essay on the space race

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project...will be more exciting, or more impressive to mankind, or more important...and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish...."  —President John F. Kennedy, 1961 

In 1961, President John Kennedy called on the nation to send a man to the Moon. In 1969, the United States did just that. Today, many are familiar with the story of Neil Armstrong’s first few steps on the Moon (cue the “That’s one small step...” quote), but have you ever questioned why we invested so much time, effort, and national attention in getting there? 

From an Arms Race to a Space Race 

The Space Race began as an arms race between the respective militaries of the United States and the Soviet Union. World War II had demonstrated to the world that rocket technology would drive modern warfare, and as such the U.S. and Russia locked themselves in a race to have the most superior technology. As technology advanced and powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were developed by both countries, the arms race gave way to another race—the Space Race.  

At the start, there were no set rules for the Space Race. What was the goal? What would count as winning? For Americans, President Kennedy's declaration focused the Space Race on a clear goal: landing a man on the Moon before the Soviets. The Space Race became a race to the Moon. 

Both countries made announcements to launch the first artificial satellite into space, but it was the Soviet Union that brought humanity into the Space Age with their Sputnik satellite, which was successfully launched on October 4, 1957. 

The Space Race became a symbol of the broad ideological and political contest between two rival world powers. In the Soviet Union, all space programs were integrated into a secretive military-industrial bureaucracy. Launches were not announced in advance, and only the successes were publicized. Comparatively, in the United States there were separate civilian and military agencies. Only military space programs were secret. Civilian space activities—especially the race to the Moon—were openly publicized for the world to see, failures and all. For years, the Soviets officially denied being in a race to the Moon. However, we now know there is ample evidence that they indeed competed to reach the Moon first. 

Not Yet a Moon Shot 

Before Kennedy’s call to send a man to the Moon, the early years of the Space Race marked successes through headline making “firsts”: the first satellite, the first man in space, the first woman in space, the first spacewalk. To the dismay of the United States, each of these early feats was achieved first by the Soviet Union. These events triggered a drive to catch up with—and surpass—the Soviets. 

Despite the United States’s hopes that it would beat the Soviet Union in launching the first artificial satellite into space, initial launch attempts using the Navy’s Vanguard rocket ended in disaster. Public response to the Vanguard failures prompted national soul-searching in the United States. The media questioned why "Ivan" could accomplish things that "Johnny" could not. 

After the first Vanguard failure, the Army gained approval to attempt a satellite launch. On January 31, 1958, a modified Redstone missile, the Jupiter-C, lofted America's first satellite, Explorer 1, into space. In March, the Navy's Vanguard succeeded in its third attempt to launch a satellite. Although still behind, America had rallied after its initial stumble and was now in the Space Race. 

Shooting for the Moon 

President Kennedy wanted to know what the United States could do in space to take the lead from the Soviets. Vice President Lyndon Johnson polled leaders in NASA, industry, and the military. He reported that "with a strong effort" the United States "could conceivably" beat the Soviets in sending a person around the Moon or landing a person on the Moon. As neither nation yet had a rocket powerful enough for such a mission, the race to the Moon was a contest that the United States would not be starting at a disadvantage. On May 25, 1961, when President Kennedy announced the goal of landing a man on the Moon, the total time spent in space by an American was barely 15 minutes. 

Although the United States has turned its sights on the Moon, there were many other “firsts” that needed to be met before they would be ready for a crewed landing on the surface of the Moon. The Soviets would beat the Americans to the finish line in many of these. Although it seemed that the U.S. still lagged behind the U.S.S.R. in space, in reality the United States was following a methodical step-by-step program, in which each mission built upon and extended the previous ones. The Mercury and Gemini missions carefully prepared the way for the Apollo lunar missions. 

The one-person Mercury missions developed hardware for safe spaceflight and return to Earth and began to show how human beings would fare in space. From 1961 through 1963, the United States flew many test flights and six crewed Mercury missions. 

After Mercury NASA introduced Gemini, an enlarged, redesigned spacecraft for two astronauts. Ten crewed Gemini missions were flown from 1964 through 1966 to improve techniques of spacecraft control, rendezvous and docking, and spacewalking (extravehicular activity). One Gemini mission spent a record-breaking two weeks in space, time enough for a future crew to go to the Moon, explore, and return. 

A Moon Landing and New Priorities  

The Apollo program saw many triumphs, such as the success of the Saturn V rocket, and quickly put the United States on path to the Moon. On July 21, 1969, as millions around the world watched on television, two Americans stepped onto another world for the first time. The United States successfully landed humans on the Moon and returned them safely, fulfilling President Kennedy's vision and meeting the goal that inspired manned spaceflight during the 1960s. 

When the race to the Moon ended, the Soviet and American human spaceflight programs moved in different directions. For many Americans, landing on the Moon ended the Space Race. Some expected the Apollo missions to be the beginning of an era in which humans would begin to inhabit outer space as they did Earth. Others questioned whether costly human spaceflight should continue now that the race, at least in their eyes, was won.

For the Soviets, the competition with the United States did not end. They began to pursue longer term goals, such as establishing a permanent presence in space with a series of Earth-orbiting space stations. They also began to explore the other planets with robotics and probes, just like the United States. 

While the race to space may have slowed down slightly after the first human landed on the Moon, the Cold War still raged on for another two decades. Finally, between 1989 and 1990, the Berlin Wall—which separated Soviet-controlled East Germany from Western Germany—fell and Germany was reunified. In 1991, the Soviet Union itself dissolved, and with it, the Cold War.

Competition in space has continued throughout the three decades following the collapse of the USSR and the seeming end of the Cold War. The United States and Russia have entered into cooperative agreements, most notable the assembly and occupation of the International Space Station that began at the beginning of this century. In contrast, each side has maintained its own independent security and industrial interests in space.

Reconnaissance, surveillance, and military communications spacecraft retain their importance in the American Department of Defense and the Russian Ministry of Defense. And, as is true with other large and powerful nations, each has its own location, timing and navigation satellite system. While systems such as the U.S. GPS has a familiar civilian use, the highest capabilities of these systems are reserved for military uses.  

Sabotage or reduction of each other’s space based infrastructure is a continual effort on both sides of the continuing space race. Twenty-first century militaries rely on space-based infrastructure for successful operations. Finding the means to diminish that reliability for the other side could determine the outcome in battle. And Russia and China, over the objections of the rest of the world, continue to experiment and test space-based weapons that can physically attack another nation’s orbiting satellites. So, while examples of cooperation and collaboration had replaced some of the modes of high-profile competition of the 20th century Space Race, the race to achieve technological advantage in space continues today. 

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The Space Race

By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 21, 2020 | Original: February 22, 2010

After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle pitted the world’s two great powers—the democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union—against each other. Beginning in the late 1950s, space became another dramatic arena for this competition, as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower and–by extension–its political-economic system.

Causes of the Space Race

By the mid-1950s, the U.S.-Soviet Cold War had worked its way into the fabric of everyday life in both countries, fueled by the arms race and the growing threat of nuclear weapons, wide-ranging espionage and counter-espionage between the two countries, war in Korea and a clash of words and ideas carried out in the media. These tensions would continue throughout the space race, exacerbated by such events as the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the outbreak of war in Southeast Asia.

Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War competition. On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik (Russian for “traveler”), the world’s first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into the Earth’s orbit. Sputnik’s launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans. In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets. In addition, this demonstration of the overwhelming power of the R-7 missile–seemingly capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into U.S. air space–made gathering intelligence about Soviet military activities particularly urgent.

Did you know? After Apollo 11 landed on the moon's surface in July 1969, six more Apollo missions followed by the end of 1972. Arguably the most famous was Apollo 13, whose crew managed to survive an explosion of the oxygen tank in their spacecraft's service module on the way to the moon.

NASA Is Created

In 1958, the United States launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun . That same year, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a public order creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA ), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration.

Eisenhower also created two national security-oriented space programs that would operate simultaneously with NASA’s program. The first, spearheaded by the U.S. Air Force, dedicated itself to exploiting the military potential of space. The second, led by the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ), the Air Force and a new organization called the National Reconnaissance Office (the existence of which was kept classified until the early 1990s) was code-named Corona; it would use orbiting satellites to gather intelligence on the Soviet Union and its allies.

Space Race Heats Up: Men (And Chimps) Orbit Earth

In 1959, the Soviet space program took another step forward with the launch of Luna 2, the first space probe to hit the moon. In April 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit Earth , traveling in the capsule-like spacecraft Vostok 1. For the U.S. effort to send a man into space, dubbed Project Mercury, NASA engineers designed a smaller, cone-shaped capsule far lighter than Vostok; they tested the craft with chimpanzees  and held a final test flight in March 1961 before the Soviets were able to pull ahead with Gagarin’s launch. On May 5, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space (though not in orbit).

Later that May, President John F. Kennedy made the bold, public claim that the U.S. would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. In February 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, and by the end of that year, the foundations of NASA’s lunar landing program–dubbed Project Apollo –were in place.

Achievements of Apollo

From 1961 to 1964, NASA’s budget was increased almost 500 percent, and the lunar landing program eventually involved some 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 employees of industrial and university contractors. Apollo suffered a setback in January 1967, when three astronauts were killed after their spacecraft caught fire during a launch simulation. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union’s lunar landing program proceeded tentatively, partly due to internal debate over its necessity and to the untimely death (in January 1966) of Sergey Korolyov, chief engineer of the Soviet space program.

December 1968 saw the launch of Apollo 8, the first manned space mission to orbit the moon, from NASA’s massive launch facility on Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral, Florida . On July 16, 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong , Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins set off on the Apollo 11 space mission, the first lunar landing attempt. After landing successfully on July 20, Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon’s surface; he famously called the momen t “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Who Won the Space Race?

By landing on the moon, the United States effectively “won” the space race that had begun with Sputnik’s launch in 1957. For their part, the Soviets made four failed attempts to launch a lunar landing craft between 1969 and 1972, including a spectacular launch-pad explosion in July 1969. From beginning to end, the American public’s attention was captivated by the space race, and the various developments by the Soviet and U.S. space programs were heavily covered in the national media. This frenzy of interest was further encouraged by the new medium of television. Astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American heroes, and earth-bound men and women seemed to enjoy living vicariously through them. Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the power of the communist system.

With the conclusion of the space race, U.S. government interest in lunar missions waned after the early 1970s. In 1975, the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission sent three U.S. astronauts into space aboard an Apollo spacecraft that docked in orbit with a Soviet-made Soyuz vehicle. When the commanders of the two crafts officially greeted each other, their “ handshake in space ” served to symbolize the gradual improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late Cold War era.

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What was the space race?

The space race was a period of competition between the Soviet Union and the United States over who could conquer space exploration first.

• First man in space
• Apollo program
• End of the space race
• Modern space race
• Additional resources

The space race was a series of competitive technology demonstrations between the United States and the Soviet Union, aiming to show superiority in spaceflight. 

It was an outgrowth of the mid-20th-century Cold War, a tense global conflict that pitted the ideologies of capitalism and communism against one another, according to an online exhibit from the National Air and Space Museum . 

From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, the two superpowers were embroiled in a bitter competition over who could 'conquer' outer space first. Beginning with the launch of the first satellite and culminating with a joint mission between the two superpowers, the space race was a unique period in space exploration.

