ipl-logo

The Space Race

1589 Words7 Pages

The main outreach of the United States government that explores new boundaries never touched before, invents products never thought possible before, and most importantly inspires people has had its budget slashed since its creation. In 1958, National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created in response to Sputnik, the first satellite launched by humans (Goldstein, 2007, p.1). Dwight D. Eisenhower did not want the United States to fall behind Russia in Aeronautics. This decision sparked what is known as the Space Race, within the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the US. Ever since then NASA has never been viewed in the same light as it was when the space race was going on. Currently, it has had to take a back seat to some other …show more content…

This was an enormous event in NASA history, their biggest accomplishment ever. A main player in the early history of NASA, was no other than John F. Kennedy. He delivered a motivating speech setting a goal most believed impossible. It gave people a goal to look forward to, a destination people want to help reach. NASA’s funding was at its peak when it accounted for 4.41% of the US federal budget, in the heat of the Cold War (Rodgers, 2010, p.1). It is very important to understand this because it reveals something interesting, that NASA was being used to help in war. As Goldstein (2007) explains, this is why they believe that funding for space exploration has decreased so much. Dr. Neil Tyson agrees with this in his book Space Chronicles: Facing The Ultimate Frontier. Ever since then NASA’s budget has been severely cut every year down to what it is today half a percent of the US budget (Zeller, 2014, p.1). NASA is not on the top of politicians priority list or the general public. According to a study, performed by Pew Research Center it found that people would like to do space travel but they do not want to pay the bill for it (Wormald, 2014, p.1). NASA started to get some backlash when they faced a setback, in the Challenger mission that blew up right after launch. Many people started to …show more content…

Due to mismanagement NASA has fallen victim to an inefficient system, within the agency and within congress (Chapman, 2015, p.1). It has been hard for NASA to accomplish anything because of the every changing political overtone it faces, every year it has to go through the process of changing the budget. NASA due to this struggles with being able to put together anything consistent due to ever changing budgets and politics. Within NASA there are many issue, proponents of inefficiency argue. For example, Chapman (2015) reported that NASA spent 1.5 million dollars on creating a video game to replicate traveling to Mars and life on Mars. Many politicians did not like to see taxpayers money go to simulating what being on Mars would be equivalent to. Tom Coburn, a senator of Oklahoma is one of the believers that NASA is too inefficient with their funds (Chapman, 2015, p.1). This tends to be a popular opinion as many citizens widely believe that the government is very

Show More
Related

Ronald Reagan's Speech: Addressing The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

915 Words | 4 Pages

(Dennis 714) By giving the members of the space shuttle crew recognition as “pioneers”, the speech had a smooth transition from its nature as sincere eulogy into a rhetorical work with a deliberative occasion. As soon as audience received a message implying that Challenger was a beginning instead of an end and how discovery has its risk, Ronald Reagan was in a good position to elaborate his objectives on the space program. Considering its effectiveness, the transition between the bad news and the new hope is one of the greatest features of the speech. This transition is crucial to connect two parts of the speech that are equally important.

Read More

Christa Mcauliffe's Life On The Challengers

840 Words | 4 Pages

When Ronald Reagan announced the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA)’s Teacher in Space

Read More

Analysis Of Address To The Nation On The Explosion Of The Space Shuttle Challenger

195 Words | 1 Pages

When President Reagan addresses the space program in his speech about the tragedy he states, “There will be more shuttle flights”(4). The positive outcome of this

Read More

Should We Cut NASA Funding Keith Yost Analysis

1086 Words | 5 Pages

Now that the Space Race is over, what is the point? Are we wasting our money? Should we cut their budget? When the cold war ended with the soviets in 1991, it sparked up a debate as to whether or not the funding for the National Aeronautics and space administration should be continued. Although it may seem like a simple fix, it has proved to be one of NASA’s greatest and most difficult challenges yet.

Read More

Ronald Reagan Challenger Disaster Rhetorical Analysis

1002 Words | 5 Pages

On January 28th, 1986, Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States at the time, in his speech, entitled “Challenger Disaster,” addressed the Challenger Disaster. He supported this claim by first mourning over the tragedy, then he promoted NASA, also he tried to make sense of this calamity, and finally he informed the audience that the seven astronauts will never be forgotten and as a country we will be forever thankful for their service. Through Reagan’s use of tone, rhetorical analysis, and rhetorical tools he effectively persuaded America to mourn and appreciate the lives of the seven astronauts loss and to convince American people to continue their support for NASA and move forward as a country. Reagan unified America with his supportive

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of NASA

149 Words | 1 Pages

Why do you think NASA should be unfunded? I think they NASA should be funded because they have an excellent crew and the projects made wouldn’t have happened without NASA. First, they’ve gotten a man on the moon! There’s rovers on Mars now discovering if people can live on there in the next couple of decades. They’ve sent a voyager to Jupiter to discover the patterns of the planet.

