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Sputnik 1: The Origins Of The Space Race

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Close your eyes, imagine sitting at home watching television sixty years ago. A public service announcement comes onto the screen. The Soviet Union has launched a satellite into space. This has never been done before. Is Russia more powerful than the United States with the ability to use satellites to gain targeting information for destructive missiles? In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Russia and the U.S. were both in a rise for total power. Sputnik 1, an artificial satellite was launched into space on October 4, 1957 by the Soviet Union. The United States had also been constructing a satellite for their own way of studying space. The Soviet Union has beaten the United States to the punch. The response of the United States was to better the …show more content…

The back and forth challenging by both countries would be known as the Space Race. The aggressive actions of Russia caused an uproar in the homes of American people, made the United States put their own space exploration into action and was the start of the race for ultimate power and discovery for new technology and information. The launching of Sputnik 1 created an uproar in the homes of American citizens. This event was such a shock to the United States because this was an achievement thought to be done first by the U.S. “The first American attempt, with the modest Vanguard 1 in December, was an embarrassing failure, immediately derided as “flopnik.” (Wilford). Russia had outsmarted the United States. Many people thought that the Soviet Union was able to use the satellite to gain targeting information for long ranged missiles. Eisenhower knew that the launching of Sputnik 1 scared many of people in the United States. Sputnik 1 was a great achievement that …show more content…

From 1957-1969 the race for power occurred between Russia and the United States (Timeline). During this decade the world went through spectacular revolution and gained a wealth of much needed information for development. “NASA’s first task was the development of a human space exploration program” (Launius). Only about 12 years after the launching of Russia’s Sputnik 1, the United States put a man on the moon. During those 12 years the United States and the Soviet Union learned an abundance of information from space study. The artificial satellite was one of the greatest discoveries our world has ever seen. There is a great quantity of satellites we still use in space study today. Satellites give us the ability to see upcoming weather, spot natural resources on Earth, navigate the planet, and help with communications. Without all of the help of satellites our cellular devices would not function and maps and navigation would be a lot less accurate. Communication and navigation are two much needed things in our society

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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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