How the space race began

Following the end of the Second World War, a bitter ideological conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union known as the Cold War , began. The Cold War had many battlefields, from the United States' intervention in Vietnam to the nuclear arms race. Another area of conflict was the battle to 'conquer' the exploration of space first. The first aim of this "space race" was the launching of an unmanned object, a satellite, which could successfully orbit Earth.

The United States first began planning this venture in 1954, according to a NASA article . However, on Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union announced that they had successfully launched a satellite, Sputnik . A month later they followed this with the launch of Sputnik 2, which carried a dog named Laika , making the Soviets the first to send a living creature into outer space, according to the Royal Museums Greenwich .

In the United States, the response to the news that the Soviet Union had sent an object into outer space, caused public panic. "When Sputnik launches, President Eisenhower doesn't see it as an existential threat," according to Brian C Odom, acting Chief Historian for NASA. "He sees it as just what it was, the Soviet Union launching a transceiver transmitter into orbit. But the American public saw it differently, right because they saw it as this larger cold war competition." 

Following the launch of Sputnik, it was deemed appropriate that a private organization should be founded in order to best facilitate the burgeoning American Space Program, according to NASA. In late 1957, America's first attempt at a satellite, the Vanguard TV-3, almost immediately crashed back onto the launchpad, according to The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum . Although the successful launch of Explorer 1 on Jan. 31, 1958, did help soften this blow, it was still decided that a private body should be set up. 

There were other factors involved too. "Eisenhower's chief problem during this period was which branch of the military would be responsible for developing a launch vehicle," according to Odom, "however, this was problematic because it put the various branches in competition with each other. Eisenhower was really trying to disentangle all the military branches from being in competition with each other and move space exploration into a government agency dedicated to peaceful, open communication."

NASA officially opened for business on Oct. 1, 1958. However, the early years of NASA were a far cry from what the organization would become. The fledgling institution was in the process of finding its feet and discovering how it would approach the various problems concerned with launching both humans and objects into space.  "In those early years, particularly 1958-1961, NASA was working to understand what its overall program would be," Odom said. 

"What were its priorities, where would it apply the majority of its funding? There was a huge element of NASA that was thinking, what are the scientific questions that this agency is going to answer? Questions like what can we do with satellites in space? It was kind of a wild west, It was trying to figure out what it wanted to be."

The first man into space

On April 12, 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man into space when he successfully completed a 108-minute flight orbiting Earth a single time, According to New Scientist . Following the flight, Gagarin became a celebrity within the Soviet Union but was kept from returning to space due to the authority's fears that, were there to be an accident, they could lose a useful propaganda tool, according to the BBC . However, on March 27, 1968, Gagarin died in an accident during a routine training flight, according to Phys.Org .

A month after Gagarin's historic flight, on May 5, 1961, the United States was able to catch up with their Soviet Rivals, when Navy Test pilot Alan Shepard became the second man into space, according to The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Because of the placement of the portholes in the capsule, Shepard was, unfortunately, unable to view any stars, according to his flight report . 

"Following Shepard's flight in May 1961, it became very clear that the space race was continuing,"  Odom said. "President Kennedy committed to the lunar program and once that commitment was made, the resources came with it. NASA's attention for the next seven or eight years was focused on putting a man on the moon." 

A major turning point in the space race occurred that same month when U.S. President John F. Kennedy stood before legislators in Congress and announced that he had committed NASA to landing people on the moon before the end of the decade.

Dangers of the space race

Alongside the victories there were also many losses, reaffirming just how dangerous space flight could be. On Jan. 27, 1967, the U.S. program had its first major disaster when a flash fire broke out during a simulated launch for the first lunar module, Apollo 1 . The first death of an astronaut during a mission was that of the Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. On April 24, 1967, Komarov's craft Soyuz 1 crashed when its parachute became tangled, according to the BBC . 

But how does contemporary, or more recent spaceflight, compare to these early pioneering years? "One thing to stress is that space exploration has not gotten easier," Odom said. 

"The challenges that were there in the very beginning are still the challenges that we face today. Yes, they were developing brand new systems and putting human beings at the top of rockets that were built for nuclear delivery systems [the Mercury and Gemini programs ] but what we've learned over the decades of space exploration is that it hasn't gotten easier."

Aim for the moon

On Sept. 12, 1962, President Kennedy delivered a speech at Rice University Stadium, providing a clear goal for Americans in the developing space race: to put a man on the moon with the Apollo Program . "We choose to go to the Moon" Kennedy began" in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills," according to the JFK Library . 

Kennedy's speech followed an earlier one made to Congress on May 25, 1961, following Yuri Gagarin's successful spaceflight, according to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum . Shortly after this speech, NASA's budget would increase by 89% and its research would now have one clear long-term aim in mind - though there would be other victories and developments in the short term. 

"The space race was really a race to the moon," according to Odom."Kennedy wanted to get to the moon first. It would be a great propaganda coup. In the global South, you had a lot of countries becoming independent from former colonial powers. What system would they follow? Would they follow the U.S. liberal democracy or would they follow the Soviet example of communism? Kennedy saw the race to the moon as a way to demonstrate American technological power and the benefit of one system over another." 

Who won the space race?

On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 launched from the Kennedy space center . Four days later, at 10.56 PM EDT on July 20, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. Although conspiracy theories persist that the moon landing was a hoax , more than half a billion people watched the historic event, which was broadcast on television.

This was a victory for the United States over the Soviet Union, whose own lunar program had made a number of failed attempts. Between 1963 and 1965, 11 rockets had been launched carrying small landing objects with airbags to cushion the impact, all unsuccessful, according to Popular Mechanics . 

Achieving this goal in 1966, they then shifted their research to putting the first man on the moon . However, various issues with rocket launches caused the Soviet scientists to consider a robotic launch instead. Days before the Apollo rocket took off, the Soviet Luna 15 launched. This automated module was intended to achieve a soft landing and bring back samples from the lunar surface, however, communication was lost and it is suspected it crashed into the moon's surface, according to The New York Times . 

Over the next few years, each side in the space race reached several further world-firsts. The Americans achieved the first interplanetary flyby when Mariner 2 sped past Venus in 1962, followed by the first Mars flyby in 1965 with Mariner 4. 

The Soviets sent the first woman into space, Valentina Tereshkova , in 1963 — a feat that would take the U.S. 20 more years to achieve). Other nations launched their own rockets and satellites, including Canada in 1962, France in 1965, and Japan and China in 1970. 

Though there were additional American and Soviet missions, after the successes of the Apollo program, the space race was widely believed to have been won by the U.S. Eventually, as the Cold War came to an end, both sides agreed to cooperate in space and construct the International Space Station , beginning in 1998. 

As the 1970s began, relations between the two superpowers improved and discussions on topics such as arms control began according to the Office of the Historian . 

Following the moon landing, the Soviet space program switched its focus to placing the first space station in orbit, according to Astronomy.com . 

However, the astronauts in the Soyuz 11 capsule were all killed when a faulty valve, triggered after the instrument modules were separated from the orbital capsule, caused an oxygen leak. The Soyuz 11 crew are the only humans to have died in space, according to The National Space Center .  

In 1975, as a symbol of cooperation between the two superpowers, a joint mission (called the Apollo-Soyuz mission) between the U.S. and the USSR was launched. On July 17 an Apollo shuttle docked with the Soyuz mission, and the crews greeted each other, according to NASA. symbolic handshake, broadcast globally, between commanders Tom Stafford and Alexi Leonov. In many ways, this can be seen as a symbolic end to the space race. 

Yet despite the space race coming to an end, its impact is irrefutable. "We can't forget about the Cold War context for all this activity and the seemingly existential threat of the Soviet Union," according to Odom. 

"As a historian looking at this from a contextual standpoint, I can tell you that I don't think Kennedy would commit to going to the moon without the race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Without the Apollo program, how far and how quickly would our technology have advanced to the point it is at today? The Cold War made the moon landing a priority in Kennedy's mind and his commitment to it really does change America and American technology."

Is there a current space race?

Now, some believe that a new space race has begun with the United States pitted against superpowers such as China and India, as well as old rival Russia. But some criticize this notion.

"The Russians don't have a stated public interest in going to the moon with human spaceflight," Wendy Whitman Cobb, a political scientist at Cameron University in Oklahoma, told Space.com . "[The Chinese] have taken a purposefully slow, methodical approach to spaceflight and for them, I think the motivations are more in the military and national-prestige realms."

The world is much more complex today than it was during the Cold War when two major superpowers vied for dominance. Now, private companies, such as Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, have joined in a new contest to show off their spaceflight capabilities, according to the BBC . While there are some competitive aspects, such as the potential for fights over limited lunar resources , tomorrow's space races will involve a greater number of actors and more muddled win-lose scenarios than before. 

Additional resources:

The NASA History Division contains a wealth of information and documentation for anyone wishing to research the history of the organization. For a comprehensive list of important dates relating to the Space Race, check out Royal Museums Greenwich timeline. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has a number of items related to the space race among it's collections, which can be viewed here . 

Timeline of the space race

Oct 4, 1957: The Soviet Union successfully sends the first man-made object into space. Sputnik is the world's first orbital satellite. 

November 3, 1957 : The second experimental spacecraft successfully launched into earth orbit, Sputnik 2 contained onboard the dog Laika - the first biological organism to enter space.

January 31, 1958: The United States launches its first satellite, Explorer 1, following the launch of Sputnik three months earlier. 

October 1, 1958: On 29th July 1958, President Eisenhower signed the Aeronautics and Space Act which established the organisation of the same name, commonly known as NASA. 

September 12, 1959 : The Soviet Union launches Lunar 2, the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of the moon. 

April 12, 1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man into space when he successfully completed a 108 minute flight orbiting the earth a single time. 

August 19, 1960 : The USSR launches Sputnik 5 carrying two dogs, Belka and Strelka, who became the first animals to return to earth following a day in space.

January 31, 1961 : NASA sends Ham, a Chimpanzee into space. Despite the capsule losing pressure, Ham is saved by his spacesuit and returns to earth.

May 5, 1961 : Alan Shepard becomes the first American astronaut in space. Purportedly, due to the placement of the portholes he was unable to see the stars.

May 25 1961 : President Kennedy makes a speech to congress in which he announces that the United States will put a man on the moon before the end of the decade.

June 16, 1963: Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman into space, orbiting the earth 48 times across almost three days. 

July 14-15, 1965: The Mariner 4 becomes the first spacecraft not only to successfully travel to Mars but also the first to take a photograph of another planet from space.

March 18, 1965 : For 12 minutes Soviet Cosmonaut Alexi Leonov floats freely in outer space on the end of nearly 16 foot long tether, becoming the first astronaut to 'space walk'. 

February 21, 1967: Astronauts Virgil I Grissom, Edward Higgins White and Roger Chaffee lose their lives when a fire breaks out on their spacecraft during a launch rehearsal test. 

July 20, 1969 : At 10.56 PM EDT Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.

April 11-17, 1970: When an oxygen tank explodes aboard Nasa's third moon landing mission, Apollo 13, astronauts are fortunately able to return home in the lunar module, averting any loss of life. 

April 19, 1971: Salyut 1 is launched by the U.S.S.R. becoming the first space station, orbiting the earth 3,000 times during 157 days in orbit. 

