For some Space Wars are viewed as a failure compared to the USSR, but for Reagan and most Americans, they view Space Wars as a success and a huge accomplishment for our country as a whole.

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In 1957, amidst the Cold War, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite into space, Sputnik I, triggering the efforts of the United States to surpass the technological advances in spaceflight capability of its communist rivals. After Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in April of 1961, the United States became more eager to reach supremacy in what came to be known as space race. However, for that to be achieved, more government funds would be required, which strongly depended on the consent and support of the American people. So, on the 12th of September of 1962, the 37th President of the United States, John F Kennedy, cleared any doubts of the commitment the United States had regarding space exploration with a speech aimed at restoring America’s confidence and convincing the American people to wholeheartedly support a manned mission to the Moon and back in that decade.

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During the space race, propaganda was used by the United States, and the soviet union to promote their achievements, ideas, and nationalism. The space race was not only a race to the stars but also a battle over ideologies, where propaganda was used to shape public opinion and peoples perceptions, propaganda in the space race served to educate the youth and engage them in their own system. The space race was a competition between the US and the USSR that showcased their respective ideologies through significant space achievements, such as the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 and the American Apollo moon landing in 1969, using these events as propaganda to bolster national pride and technological superiority. First of all, the space race was

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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

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The Space Race was a noteworthy and vital competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, both fighting for dominance and the lead in spaceflight technology, spacecraft, and achievements such as putting the first human into space. In the end, the U.S. had a fierce victory. However, this did not come easy. The hard work and dedication of people at NASA were the reason for this success.

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The race continued until 1969 when Niel Armstrong set foot on the moon (Seedhouse 128). The first satellite the Soviet Union launched into orbit was called Sputnik and it came as an unpleasant surprise to many Americans (“The Space Race”). Historians argue that the Soviet Union won the space race on October 4 1957 with the launch of Sputnik, but most agree it was just the start to the race (Seedhouse 128). After the launch of Sputnik the United States launched their own satellite in 1958 called explorer 1 which was designed by the United States army. The race began to heat up and the Soviet Union launched Luna 2 which became the first space probe to hit the moon (“The Space Race”).

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Sputnik began the Space Race. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the earth's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I. The US was disappointed to see the Soviet Union be the first to accomplish this scientific advancement. "The United States prided itself on being at the forefront of technology, and, embarrassed, immediately began developing a response, signaling the start of the U.S.-Soviet space race."

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"That's one small step for a man, and one giant leap for mankind. " These famous words by Neil L. Armstrong still ring true, but not in the way presented. After the end of WWII, a new conflict began between the Soviet Union and America, which later became known as the Cold War. Tensions between the two countries, who both were attempting to prove their systems of government were best, led to wars in Korea, a competitive arms race, extreme espionage, and issues such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. As the "war" dragged on, the eyes of the countries turned to space as the new frontier, with both countries determined to prove their dominance by accomplishing the most things in space.

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The Space Race: During the Cold War, the United

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It’s the 1950’s, World War II has just ended, the world is still recovering from the damages caused by the war. However, from the ashes of the war two countries rose to superpower status, The United States and The Soviet Union. During World War II these two countries were allies but after the war they became sworn enemies engaging in the Cold War to see who could get ahead on one another. One of the events sparked by the Cold War was the Space Race, again involving the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Space Race started after the Soviet Union managed to launch a beach ball sized satellite named Sputnik into orbit around the Earth thanks to the help of Sergei Korolev and his team.

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Around the same time both the U.S. and Russia announced the launches of their satellites Explorer 1 and Sputnik 1. But Russia took launching their satellite before the U.S. as a goal and successfully managed to launch Sputnik 1 first. After the successful launch of Sputnik 1, it became the first man made satellite that orbited earth. One month after the launch of Sputnik 1 the Russians launched Sputnik 2, that carried the first animal from Earth into space, a dog named Laika. Almost five months after the launch of Sputnik 1 the Americans launched Explorer 1 the first U.S. satellite.

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The United States' success in landing on the moon with Apollo 11 gave it a clear advantage over the Soviet Union in the space domain. This achievement opened up opportunities for diplomatic engagements, as the United States showcased its scientific and technological capabilities to the world. It also led to exchanges and collaborations with other countries in space exploration

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During the Cold War the US and USSR believed they needed to one up each other in technological advances to stay on top, when the USSR launched the world’s first satellite “Sputnik” into orbit in 1957, US citizens became worried that the US was falling behind in space exploration which many saw as the next American frontier. Shortly after this in 1958, NASA was created and launched its own satellite “Explorer I” designed by the US army, a year later, the USSR launched “Luna 2” which was the first space probe to hit the moon. In another big win for the Soviets, in 1961 they launched the first person to orbit the Earth, just a month later the US sent an American into space . Later that month President Kennedy made a bold claim saying that the US would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade, later that year, Project Apollo was put in place. The government upped NASAs budget by nearly 500% in the following years, in 1968 Apollo 8 was launched which orbited the moon, and just a year later Apollo 11 was launched which put the first people on the moon.

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The Soviets accidentally provoked the space race. In 1961 the Soviets were the first to send a man to space, his name was Yuri Gagarin. (History.com staff 2010)The Americans thought that the Russians were trying to challenge them so the Americans pondered that they could do way better than that,

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It put the USA’s and the USSR’s space/rocket development programs up against each other to put the first man in space and then onto the moon. The Space Race had its roots in the Arms Race and the Nuclear Rocket Program. As more and more money was piled into the Race it finally bore fruit for the Soviets on October 4, 1957, “a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into the Earth’s orbit” (The Space Race). The Americans put their own up the following year, Explorer 1, in the next 12 years’ great steps would be made in the field of Rocket propulsion systems and man would go into space, finally culminating with Neal Armstrong landing on the Moon in 1969. All these steps in Space exploration would never have been possible if the USA and USSR had not been continuously trying to improve on their own rocket systems in order to get ahead of each other in the Cold War.

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