Read More

Why Is John F Kennedy A Good President

996 Words | 4 Pages

This organization has helped improve foreign attitudes towards the United States. He wanted the United States to lead the way in space exploration. Prior to his presidency, the United States was always one step behind the Soviet Union in space endeavors. JFK increased spending on the space program in order to try and get ahead in the space race. He was the first president to ask Congress for money to help land an American man onto the moon.

Read More

Analysis Of Neal Stephenson's 'Innovation Starvation'

1002 Words | 5 Pages

After witnessing the decline of new innovations by the world’s space programs since the ‘60s, he

Read More

Spending Taxpayer Money In Space Exploration

291 Words | 2 Pages

Should we spend taxpayer money to invest in the space program? The space program is a program to pioneer the future in space exploration. The program has consumed about 18.4 billion dollars on trying to explore the barren and empty place they call space. This money that 's used on this space exploration comes from our taxpayers.

Read More

Nationalism During The Space Race

163 Words | 1 Pages

The constant running of the space program in the news helped to provide the funding NASA needed. However, it was the America’s perception of its heroes that

Read More

John F Kennedy's Accomplishments

1213 Words | 5 Pages

In response, Kennedy, knowing he had to do something to let America reclaim the spot as the most powerful country in the world, announced, with the Cold War burning hotter than ever, that the US would send a man to the moon by the end of the 1960’s decade. In one of his most famous speeches titled, “We Choose to Go to the Moon,” Kennedy publicly said that the US is the best country in the world. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” This quote gives the Soviet Union a clear message about the US’s intentions; we are the hardest working, most resilient people on the face of this Earth but above all else; we can do anything we set our minds to. This mission was a hard one, and the US would be starting from a blank canvas, so in 1961, Kennedy created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to be responsible for the mission to the moon.

Read More

Geopolitic Engineering: The Space Race

681 Words | 3 Pages

The Space Race, a transformative geopolitical competition during the Cold War, revolutionized humanity's journey into the stars. This race for space exploration between the United States and the Soviet Union, ignited by the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, laid the seeds to groundbreaking technological advancements that continue to influence and enrich our lives today. The Space Race reached its pinnacle with the historic Apollo 11 mission in 1969, during which Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon. This extraordinary achievement underscored the power of human ingenuity and opened the door to new possibilities in space exploration.

Read More

The Creation Of NASA: Shooting For The Stars

799 Words | 4 Pages

NASA was introduced and given purpose by the simple pre-amble stating, “[NASA is] an act for research into the problems of flight within and outside the Earth’s atmosphere, and for other purposes,” (Garber and Launius). Another reason for the creation of NASA was so that the US could contribute to the International Geophysical Year by launching and orbiting a satellite, as approved by President Eisenhower (The Editors of Kennedy Space Center). This satellite that Eisenhower approved was called Project Vanguard and used a simple non-military rocket to get into space (which was a conscious decision considering that the Cold War was raging at this point in time). Though this was a great step for NASA, the hype from this launch didn’t last long simply because the Soviets took the next step, and it was a big one. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite (more technologically advanced) of the

Read More

NASA Persuasive Essay

918 Words | 4 Pages

This meant that NASA slowed down a lot too which gave way for private companies to have more room to do the things that NASA can’t anymore. Thespacereview.com, a great sight for information on space and NASA stated, “NASA has been actively pursuing three programs for human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit: the Space Launch System (SLS), the Orion spacecraft, and, more recently, the Deep Space Gateway. But progress on these three programs has been slow in large part due to inadequate funding.” (thespacereview.com) NASA has been wanting to do many things that would help the world of science, but because of the fact that NASA significant budget drop from 1965 to now they have been set back because of the lack on money. Washingtonpost.com, one of the biggest news papers around, proclaimed, “In 1965, it was 4.31 percent...the agency's budget will be less than one-half of 1 percent of federal spending” (washingtonpost.com)

Read More

Rhetorical Analysis Of Jfk Moon Speech

844 Words | 4 Pages

On September 12, 1962, at Rice University in Houston Texas, John F. Kennedy gave a powerful speech to garner support for the funding of the space race for the USA. He stated the importance of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade in its efforts against the Soviet Union and the expectation was met in 1969 by the astronaut Neil Armstrong. His speech forged a new path that the US was heading and inherently started the revolution of the exploration of outer space. Kennedy’s “Moon Speech” makes use of ethos and Kairos to persuade the people of America to become interested in and invest in the ongoing space race. A very important factor in JFK’s speech was his effective use of rhetoric, notably ethos, which he used to make himself become more believable and authoritative.

Read More

More about The Space Race

Open Document