July 15-24, 1975 : As a policy of detente leads to a cooling of tensions between the two superpowers, a joint mission between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. is launched.

Bibliography

• Royal Museums Greenwich
• New Scientist
• The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
• Popular Mechanics
• The New York Times
• JFK Library
• Office of the Historian

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Adam Mann is a journalist specializing in astronomy and physics stories. His work has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Nature, Science, and many other places. He lives in Oakland, California, where he enjoys riding his bike. Follow him on Twitter @adamspacemann or visit his website at https://www.adamspacemann.com/ .

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Course: US history   >   Unit 8

• Korean War overview
• The Korean War
• The Eisenhower era
• Anticommunism in the 1950s
• Popular culture and mass media in the 1950s
• Women in the 1950s
• Atomic fears and the arms race

The start of the Space Race

• 1950s America
• The “space race” was a Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to develop aerospace capabilities, including artificial satellites, unmanned space probes, and human spaceflight.
• 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 culture, altering strategic defense doctrines and leading to new educational initiatives.

The Cold War in space

The national aeronautics and space administration (nasa), the national defense education act, the “missile gap”, what do you think.

• See “ The Space Race ,” Digital History, 2014.
• For more on NASA and the “Space Race,” see Matthew Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2007).
• Paul S. Boyer, Promises to Keep: The United States since World War II (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), p. 164.
• For more on the NDEA, see Wayne J. Urban, More Than Science and Sputnik: The National Defense Education Act of 1958 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010); and Barbara Barksdale Clowse, Brainpower for the Cold War: The Sputnik Crisis and National Defense Education Act of 1958 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981).
• For more on American society and culture in the nuclear era, see Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994).
• Peter J. Roman, Eisenhower and the Missile Gap (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).

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The Space Race

Soviets and Americans race to the stars

Following World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States engaged in a struggle to prove their superiority. The Cold War constituted nearly fifty years of physical battles, technological advancements, and diplomatic engagements. By 1960, the battles extended beyond Earth’s gravity. Space became another avenue of competition because of the prospect of atmospheric control and the undeniable message it sent to the international community. National leaders from both countries recognized the opportunity of space exploration from a political perspective and began heavily funding missions. Dominance in the skies was far more important than land battles; it was a way to prove unchallenged superiority to the entire world. From the beginning, the Space Race was an extension of this ideological battle between the two nations. Space became the final frontier for the United States and Soviet Union to compete to prove their status as sole superpower.

Sputnik 1: October 4, 1957 — The  Soviet Union’s first spacecraft launch changed the world overnight. Sputnik was the first artificial satellite to enter the atmosphere and passed over the United States multiple times daily. The world had never seen this technology, and the possibilities and dangers were endless, sparking fear across the globe. Sputnik is largely considered to be the “starting point” of the Space Race because of its effect on both countries’ national agendas.  

Sputnik 2: November 3, 1957 — Laika, the dog from the USSR, made history by becoming the first live organism launched into space. The Soviets launched Sputnik II less than a month after its predecessor to learn about the effects of space on animals and the conditions under which they could survive. Unfortunately, Laika’s trip was designed to be one way. She died shortly after takeoff due to the stress of the launch.

Explorer 1: January 31, 1958 — The United States’ response to Sputnik 1 was only 80.75-inches long, but the entire setup (a Jupiter-C rocket used to send the diminutive satellite into orbit) stood 71.25-feet tall on the launchpad. Explorer 1’s launch made international headlines but fell flat in comparison to the Soviet Union’s two satellites that were already in orbit.  

Opening of NASA: July 29, 1958 — Concerned with the speed and success of the Soviet space program, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating both a committee and agency that were focused on American space exploration and dominance. The formation of NASA was the first concrete step of a national commitment to winning the Space Race.

Luna 1: January 2, 1959 —

The Soviet Union sent a spacecraft over the surface of the moon. It flew approximately 5,000 kilometers overhead two days after launch.  

Vostok 1: April 12, 1961 — Yuri Gagarin simultaneously becomes the first person in space and the first person to orbit the Earth. His one hour and forty-eight-minute flight astounded millions, but his safe return was the biggest triumph. This was monumental for the Soviet’s space program, and a crushing blow for NASA scientists.  

Mercury Redstone 3: May 5, 1961 — Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space, completing a suborbital flight in just over 15 minutes.

Kennedy promises a man on the moon by 1970: May 25, 1961 — Before a special joint session of Congress, President John Kennedy quells fears of a Soviet victory in space by promising to have an American astronaut on the moon by the end of the decade. Click here to watch the full speech.

Vostok 2: August 6, 1961 — Gherman Titov, the backup pilot for Vostok 1, got his turn in space when he became the second man to orbit the Earth. He spent just over a day in space, becoming a test subject for the effect of space on humans.

Mercury Atlas 6: February 20, 1962 — John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth. While this was a sigh of relief for NASA scientists, they were still severely behind the Soviets technologically.

Sergey Korolyov dies of a heart attack: January 16, 1966 — Korolyov, a Soviet rocket engineer, was largely responsible for the success of the Sputnik and Vostok programs. Without his guidance, the Soviet engineers must navigate a lunar landing on their own.

Luna 12: October 22, 1966 — This Soviet probe returned the first images of the far side of the moon. It entered lunar orbit three days after launch.

Apollo 1: January 27, 1967 — Tragedy struck when a fire swept through the command module of the Apollo 1 spacecraft. Millions of people around the globe witnessed the deaths of Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee on television. It was a real blow to those rooting for the United States to win the space race.

Apollo 8: December 21, 1968 — This was the first successful crewed mission to orbit the moon, turning the tide of the Space Race. These astronauts took photos that were immensely helpful to the Apollo 11 landing preparation.

Apollo 11: July 16, 1969-July 20, 1969 — Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins fulfilled the promise Kennedy made, nearly ten years prior, of a lunar landing. They touched down on the moon’s surface four days after the launch.

Looking back, it is hard to imagine the two global superpowers spending billions of dollars on space exploration in an attempt to “out-do” the other. In the context of the Cold War, however, space was the most important battleground. The message sent by superior scientific equipment led people to many other conclusions, specifically military capabilities. Apollo 11’s success solidified the United States’ position in the global community, leaving behind all previous Soviet successes. More than a billion people viewed the historic landing, and the moment overwhelmed Americans with the feeling of dominance. The moon landing united the country with a sense of insurmountable pride. The United States had won the Space Race, a competition more significant than any earthly battle. While Cold War tensions were in no way reduced, American citizens regained confidence that they belonged to the “superior” nation.

Related Reading

President dwight d. eisenhower, president john f. kennedy, president lyndon b. johnson, president richard m. nixon.

Race to the Moon

About this resource.

Download this lesson plan , including handouts, as a pdf.

Access an abbreviated version of this lesson , adapted for online learning.

Students will place a primary source within its historical context to examine how Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union turned early space exploration into the “Space Race.”

Essential Question

How does an historical narrative and timeline help us understand a primary source?

Students will be able to:

• Use an historical narrative to interpret the historical context of a primary source.
• Place historical events in temporal order.
• Identify and correct spelling and grammatical errors in a primary source document.

Preparation

Prior Knowledge and Skills

This is a stand-alone lesson and does not require any specialized knowledge or skills. However, it may be useful to introduce the concepts of the Cold War and space exploration by showing students a map of the United States and the former Soviet Union and images of the moon and the first moonwalk.

Historical Background

Early space exploration was fueled, in part, by the Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Space was another venue for the two nations to demonstrate technological superiority and leadership.

Americans were shocked when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, intensifying fears that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union in technology and arms. Although the United States matched the feat with its own satellite a few months later, tensions grew when the Soviets reached another first by launching Yuri Gagarin into orbit on April 12, 1961. Although publicly congratulating the Soviet Union on achieving such a milestone, President Kennedy quickly sought ways to demonstrate American superiority. The solution: send a man to the Moon. The President escalated the space program and set the goal to send an astronaut to the Moon by the decade’s end.

The two nations continued to mark new achievements, moving closer to the Moon with each milestone. The race was on and the question became who would get there first. Ultimately, the United States prevailed. On July 20, 1969, Americans Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, as part of the Apollo 11 mission, became the first men to land a manned spacecraft on the Moon and walk on the Moon. The Soviet Union never matched the feat, choosing instead to focus on creating technology that supported unmanned Moon exploration and developing a space station.

The "Space Race" captured the attention of many Americans. To illustrate how some Americans felt about the issue, this lesson features a letter written to President Kennedy by a young girl named Joan Grant. Joan’s letter was written on May 2, 1961, weeks after Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight, although days before Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight. This letter is one of many letters sent to President Kennedy on this topic in the collections of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Since the JFK Library does not have additional information about Joan Grant, this lesson models how historians interpret primary sources by using historical context and close textual analysis.

Student Handouts (included in the downloadable pdf )

• Letter to President Kennedy from Joan Grant
• The "Space Race" in the 1960s narrative
• Race to the Moon Timeline
• Race to the Moon Chronology Game

In this lesson, students will read a letter to President Kennedy and hypothesize what they think the letter is about. Then, they will read a short historical narrative and look at a chronology of events related to the topic of the letter. Finally, they will apply this information back to the letter and re-evaluate their understandings of the letter and topic. Additional activities include an ELA extension and a chronology game.

Part I: Letter from Joan Grant

1. To introduce the lesson, tell students that they will be learning about the race to send the first man to the Moon. Hand out the student packet.

2. Have students read the letter to President Kennedy from Joan Grant either individually, in groups, or as a whole-class read-aloud.

3. After reading the letter, students can answer the questions listed on the handout individually or as a whole-class discussion. It is important to reassure students that they will not know all of the answers and that they may have many questions about Joan’s letter. The second part of this lesson will help address their questions. Have students consider the following:

a. Who was Joan Grant? (We do not know who she was, but we can look at her handwriting, word choice, and grammar to infer that she was an elementary student. Ask students to think about how old they are and whether or not they would be able to write this letter in the same way. Do they think the letter is written by someone older or younger than they are?)

b. What subject is Joan writing about?

c. Why do you think Joan wrote this letter? (Joan wrote “Secret” at the top of her letter so this is a clue that suggests she might have felt the topic was very important.)

d. What questions do you have about this letter? (This is to help students realize that they are not able to fully understand the letter without additional information. Hopefully, some of their questions will be answered by the end of the lesson, but some of them will not. That is part of the nature of the study of history.)

Part II: Using Historical Context to Understand a Primary Source

1. Now that students have questions about the letter, they will use historical context to answer some of their questions. Have students read the historical narrative The "Space Race" in the 1960s and the accompanying Race to the Moon Timeline, found in the student packet. This could be done individually, in groups, or as a whole-class read-aloud.

2. After reading the narrative, have students answer a few reading comprehension questions such as:

a. What was the "Space Race"?

b. What two nations were involved in the "Space Race"?

c. Which nation had early success in the "Space Race"?

d. Which nation sent the first man to the Moon?

3. Now that students have some background knowledge about the "Space Race" in the 1960s, have students go back to Joan’s letter. Using their new knowledge, have students consider the following questions about Joan’s letter:

a. When did Joan write her letter?

b. Name one thing that happened in the "Space Race" before Joan wrote her letter.

c. Do you think that event influenced Joan’s letter? If so, why? If not, why not?

d. What is Joan concerned with?

e. Now, after reading about the "Space Race," why do you think Joan wrote the letter? Is this answer different than when you answered this question before you read the historical narrative and looked at the timeline? If so, why?

f. Name one thing that happened in the "Space Race," after she wrote her letter.

g. What questions do we still have about Joan’s letter?

(See additional information about the letter below to help students better understand the historical context.)

4. Explain to students that reading the historical narrative helped them to understand what was happening at the time Joan wrote her letter and why Joan might have written what she wrote. However, they may still have questions about her letter. Some of these questions might be answered if they looked at other sources. But some of these questions only Joan could answer and they cannot ask Joan. Sometimes, historians cannot answer all of their questions.

Additional context:

• Joan writes about a Russian plane that can go 90 days without stopping, but it is unclear what plane she is writing about. In 1961 the United States and the Soviet Union both had planes that could be refueled mid-air. It is possible, but unlikely, that the same Russian plane flew for that length of time. Joan might also be referring to Sputnik. The Russian satellite launched in October 1957 and was in orbit around the earth for 90 days. One other possibility is that she could be referring to Yuri Gagarin’s flight, which happened just weeks prior to her letter. His flight lasted just over 90 minutes. (This is an example of a question about the primary source that is difficult to answer without asking Joan. We can hypothesize about the answer and use evidence to support our hypothesis, but we do not have a definite answer.)
• Joan’s address is listed on the top of her letter, but the zip code is missing. Although postal codes existed for some large cities at this time, they were not enforced. The zip codes we use today were established in 1963, which was after Joan wrote her letter.
• Joan’s connection between the "Space Race" and Russia suggests that her ideas were shaped within that frame, whether her information and understanding of the issue was shaped by her parents, teachers, friends, or the media. This supports the argument that Americans saw space exploration as not only a scientific achievement but as a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Part III: Chronology

The last page of the student handout consists of a Race to the Moon chronology game. Students can cut out the squares and follow the directions to test their knowledge on the chronology of the "Space Race." Students should use the timeline to check their answers.

Evaluate students’ answers to the questions on the student handout.

Lesson Extension

1. For an English Language Arts lesson extension, have students discuss the audience, purpose, and tone of this letter and think about the elements of a persuasive or advice letter. In addition, students can identify and correct the spelling and grammatical errors in Joan’s letter.

2. For a lesson extension that addresses English Language Arts, current events, and science, have students examine elements of the new space policy presented by President Obama in June 2010 . In this policy, President Obama echoes President Kennedy by promoting the idea that the United States should dedicate some of its resources to manned exploration of other destinations, such as an asteroid or Mars. Differing, however, from previous administrations, this new policy places an emphasis on international cooperation and collaboration in space. After learning about this policy, students could replicate Joan’s effort and write their own letter to the president advising him on how to move forward in space.

Additional Resources

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum . ( www.jfklibrary.org ) The JFK Library website hosts a variety of related materials such as an essay on the “Space Race,” audio and text of important speeches President Kennedy gave on space exploration, and correspondence between President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson discussing the status of the United States’ space program in 1961.

NASA . ( https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html ) NASA’s website provides a wide range of resources for educators on space exploration, the race to the Moon, and current NASA projects.

We Choose the Moon . ( https://wechoosethemoon.org ) This web site, produced by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo lunar landing. Visitors to the site may experience the lunar landing from liftoff to landing through animation, archival photos, video, and mission audio.

JFK Challenge: Free iPad App . ( https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/interactives ) The free JFK Challenge app for iPad brings American history to life for kids by turning them into astronauts and Peace Corps volunteers. Fly to the moon or help people around the world with this exciting offering from the JFK Library.

Connections to Curriculum Standards

National History Standards: Historical Thinking Skills Standards

• 1 Chronological Thinking

Common Core State Standards

• ELA College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language

C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards

• Discipline 1 - Developing questions and planning inquiries;
• Discipline 2 - Applying disciplinary concepts and tools (History and Civics)
• Discipline 3 - Evaluating sources and using evidence; and
• Discipline 4 - Communicating conclusions and taking informed action

Massachusetts History and Social Science Framework

• 1.T1 Civics: Communities, Elections, and Leadership

Massachusetts English Language Arts Framework

• Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language

Beyond Borders: the Impact of the Space Race on Global Politics

This essay about the impact of the Space Race on global politics explores how this rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War era transcended mere technological competition. It into the clash of ideologies, technological innovation, and unexpected moments of unity amidst political tensions. Highlighting the Space Race’s catalyzation of technological advancements and its lasting legacy in today’s interconnected world, the essay emphasizes the transformative power of ambition and cooperation in navigating the challenges of space exploration. As humanity ventures into a new space age, it serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of collaboration beyond borders and the boundless potential of our cosmic aspirations.

How it works

In the grand expanse of the universe, humanity’s odyssey beyond terrestrial confines has evolved from a scientific endeavor into a stage for geopolitical intrigue and collaboration. The Space Race, born amidst the frosty tensions of the Cold War, transcended mere technological competition, leaving an indelible mark on the tapestry of global politics.

The Space Race was not just a clash of rockets and satellites; it was a clash of ideologies, a cosmic showdown between the capitalist ethos of the United States and the communist doctrine of the Soviet Union.

Each launch, each mission was a symbol of ideological prowess, a manifestation of each superpower’s belief in their societal system’s superiority. When the Soviet Union hurled Sputnik 1 into orbit in 1957, it ignited a celestial frenzy, setting the stage for a decades-long rivalry that would capture the world’s imagination.

However, the impact of the Space Race stretched far beyond the realm of ideology. It cast a shadow over global politics, exacerbating existing tensions and fueling the flames of the Cold War. The United States, feeling the sting of Soviet technological achievement, embarked on an audacious quest to conquer the final frontier, culminating in President John F. Kennedy’s iconic pledge to land a man on the moon. This commitment not only spurred American innovation but also intensified the geopolitical stakes, as both nations raced towards the heavens with unparalleled fervor.

Yet amidst the fervent competition, the Space Race also fostered unexpected moments of unity and cooperation. Despite their earthly enmity, the United States and the Soviet Union found common ground in space, leading to unprecedented collaborations such as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. In the vast expanse beyond Earth’s atmosphere, political differences momentarily faded, giving way to a shared sense of humanity’s cosmic potential.

Moreover, the Space Race catalyzed a wave of technological innovation that reverberated across the globe. As nations scrambled to reach the stars, they unlocked new frontiers in science and engineering, paving the way for advancements that would reshape the modern world. Satellite technology, once the domain of superpowers, became accessible to nations around the globe, revolutionizing communication, navigation, and weather forecasting on a global scale.

However, the legacy of the Space Race extends far beyond the confines of the Cold War era. In today’s interconnected world, space has emerged as a frontier for both collaboration and competition. Nations continue to vie for strategic dominance in orbit, developing advanced surveillance systems and space-based weaponry. Meanwhile, the rise of private space companies has democratized access to space, ushering in a new era of commercialization and exploration.

As humanity stands on the precipice of a new space age, the lessons of the Space Race loom large. It serves as a reminder of the transformative power of ambition and innovation, as well as the importance of cooperation in navigating the challenges of an ever-expanding universe. As we gaze towards the stars, let us remember that our destiny lies not in the stars themselves but in the bonds we forge and the dreams we dare to chase, together, beyond borders and beyond the reaches of our imagination.

Cite this page

Beyond Borders: The Impact of the Space Race on Global Politics. (2024, Mar 25). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/beyond-borders-the-impact-of-the-space-race-on-global-politics/

"Beyond Borders: The Impact of the Space Race on Global Politics." PapersOwl.com , 25 Mar 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/beyond-borders-the-impact-of-the-space-race-on-global-politics/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). Beyond Borders: The Impact of the Space Race on Global Politics . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/beyond-borders-the-impact-of-the-space-race-on-global-politics/ [Accessed: 15 Apr. 2024]

"Beyond Borders: The Impact of the Space Race on Global Politics." PapersOwl.com, Mar 25, 2024. Accessed April 15, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/beyond-borders-the-impact-of-the-space-race-on-global-politics/

"Beyond Borders: The Impact of the Space Race on Global Politics," PapersOwl.com , 25-Mar-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/beyond-borders-the-impact-of-the-space-race-on-global-politics/. [Accessed: 15-Apr-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). Beyond Borders: The Impact of the Space Race on Global Politics . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/beyond-borders-the-impact-of-the-space-race-on-global-politics/ [Accessed: 15-Apr-2024]

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26 Atomic Culture and the Space Race

David Seed holds a chair in American Literature at Liverpool University. He has edited the Companion to Science Fiction (Blackwell, 2005) and edits the Science Fiction Texts and Studies series for Liverpool University Press. His writings on the culture of the Cold War include American Science Fiction and the Cold War: Literature and Film (Edinburgh, 1999), Brainwashing: The Fictions of Mind Control (Kent State, 2004), and Under the Shadow: The Atomic Bomb and Cold War Narratives (Kent State, 2013).

• Published: 02 October 2014
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This chapter explores how the space race emerged in the aftermath of the atomic bomb and gradually entered the cultural mainstream. Science fiction played a crucial role in this process as a forum for expressing the hopes and fears arising from this superpower competition. One of the central issues arising in this extended debate was the race to the Moon and the militarization more generally of near space.

The echoes of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki reverberated throughout the Cold War decades because these events demonstrated both a new energy source and a weapon with unimaginable destructive force. The atomic age that followed 1945 displayed an ambivalence about whether to celebrate the former possibility or explore the negative potential of the latter. This ambivalence also characterized depictions of the space race, which veered between the extremes of disinterested scientific exploration on the one hand and the drive to militarize near space before the Soviet Union could do so on the other.

From the late 1940s to the 1980s, a subgenre of science fiction explored fears of nuclear war and an extensive body of fiction was generated (see Brians). Indeed, the subject had become so common by January 1952 that H. L. Gold, the editor of Galaxy magazine, complained: “Over 90% of stories submitted still nag away at atomic hydrogen and bacteriological war, the post-atomic world, reversion to barbarism, mutant children” (qtd. James 89 ). Over the decades that followed, numerous novels and films engaged with these dreaded possibilities, each with its own diagnosis to offer. Bernard Wolfe’s Limbo (1952) was a black comedy canvassing attempts to neutralize aggression in the aftermath of a nuclear war—by, for example, amputating limbs. Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz (19597) depicts a rupturing of history that triggers a rerun of events culminating in yet another war. Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film Dr. Strangelove famously paints the desire to deploy nuclear weapons as a self-destructive displacement of the sexual instinct. And Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker (1980) explores the consequences of atomic war not merely as a relapse into social barbarism but as an act of unimaginable violence committed against language itself.

By contrast with these grim scenarios, comic books during the 1960s began to promote characters positively empowered by radiation (see Szasz). The Atomic Knights, who first appeared in Strange Adventures in 1960, battled against the tyrannous Black Baron in the wake of the Hydrogen War of 1986. Marvel’s Fantastic Four acquire superhuman powers after exposure to cosmic rays. Doctor Solar of Golden Key comics disintegrated after a nuclear accident, but by sheer force of will reassembles himself to become a crimefighter. And more famously, the physicist Dr. Bruce Banner develops a capacity to transform himself into the Incredible Hulk after the accidental detonation of a gamma bomb. Most narratives of nuclear war imply its inevitability, but the fact that the series just described appeared during some of the worst crises of the Cold War suggests that compensatory fantasies were emerging that revised radiation into a positive, enabling force that could work toward the benefit of society.

From the very beginning of the atomic age, government-sponsored attempts were made to reassure the public over the threat of attack. Duck and Cover (1952), the first civil-defense film, attempted to combine entertainment and direct instruction. The opening cartoon sequence, showing Bert the Turtle practising caution when attacked, was designed to reinforce drills in schools and to integrate civil-defense concepts within the daily life of the young. In a similar spirit, Life magazine in 1959 co-sponsored the experiment of a Miami couple to spend their honeymoon in an underground fallout shelter; though such shelters were quite rare, they were covered extensively in the popular media during the period ( Boyer 353 ). Some early treatments of atomic energy attempted to project a blandly reassuring line, as in Walt Disney’s 1957 film Our Friend the Atom , where the military application of the new technology is played down as far as possible. Disney himself appeared near the beginning to proclaim that “the atom is our future”; an extended lesson from the German physicist (and former Luftwaffe pilot) Heinz Haber followed on the unique potential of the atom. The book accompanying the film made the opposing possibilities of the atom starkly evident by juxtaposing the familiar image of a mushroom cloud alongside a text declaring that the atom made a “superb villain” but that it was up to humanity to give the atomic story a happy ending. Disney also engaged in an extended collaboration with Wernher von Braun, who served as technical adviser on several educational films, including Man and the Moon (1955), which further popularized the idea of space travel. Disney’s promotion of von Braun, combined with the rocket scientist’s prominent role at NASA, made him both a celebrity and, given his Nazi past, an easy target for satirical humor, such as Tom Lehrer’s 1965 song portraying him as a cynical opportunist “ruled by expedience”—Von Braun, according to Arthur C. Clarke, was not amused ( Neufeld 407 ).

In the period following the end of the Second World War, the atomic bomb was assimilated into consumer culture. Within weeks of the Hiroshima bombing, Life magazine promoted model Linda Christian as an “anatomic bomb,” and in the same spirit the two-piece bikini swimsuit was named after the Pacific atoll where bombs were being tested in 1946, presumably due to their explosive potential for susceptible males. A similar process of assimilation can be witnessed in pop songs like Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Thirteen Women (And Only One Man in Town),” from 1954, where the male singer dreams that an H-bomb has wiped out all other men, leaving him his pick of the female survivors. Andy Warhol’s 1965 silkscreen Atomic Bomb placed the familiar mushroom cloud alongside other cultural icons of the period similarly enshrined by the artist, such as Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. Warhol’s composition features five panels with negative images of the nuclear cloud increasing in number until the bottom row is almost indistinguishable darkness. These examples suggest that atomic themes became routine ingredients in postwar popular (and Pop) culture, its potentially threatening dimensions neutralized by its taming as fashion, song, or mere image.

Although satires of the atomic age had begun to appear as early as 1949 with Richard M. Field’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Atomland in the Plastic Age , it was not until the late 1950s that skepticism about civil defense began to be really evident. Jules Feiffer’s 1959 cartoon sequence “Boom” ironically revealed the gaps between government statements that nuclear tests were safe and mounting anxieties about the danger of fallout. During the 1961 Berlin crisis, President John Kennedy mounted a fresh campaign for fallout shelters, but that same year an episode of Rod Serling’s TV series The Twilight Zone graphically demonstrated the psychological consequences of the nuclear threat: in “The Shelter,” a radio announcement that the United States may be under attack throws a group of dinner guests into total panic. That same year, a sketch by Marvin Kitman in Paul Krassner’s satirical magazine The Realist ridiculed the government line of calm, practical civil-defense measures: “How I Fortified My Family Fallout Shelter” grotesquely parodies the do-it-yourself tradition promoted throughout the 1950s by presenting the real enemy as a family’s neighbors, whose aggression can only be fended off by seeding the family lawn with mines and mounting machine guns at the shelter entrance. The most powerful satire of official treatments of the atomic age, however, remains the 1982 “mockumentary” film The Atomic Cafe , which assembles a montage of hilariously straight-faced civil-defense footage and other sequences, including grotesque attempts to incorporate atom-bomb imagery into cultural products as diverse as cocktails, pop songs, and do-it-yourself shelters. The film builds up to a grim climax, ending with massive nuclear detonations that shed a grimly ironic light on the viability and value of civil-defense measures.

The “space race” between the United States and the Soviet Union is conventionally taken to begin in 1957 with the launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite and to have ended in the 1970s with the collaborations over the international space station. The concept of such a race dates back at least to 1945, however, implicit in the tension between the parallel developments of intercontinental ballistic missiles and space exploration, between the conflicting uses of the rocket as weapon and as vehicle. In classic SF descriptions of nuclear war such as Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (1950) or Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz , the rocket serves both purposes: as a latter-day ark taking survivors into space in search of a refuge, an escape from a planet in the process of succumbing to a global spasm of missile-borne destruction. Furthermore, there were in effect two races simultaneously ongoing—to produce ever more destructive bombs and to control near space. The first of these accelerated with the 1949 detonation of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union, reinvigorating what H. Bruce Franklin has called the “myth of the superweapon that would give global hegemony to a single nation” in pursuit of an elusive ultimate security (169). The resulting tensions could be perceived in the complexly overlapping agendas of military and astronautic development.

From a place of cultural marginality, science fiction came to occupy a central position, during the postwar decades, as a source of fictional and cinematic representations of space travel, even playing a role in the evolution of the relevant technology. Historians of the space race, such as Walter A. McDougall and Deborah Cadbury, have tended to ignore or downplay this crossover, yet it was evident in, for example, the career of Robert A. Heinlein, who toward the end of World War II was not only writing pathbreaking SF but also working in the aeronautical engineering section of the US Navy. As soon as the news broke about the atomic bombings of Japan, Heinlein with considerable prescience drafted a naval memorandum declaring that warfare had changed forever and that work should start immediately on a moon rocket applying V-2 technology, which would give “unique prestige” to the United States ( Patterson 355 ). Unbeknownst to him, however, this very process was already under way through Operation Paperclip, the US program for recruiting Nazi rocket scientists and transporting them to sites such as Los Alamos, New Mexico, near the White Sands Proving Grounds where the original Trinity bomb was detonated (see Lasby).

Heinlein worked closely with director George Pal, one of the major SF filmmakers of the Cold War era, on the 1950 film Destination Moon , which presents one of the earliest cinematic expressions of the space race. Typical of Heinlein’s fiction, the film depicts individuals whose strong patriotic commitment can achieve almost anything—in this case, extra-orbital flight. Two characters introduced at the outset of the film represent technology (the director of the project) and the military (a general who has arranged the appropriations), but their rocket fails to take off. The main opponents of the moon shot are what the general describes as “filthy, Godless Commies,” a shadowy amorphous group whose agents attempt to forestall the second, successful launch. Once in space, the crew learn that the Soviet Union has brought forward a proposal for the Moon to be declared United Nations property. The military member of the crew (in Heinlein’s novella adaptation of the screenplay, an admiral) insists: “This is not an attempt to insure the neutrality of the Moon; this is the same double-talk they used to stop world control of atomics. The commissars simply want to tie us up in legalisms until they have time to get to the Moon. We’ll wake up one morning to find Russia with a base on the Moon and us with none—and World War Three will be over before it starts” (155). The deeply reductive logic of the Cold War is clear in these sentences: the voyage is a race against time to claim the Moon for the United States; the rocket resembles a missile but is using atomic power benignly to power its flight; and the Moon is perceived as a displaced or extended site for political power plays taking place on Earth. The filming of Destination Moon began in November 1949, some three months after the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb. A publicity brochure made the implication clear by declaring: “He who controls the Moon controls the Earth” (Heinlein n.p.). This very phrase was to be used in 1958 by a US Air Force brigadier in making his case for a lunar military base ( McCurdy 84 ).

Destination Moon was released amidst a massive publicity campaign that proclaimed its unique authenticity and, even more important, its predictive value in projecting a flight that would actually take place within the next 10 to 15 years. The publicity hammered home the point that “other nations” may already be well at work preparing just such a rocket. According to William E. Burrows, one of the few historians to give SF a central place in Cold War debates over space, the film was part of a multipronged effort by “rocket diehards” to impel the US government to action by raising the specter of “foreign competition” (138). Thus, the claim that the crisis induced by the Soviets’ launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 marks the beginning of the space race ignores the fact that Destination Moon had already popularized the notion of space travel against the backdrop of superpower rivalries, and Heinlein’s name was prominent in the film’s publicity not only as a leading SF author but also as a technical adviser. In 1953 he supplied the script for Richard Talmadge’s Project Moon Base , which opens with a legend declaring the need for such a remote station: “By 1954, atom bombs and interconontinental rockets had made it a necessity. . . . By 1970, the Space Station had been built and free men were reaching for the Moon to consolidate the safety of the Free World.” The publicity for Destination Moon was obviously aimed at selling the movie, but Heinlein had made the issue of fundraising for space flight central to his 1950 novella “The Man Who Sold the Moon,” in which an American business tycoon mounts a campaign for a moonshot to stave off his nightmare that the Soviets will get there first.

The popular media of the early 1950s played their part in presenting space travel as an essential national enterprise. Collier’s magazine ran features on the topic with contributions from von Braun and Willy Ley, a German rocket scientist who had close links with the SF community, including penning a long-running science column for Galaxy magazine. The Collier’s articles were collected in the 1952 volume Across the Space Frontier , edited by Cornelius Ryan, whose introduction stressed that more was involved than simply educating the public on space. Instead, he declared, “This book is an urgent warning that the United States should immediately embark on a long-range development programme to secure for the West ‘space superiority,’ since a ruthless power established on a space station could actually subjugate the peoples of the world” (xiii). This possibility is woven into von Braun’s own SF novel, Project Mars (written in 1949 but not published until 2006), where space exploration can only take place once there is peace on Earth. Here, a third world war in the 1970s has led to the defeat of the Eastern bloc, and Western hegemony is maintained by an orbiting military satellite described as the “Goddess of a new, strong peace” (11). Cold War anxieties about security focused obsessively on the skies, with the concluding lines from the 1951 film The Thing from Another World becoming something of a catch-phrase for the period: “Tell the world, tell everyone. Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!” The Soviet launch of Sputnik 1 only confirmed these fears in its symbolic challenge to American presumption of technological supremacy.

In the wake of Sputnik , potential developments in satellite and space technology were explored in the fiction of Jeff Sutton, who turned to writing after serving as an engineer with Consolidated Aircraft in San Diego. His initial effort, First on the Moon (1958) , outlines a situation of conflict between the superpowers: since anatomic exchange would be unacceptably destructive, there is a tacit agreement that the struggle can take any form short of outright war. In Sutton’s novel, the stakes are even higher than just the Moon because reaching that planet would simply be the “first step in the world race for control of the Solar System” (13). Only the resourcefulness of the crew saves the mission from Communist sabotage, and the captain reflects with patriotic satisfaction that “an atom-powered space ship spelled complete victory over the Eastern World. . . . Man was on his way to the stars” (149), a whole new vista of future colonization opening up before him.

Sutton was well aware of the complex intertwining of space exploration with nuclear rivalry between the superpowers. His novel Bombs in Orbit (1959) describes a situation where competition for military supremacy in near space has resulted in an undeclared war in which spy vessels are pitted against each other. The novel opens with the Soviet launch of a new satellite with sophisticated radar and an accompanying facility to mount nuclear attacks from space. Spy Eye , however, is more than just a satellite; as a US officer explains, “It’s a weapon, a deadly weapon, a giant electronic laboratory hoisted into the sky” (16). The novel thus extrapolates Sputni k according to the logic of the space race, the sole issue being whether and how the satellite can be disabled. Sutton’s later novel H-Bomb Over America (1967) follows a similar scenario in which renegade Soviets opposed to detente launch an orbital missile.

Sutton was one of the first novelists to try to describe in detail the experience of flying to the Moon. Apollo At Go —published in 1963, two years after the Apollo program began—is unusual because the author detaches the moonshot from superpower rivalry and concentrates instead on the sensations of the astronauts. Explicitly positioning his narrative (which takes place in 1969) in relationship to recent events like the Sputnik launch and John Glenn’s 1962 orbital flight around Earth, Sutton offers, in effect, a piece of anticipatory reportage designed to substantiate the NASA program director’s assertion in the novel that “Apollo is a symbol of our scientific and industrial capacity, the determination and know-how of its people—the willingness to sacrifice” (35). There is still a strongly nationalistic impetus to the narrative, but it is dramatized as a struggle against physical dangers and technological difficulties rather than against the sinister actions of a rival power.

Sutton’s evocation of space exploration uses one of the most familiar tropes of this period—namely, space as a new frontier, which aligned astronautics with grand narratives of US history such as manifest destiny. The television series Star Trek debuted in 1966 as a transposed Western, what creator Gene Roddenberry referred to as a “wagon train to the stars” (qtd. Telotte 15 ). The series dramatized the open-ended voyage of the starship USS Enterprise , which carried the same name as an enormous nuclear-powered aircraft carrier launched in 1960. The crew’s mission, announced at the opening of each episode, was “to boldly go where no man has gone before,” a phrase probably taken from the 1958 White House booklet Introduction to Outer Space , issued after the Sputnik crisis, which identifies a “compelling urge of man to explore and to discover, the thrust of curiosity that leads men to try to go where no one has gone before” (President’s Science Advisory).

Apart from demonstrating the circulation of SF tropes within the culture, Star Trek (which numbered SF authors Harlan Ellison and Theodore Sturgeon among its script writers) also shared its optimistic evocation of space travel with the most famous independent commentator of the period, Arthur C. Clarke, whose early works—both fiction and nonfiction—had helped to educate readers on the scientific issues involved in space exploration. What gives Clarke’s scientific writings, in particular, their utopian dimension is his divorce of “science” from the massive funding sources necessary to promote this kind of research. In the chapter he added to his 1951 volume The Exploration of Space upon its reprinting in 1958, Clarke at least recognizes the complications arising from the militarization of space: a traditional icon of hope within SF (the rocket) has become instead part of a global arms race. In his words,

It is one of the tragic ironies of our age that the rocket, which could have been the symbol of humanity’s aspirations for the stars, has become one of the weapons threatening to destroy civilization. . . . [A]‌lmost all research on rockets is now carried out by military establishments and is covered by various security classifications. (182–83)

The result is a predicament even more severe than that raised by atomic energy—namely, “separating the military and the peaceful uses of rockets” (183).

Clarke’s steadfast opposition to the political alignments of the Cold War can be seen clearly in his 1953 novel Childhood’s End , which revisits the traditional SF subject of invasion from space. Set in the 1980s, the novel opens with a conversation between a former Nazi rocket technologist and his American colleague in Army Technical Intelligence, with the latter revealing the worrying news that “the Russians are nearly level with us. They’ve got some sort of atomic drive—it may be even more efficient than ours.” The German scientist Reinhold, a former worker at the V-2 plant at Peenemünde, draws the unavoidable conclusion: “The race is on—and we may not win it” (4). The story then cuts to an installation on Lake Baikal where an ex-colleague of Reinhold’s is discussing Soviet technical progress with his Russian commissar. Clarke’s paralleling of the two scenes reflects an internationalism rarely found in this sort of fiction, where instead the Soviet Union is usually demonized as a threatening alien force. Clarke’s initial scenes are the prelude to a benign invasion by alien beings who become known as the “Overlords” and whose leader institutes a global ban on nuclear weapons. The Overlords thus embody an idealized intelligence that Clarke found lacking in the prevailing geopolitics of the Cold War.

Clarke’s resistance to the militarization of space can be seen in the final version of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) , which he scripted. In the film, a grand narrative of evolution segues from the primeval era to the imminent future with the famous slow-motion shot of a Neolithic-era weapon gradually transforming into a spacecraft. In his 1970 log of the film, Jerome Agel includes a photograph of this craft with the caption: “Sunrise on Earth. Orbiting satellites carrying nuclear weapons make their rounds at end of Twentieth Century” (88). The 1965 screenplay was even more explicit, depicting an array of orbital missiles from the Soviet Union, United States, France, Germany, and China, with a voice-over proclaiming: “Hundreds of giant bombs had been placed in perpetual orbit above the Earth. They were capable of incinerating the entire Earth’s surface from an altitude of 100 miles” (Kubrick and Clarke). As Kubrick’s plans for the film evolved, he removed the military dimension of the plot, probably because of the too-obvious echoes this would have carried of his previous film, Dr. Strangelove , though traces of this theme can still be found in Clarke’s novel version.

Although budgetary considerations drastically curtailed the space race during the 1970s, the controversy sparked by President Reagan’s announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983 could be seen as a renewal of that race with the goal of militarily controlling near space. A leading figure in this dispute was SF novelist Jerry Pournelle, who had a background in systems engineering and political science. His co-authored (with Stefan T. Possony) book The Strategy of Technology (1970) opens with the arresting declaration that “[t]‌he United States is at war” (1)—a technological struggle against the Soviet Union that commenced in 1945 and takes place everywhere, including translunar space. Since 1970 Pournelle has been a tireless commentator on politics and technology, as well as the author of a series of right-wing military-SF novels. He reportedly played a part in composing Reagan’s 1983 speech advocating SDI, later popularly known as “Star Wars.” In 1984 Pournelle and fellow SF writer Dean Ing published Mutual Assured Survival , a book that came with a ringing endorsement from Reagan on its back cover. Ing had served in the US Air Force and held a chair in communications theory at the University of Oregon before turning to SF. The volume’s title seeks to reverse the pessimism of the policy of “Mutual Assured Destruction” (or MAD), which had informed American nuclear strategy since the late 1950s. Pournelle and Ing argue that the militarization of space took place as soon as intercontinental ballistic missiles were deployed and claim that, despite ineffective treaties, “the Soviets currently have the world’s only operational space weapons, and are expanding broad efforts to achieve military dominance of near-Earth space” (99).

The SF writers associated with the SDI project and the related Citizens’ Advisory Council on National Space Policy included, on top of Pournelle and Ing, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Larry Niven, and that formative figure in postwar American SF, Robert Heinlein. These and other SF authors collectively reminded readers during the 1980s that the space race was just as urgent as it was when it started. Bear’s 1985 novel Eon features, first, a limited nuclear war (the “Little Death”) and then a full-scale one (“The Death”), arising from the Soviet Union’s realization in the late 1980s of its imminent defeat in the “war of technology” (102); even in the novel’s present (the story is set in 2005), war remains a danger. Similarly, Ben Bova’s Privateers (1985) evokes a near future where the United States has been compelled to leave NATO and space is now controlled by the Soviet Union. Because America has collapsed, the only hope for the future lies with a millionaire industrialist who orchestrates a plan to destroy Soviet military power in space. Privateers makes a case for the military, industrial, and political continuation of the space program, which had lapsed before the novel opens. A number of SF texts connected with the SDI project reanimate the trope of the frontier, which by the 1980s had become a standard feature in the vocabulary of space exploration, bringing out its military implications even more fully. In his writings on space, Pournelle repeatedly evokes a national tradition of appropriating territory, as if to suggest that ultimately the space program is merely continuing the plans of the Founding Fathers.

The consequence of the space race in general and the Apollo program specifically was that space travel entered the cultural mainstream and was no longer the exclusive concern of science fiction. This change was reflected in treatments of the subject by writers outside the genre. An early example can be seen in John Hersey’s 1960 novel The Child Buyer . Taking the form of a legislative hearing into a conspiracy by a US company called United Lymphomilloid to purchase an unusually bright male child for a top-secret government project (a company representative tells the committee, starkly, “I buy brains” [33]), the novel critiques this commodification of scientifically gifted children in the wake of the Sputnik crisis. During the 1970s, Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe wrote celebrated quasi-journalistic accounts of the space program. Mailer’s Of A Fire on the Moon (1970) partly reports on the buildup toward the Apollo 11 mission and partly engages in an extended reflection on the place of technology in American culture. Far from engaging in celebration, Mailer speculates on a latent streak of fascism in the whole enterprise, commenting pointedly on the assimilation of Nazi scientists like von Braun into the US space program: “Was the conquest of space . . . the unique and grand avenue for the new totalitarian?” (65). Mailer’s Freudian scrutiny of the technocratic psyche was even more elaborately developed later in the decade by Thomas Pynchon, whose 1973 novel Gravity’s Rainbow sets its main action during the 1945 transition from the Nazi V-2 program to Cold War–era US military research. The novel’s labyrinthine plot moves backward to explore the German cultural matrix that spawned both rocket technology and such SF films as Fritz Lang’s Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon, 1929). The underground rocket assembly plant at Nordhausen is described by Pynchon in science-fictional terms—as a “Raketen-Stadt” (Rocket City) where dreamy fantasy conspires with the latest in military technology. The novel thematically links the V-2 with the bombing of Hiroshima, thus anticipating the postwar merger of both systems in the form of ICBMs (which descend at the close in an orgasmic paroxysm of destruction reminiscent of the closing sequences of Dr. Strangelove ).

Tom Wolfe also draws on SF in his 1979 investigation of the “psychological mystery” (xiv) of why men agreed to become astronauts, The Right Stuff , a profile in courage framed within the evolution of the space program. In the wake of the Sputnik launch, Wolfe stresses the unnerving ability the Soviets demonstrated to anticipate every aim of the United States with a skill amounting to “sorcery” (55), made all the more mysterious by their refusal to disclose any information about their projects. In order to summon a figure embodying this unnerving ability, Wolfe draws on Yevgeny Zamyatin’s 1921 dystopian novel We : the “Builder of the Integral” (55–56), accordingly, becomes the shadowy personification of the Soviet space program who dogs the activities of NASA throughout The Right Stuff and whose sinister background presence adds to the urgency of the Apollo launch. The same mode of reportage informs James A. Michener’s 1982 novel Space , which traces the history of the space program, drawing on Michener’s own experience on NASA’s Advisory Council.

Other writers followed Mailer and Pynchon in refusing to go along with the technocratic hype surrounding the space race. In a facetious sketch, “The Moon-shot Scandal,” Terry Southern (co-author, with Kubrick, of the Dr. Strangelove screenplay) set out to question the assumption that “ everything which occurs in regard to these American spaceshots is immediately known by the entire public” (213; emphasis in original). Southern’s “exposé” concerns a 1961 launch during which five astronauts get into a gay argument (complete with cross-dressing) so severe that the spacecraft goes off course into outer space. The primary target of Southern’s brief sketch is the reverential decorum associated with the space program in much public coverage, but he was also raising an issue that other writers addressed: the fear that some astronauts may have perished in unreported missions or that survivors may have suffered psychological damage.

The latter possibility is dramatized in Barry N. Malzberg’s award-winning SF novel Beyond Apollo (1972) , which assembles the fragmentary reflections of an astronaut who has flown on a mission to Venus. Sometimes referring to himself in the third person, Harry Evans repeatedly states his intention of writing an authentic novel about his mission that will tell the whole truth for the first time. In Malzberg’s future history, the Moon program has already been abandoned, replaced by Mars and then Venus as target planets. Evans displays a disturbingly erratic mindset, making it virtually impossible to decide which of his statements are reliable: the narrative comes directly from the astronaut’s wavering consciousness, unlike the similar space-age tales of Jeff Sutton and Arthur C. Clarke, whose anonymous narrators adopt an un-ironic pose of serene scientific rationalism. Malzberg’s novel provoked controversy when it was published because it undermined many of the pieties then circulating about the space program: the “disinterested” impulse to explore, the patriotic commitment to national values, unquestioned heroism. Very early in the novel, Evans’s words suggest that he has become unhinged as a result of his voyage and may even have killed the ship’s captain. His training has rendered him virtually impotent, and he simultaneously dismisses SF tropes while at the same time believing in them: his Venusians, for example, are rational creatures challenging the astronauts’ actions through thought projection. Malzberg destabilizes his narrative so thoroughly that routine statements about space exploration begin to sound like diseased fantasy.

J. G. Ballard’s stories about astronauts, published throughout the 1960s and 1970s and collected in 1988 as Memories of the Space Age , have a similar effect, although the fictional strategies they follow are quite different. As early as 1962, Ballard registered his sense that the space age would be a temporary phenomenon by writing as its archaeologist. The vast majority of narratives discussed in this chapter propel the reader’s imagination forward to a future of unlimited exploration and development, but for Ballard these hopes and plans have already died. Not only have the rocket gantries begun to rust, but also the “stars” observed from Earth now include orbiting capsules carrying the corpses of dead astronauts. Occasionally, a capsule crashes, at which point “relic hunters” crounge for macabre mementoes of a lost enterprise (70). Ballard repeatedly evokes the space age as a period of cultic obsession, as if it had been a temporary religion now perceived only through the dim traces it has left on the landscape and in the skies. A former astronaut, now the inmate of a psychiatric clinic, gives a pathological interpretation of man’s desire for space travel as an “evolutionary crime, a breach of the rules governing his tenancy of the universe, and of the laws of time and space” (108). Ballard does not exactly endorse this viewpoint, but he does repeatedly hint that the space age, despite its surface scientism, was deeply structured by subconscious, irrational impulses. He also contradicts the grand evolutionary narrative promoted by figures like Arthur C. Clarke, describing instead how time at Cape Kennedy has frozen or even “moved into reverse” (151).

In recent years, more technophilic hard-SF writers have taken exception to Ballard’s pessimism. In 1999 Gregory Benford’s The Martian Race attempted to recapture the halcyon days of aeronautics, but quite independently of any superpower struggle: the “race” in Benford’s title refers exclusively to the heroic scientific impulse behind Martian exploration. By contrast, Bruce Sterling, looking back more critically, has paid tribute to Ballard’s unique ability to stand apart from the rhetoric of the period, which generated rah-rah slogans such as “Science, the Endless Frontier” or “Storming the Cosmos.” Sterling comments: “The slogans seemed to emanate from every corner of the ideological compass at the time, but in retrospect they can be recognized as notes in a single piece of period music, a brassy modernist rant.” It is a measure of how distanced and disenchanted Sterling clearly feels with the grandiose promises of the space age that he should reduce the period solely to a handful of catch-phrases. In any event, during that heady era, the dreams of SF’s pulp infancy were—however partially and fleetingly—fulfilled, giving the genre a cultural centrality it never had before, and has perhaps not had since.

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Hersey, John . The Child Buyer . London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962 . Print.

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The Space Race Between the United States and Russia Research Paper

The space race was a competition between two rivals who aimed at achieving spaceflight capability power in the 20 th century. The United States of America and the Union Soviet Socialists Republics (USSR), currently known as Russia, engaged in a battle to prove their superiority after the Second World War. The origin of struggle began in the intercontinental ballistic missile-based nuclear weapons between the two nations. The conflict hostility constituted physical battles, diplomatic engagements, and technological advancements. In the 1960s, the war extended beyond the earth’s gravity. The warfare advanced to another level of space due to the atmospheric control prospect and the undebatable message translated to the international community. Space was the final avenue for the Soviets and the United States to compete for their sole superpower status. This paper shows how space exploration has contributed significantly to the rapid growth of technology and other technical ways of addressing global challenges, among other benefits for humanity.

National leaders from the United States and Russia discovered the space exploration opportunity from a political perspective. The investigation led to a funding mission for scientists, among other researchers, to study more and provide equipment that could enable them to win the battle. They spent billions of dollars on the projects to outdo each other. Superior scientific equipment sent people messages about military capabilities and different conclusions (Gainor 80). Sky dominance was more important than land battles since it was a way of proving to the entire world unchallenged superiority.

In October 1957, the USSR launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, which alarmed the Eisenhower administration, the 34 th president of the United States. The US public knew the Soviets had surpassed their technologssical achievements, creating intense fear and anxiety. The sputnik satellite was orbited and could send out beeps from the radio transmitter, which could be detected as it passed through the orbit (Wang). In November 1957, Russia achieved more space ventures by making Sputnik 11 that could carry a living creature, a dog.

The United States had been working independently to launch a satellite before the unveiling of Sputnik. Space exploration activities in the United States have been consolidated into an agency in the government known as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This committee’s formation indicated their commitment to winning the Space Race. It had made two failed attempts at launching a space station. In January 1958, they completed a rocket called Explorer that carried a satellite. The team consisted of German rocket engineers who were involved in developing ballistic missiles for NAZI in Germany. The Explorer could take several instruments into space for science experiment procedures. The gadgets applied a Geiger counter that detected cosmic rays (Wang). This careful experimentation and other measurements from later satellites have proved the existence of Van Allen radiation belts on earth.

The Soviets produced the first human in space who made one orbit on April 1961 around the earth. The flight lasted 108 minutes in the rotation before returning to the earth (Taylor et al. 3453). The discovery by the Soviet’s space program crushed a blow to NASA scientists. Three weeks later, NASA launched an astronaut into space on a suborbital trajectory, unlike the Soviets, who did an orbital flight (Wang). NASA’s suborbital aeronautics lasted 15 minutes since it was made to go some way around (Taylor et al. 3455). The Soviets were ahead of NASA technologically, although this was a sigh of relief for the United States scientists.

Launching the first world artificial satellite, the first human, and the first dog in space led to other achievements of the Soviet Union ahead of the United States. The milestones included Luna 2 in 1959, which became the first human-made object to reach the moon. USSR also launched Luna 3 a few months later, a human orbit mission around the earth for a full day. Russia was the first to achieve the spacewalk and introduced the Vostok 6 mission, which involved the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, to travel to space (Carroll 8). President John F. Kennedy challenged the Americans to develop an ambitious goal of landing on the moon and returning to earth safely.

In the 1960s, progress was made following President Kennedy’s goal of the landing on the moon program. The project was named Gemini, whereby astronauts tested their ability to endure spaceflight for many days and the technology required to make the trip successful. Project Apollo later followed that took astronauts to the lunar surface and orbit around the moon between 1968 and 1972 (Shelhamer 51). All along, the Soviets had suffered from low funds to finance the scheme, which made them withdraw from pursuing the moon program. Russia had been drained financially from its investment in developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons to achieve strategic correspondence with the United States.

The cosmonauts encountered many challenges while developing the scheme, including tragedy. For instance, in 1967, Apollo 1 fire swept through the spacecraft’s command module. The deaths of Edward White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee were witnessed, which was a real blow to those who rooted for the US to win the space race (Shelhamer 51). In December 1968, Apollo 8 was the first successful crew to orbit the moon (Shelhamer 51). The astronauts took photos that helped safely land Apollo 11 on the moon. In 1969, the United States successfully sent its first astronauts to the moon (Shelhamer 52). Neil Armstrong was pronounced the first human to set foot on the moon’s surface (Shelhamer 52). During this time, the cosmonauts collected samples of lunar dust and rocks that aided scientists in studying more about the moon.

NASA launched a series of space probes during the 1960s and 1970s known as Mariner, in which they studied Mars, Venus, and Mercury. Space stations marked the next phase of space exploration. Soviet Salyut 1 station was the first space station in earth orbit in 1971 (Crusan and Galica 56). NASA also launched Skylab space, the first orbital laboratory for scientists and astronauts who studied the earth and the effects of spaceflight on the human body. NASA also carried out the project Viking which landed on Mars in the 1970s (Crusan and Galica 57). They took several photographs and examined the chemistry of the surface environment. The scientists also tested the Martian dirt and the microorganism’s presence.

The Apollo lunar program ended in 1972 when human space exploration became limited to low-earth orbit. Many countries are now involved in researching International Space Station (ISS). Other unpiloted probes have traveled through the solar system, making various discoveries. Some findings include the moon of Jupiter, a moon of Saturn, and oceans under their surface that scientists conclude might harbor life (Crusan and Galica 57). Instruments in space have also discovered other planets orbiting other stars, the exoplanet. Advanced technology since 1995 allows the gadgets in space to characterize the atmospheres of these other planets.

The space race fueled cold war suspicion and rivalry between the United States and Russia. However, it yielded considerable benefits to the entire world. The exercise required a rapid improvement of various fields, including micro-technology, telecommunications, solar power, and computer science (Arzo). Space exploration was necessary since the world could tell which country had the best science, economic system, and technology. After the Second World War, the Soviets and the Americans realized the importance of rocket research to the military. Sending the first man to the moon showed that the United States was a leader in the world, although the Soviets had achieved the first human in space.

Space exploration led to many societal benefits that included the generation of scientific knowledge, the inspiration of people worldwide, and the diffusion of innovation. It introduced agreements between countries that participated in the probe and the creation of markets (Arzo). The International Space partners are strengthened through the association, and job opportunities for the space products and services are created (Arzo). Other benefits of the space race involve economic prosperity, environmental advantages, health, safety, and security (Arzo). The competition made it easy for other researchers to understand humankind’s place in the universe. Admittedly, the human experience is expanded through study and experiments.

The world has created new opportunities for addressing global challenges through partnerships and capabilities development. Space exploration has attracted broad international interest by producing relationships, competencies, and knowledge that help society deal with matters pressing them. It is a catalyst for nations to introduce other explorations of the planetary worlds, emphasizing that other planets might support life. Countries have mutual understanding and trust that advance common discovery goals helping align interests in the community and promoting diplomacy. For instance, the International Space Station (ISS) program requires more extensive international cooperation to achieve the best results (Pekkanen 96). The unity strengthens the capacity for peace and globally coordinated activities on earth and in space.

The ISS partnership has demonstrated the international cooperation functional dimension. It enables parties with different investment levels to access the unaffordable space laboratory for any partner (Neubert et al. 13). The collaboration has overcome economic and political strains to achieve its core mission. The diplomatic value of international unity has been shown through the exploration exercise. Astronauts who served in the ISS are observed as achievers since it is a technical procedure (Neubert et al. 15). cooperation between nations on challenging space projects establishes the ability to advance common goals jointly, thus improving diplomatic ties and other activities.

The space race between the United States and Russia has benefited humans and society. Space exploration yielded technological and scientific innovations that help people every day. Having machines and humans in space presents a challenge that the utmost imagination can overcome. The exercise led to new knowledge and technical revolution that is used on earth in unpredictable ways. The competition served a cultural and inspirational purpose by satisfying a deep need to explore and understand the world. It addresses the questions about the origin and nature of life and the universe. Global challenges can quickly be addressed since satellites provide unique opportunities to counter issues facing society today. The cooperation of nations beyond space help promote more union among the countries. The togetherness aligns interests that enhance peace and stability on the entire globe. No activity on earth matches the exceptional threats of the space race, thus giving reasons for confidence that renews investments for future generations’ positive impact.

Works Cited

Arzo, Sisay Tadesse, et al. “Essential Technologies and Concepts for Massive Space Exploration: Challenges and Opportunities.” IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems , 2022.

Carroll, Clover. “The First Woman in Space.” Guardian (Sydney) 2011, 2022, vol. 8.

Crusan, Jason, and Carol Galica. “NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative: Enabling broad access to space.” Acta Astronautica, vol. 157, 2019, pp. 51-60.

Gainor, Christopher. “The Nuclear Roots of the Space Race.” Militarizing Outer Space: Astroculture, Dystopia and the Cold War , 2021, pp. 69-91.

Neubert, Torsten, et al. “The ASIM Mission on the International Space Station.” Space Science Reviews, vol. 215, 2019, pp. 1-17.

Pekkanen, Saadia M. “Governing the New Space Race.” American Journal of International Law, ol. 113, 2019, pp. 92-97.

Shelhamer, Mark. “Reaching for the Moon: A Short History of the Space Race.” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, vol. 72, no. 1, 2020, pp. 51-53.

Taylor, Andrew J., et al. “Factors Affecting Flavor Perception in Space: Does the Spacecraft Environment Influence Food Intake by Astronauts?” Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, vol. 19, no. 6, 2020, pp. 3439-3475.

Wang, Erik. “Sputnik to Apollo: The Constituents of America’s Response to Soviet Space Accomplishments.” Available at SSRN 3772353 , 2021.

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The Space Race essay

THE SPACE RACE 12

TheSpace Race

byStudent Name

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TheSpace Race emerged as a competition amid the United States of Americaand the USSR in exploring space through the use of artificialsatellites, as well as manned spacecraft. Also, Space Race can beperceived to be part of the larger race in arms since developments inspace research could easily become shifted to military research. 1 amid these two nations became experienced during theCold War and had different impacts. In this paper, Space Race wouldbe discussed and its impact on the American society. The paper willargue whether Space Race had a negative or positive impact on theAmerican society.

Boththe United States as well as the Soviet Union emerged from the SecondWorld War as enemies in the Cold War. The Cold War was an openrivalry, where the two nations contended for political power andstanding in the globe without fighting a real battle. Rather thanengaging in real battle during the Cold War, the two nations foughtthrough propaganda and scientific as well as technologicalaccomplishments. Most of the technology that resulted in spaceexploration had origin from the military. The WWI and WWII led to thedevelopment of government scientific research facilities, which werecharged with the responsibility of designing military aircraft.Indeed, WWII had offered a motivation for rocket development in theUnited States, Soviet Union, and Germany among other countries. 2 During the time, the Germans were considered the most advanced in thedesigning of rockets. The Germans were recognized in the designing ofthe V-2 rockets that eventually reached space. Following theconclusion of WWII, the United States purchased several V-2s thatcould be used for research.

Atthe conclusion of the WWII, the United States had appeared as thetechnological giant in the globe since it had detonated the firstatomic bomb in 1945 as well as the first hydrogen bomb in 1952.However, despite having the benefit of being recognized as thetechnological giant in the world, Soviet Union made quick and greatadvances in rocketry. When the United States was working on a launchvehicle into space, the Soviet Union was already a mile ahead sinceit had successfully worked on a satellite SputnikI by 1957 October. 3 After a period of one month, the Soviet Union also launched SputnikII ,which showed its progress in the Space Race.

Theearly successes of the Soviet Union in space technology were a majorblow to the American confidence and pride. The United States hadneglected serious attempts of reaching space since the militaryofficials had a preference of concentrating on weapons developmentand the Eisenhower administration was so much concerned withmaintaining the country’s budget balanced through decreased fundingto different scientific efforts. The launching of Sputnik emerged as a wake-up call to the Americans. 4 The United States feared that the globe would see the Soviet Union assuperior due to technology in the space. The launch of Sputnik was perceived as a threat by the United States since it could beargued that if the Russians were in a position of launching asatellite into space, then they could be in a position to land awarhead on the American soil. In an attempt to cast out this fear,United States officials moved quickly in putting up a space programso as to salvage the national pride as well as the internationalprestige. This was facilitated through President Eisenhowerestablishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA), which was to oversee space programs. The establishment ofNASA was to ensure that the United States caught up with the spacedevelopments of the Soviet Union.

Theestablishment of NASA was an important milestone in the launch ofspace programs of the United States. The space programs that wereoverseen by NASA are discussed in the following paragraphs.

VanguardProgram

Inits response to the launch of Sputnik Iand II by the Soviet Union, the United States launched the Vanguard testsatellite during the end of 1957. The launch of this program was astunning failure. The United States Navy’s Vanguard rocket justrose approximately over a meter before sinking back towards thelaunch pad and exploded the moment its fuel tanks ruptured. Unlikethe Sputnik ,which had orbited the globe for more than two months at anapproximate height of 250 km, the Vanguard could not reach thisheight. The Vanguard test satellite was thrown clear and the launchvehicle exploded, making it land on the ground just a short distanceaway. NASA took control of the Vanguard program, and later onlaunched the Mercury project. 5

TheMercury Program

TheMercury program became established so as to discover if it waspossible for a man to survive in space as well as to test whether aman could be put into orbit. This NASA program ran from 1959 to 1963and had a cost totaling $1.5 billion. As early as 1962, the Russianswere ahead of the aims of this program since they had alreadylaunched two men into orbit around the earth. The United States wassuccessful on this program because it was in a position to bring thefirst American into space Alan Shepherd. In 1961, Allan Shepherdsuccessfully made a sub-orbital flight. During the flight, Shepherdis considered to have taken a manual control of the spacecraft intesting its controls and made observations of the outside conditions.This was unlike in the Russian missions where cosmonauts wereindicated to have parachuted from the aircraft during landing. TheMercury program spacecraft possessed parachutes for the purpose ofslowing down during descent. Indeed, this made Shepherd to beconsidered as the first man to have returned to earth with his ship,which had a landing in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Inspite of the success, pressure was still there of sending an Americaninto orbit around the earth however, prior to risking the life of anastronaut, NASA desired to make sure that there was safety in itsspacecraft for the purpose of an orbital flight. The safety of thespacecraft was tested by Enos, who orbited the earth twice andsplashed-down alive off the Puerto Rican coast. In February 1962,John Glenn emerged as the first American to have orbited the earthusing Friendship 7. During the flight, Glenn was indicated toexperience different problems, including a problem with the controlsof the spacecraft. Also, he reported having observed fireflies, whichwere thought to be small ice crystals vented from onboard thespacecraft. In 1962, the second America’s spacecraft completedanother orbital flight. 6

TheGemini Program

Initially,this program was perceived as an extension of the preceding Mercuryprogram. The primary aim of establishing this program was to come upwith techniques for more advanced space travel so as to pave the wayfor the Apollo program and its goal of landing a man on the moon.Also, this program had an objective of observing the impacts of longduration space flights on the astronauts as well as establishingrendezvous and docking approaches amid vehicles, and perfecting thetechniques of landing spacecraft at a certain pre-selected point. TheGemini program ran from 1961 through 1966. The Gemini spacecraft weredesigned such that they were in a position to carry two astronauts.Because the Gemini spacecraft were capable of carrying twoastronauts, the Gemini spacecraft were bigger compared to those usedin the earlier Mercury program. Also, the Gemini spacecraft hadonboard computers that could assist astronauts in orbiting andlanding. The Gemini program emerged as a huge success and resulted inmany important milestones in the space program of the United States.For instance, the Gemini program saw the first American Ed White, tobe involved in a spacewalk in 1965. On this spacewalk, White spentmore than 15 minutes doing maneuverability experiments through theuse of a nitrogen-powered gun. By the conclusion of the Geminiprogram, NASA had considerably depicted that space walks could becarried out easily and efficiently. Nevertheless, the Gemini programencountered some problems, where the astronauts had to leave themission 10 hours into their flight the moment the spacecraftcommenced rolling at the rate of one revolution per second. 7 The problem emanated from the striking of one of the spacecraft’sthrusters. However, the problem was stopped through the use ofcontrollers. Despite the problem, the astronaut was in a position toshow his preparedness in the program during emergency situations.

TheApollo Program

TheApollo program began in 1961 and ran until 1972. The program wasinitially designed for carrying out several manned missions thatwould orbit the earth. However, this changed with the announcementmade by President John F. Kennedy. In his speech to the Congress, inMay 1961, the president declared his desire of landing a man on theMoon and returning him to the earth safely. 8 This announcement resulted in a major change in the initial directionof the Apollo program, which was now focused on realizing thepresident’s dream.

TheApollo program was also associated with some problems. In 1967, thecrews of Apollo 1 were killed when they were on a training exercise.This was due to an electrical spark in the wiring of the Apollocapsule. The accident experienced by the crews resulted in a completeredesigning of the Apollo capsule. Also, at the time when NASA wasready to realize a moon landing attempt, the mission did not go asscheduled this is due to the Lunar Module’s guidance computer ledthe crew towards a vast crater when descending to the moon. However,a manual control helped in landing safely. However, despite thesechallenges, the program finally became a success, where Armstrong andAldrin emerged as the first individuals to land on the Moon. TheApollo program came to a conclusion in 1972 when Cernan emerged asthe last man to have a walk on the Moon.

Impactof Space Race on the American Society

TheSpace Race had different impacts on the American society. One of theimpacts of the Space Race was in the American politics. During theSpace Race, the presidencies of J.F. Kennedy and Eisenhower were putunder vast pressures. Upon the Soviet Union launching the Sputnik satellite,the assertiveness of President Eisenhower became questioned. This wasbecause the United States had initially come out of the WWII as thewinner in world technology, and its people believed that it wouldstill remain as the leader in world technology. However, upon theSoviet Union launching the Sputnik satellite,most people viewed the lagging behind of the United States and sawthe advancement of the Soviet Union in technology. This resulted inthe questioning of the assertiveness of President Eisenhower inleading the United States towards a more technology-advanced nation. 9 Alternatively, emanating from the Space Race, President J.F. Kennedyhad to maintain the morale high and support the Space Race when thepublic questioned the purpose, need, and the budget for the spaceprograms. The two presidents changed the manner in which theyintroduce policies to support the exploration of the space byscientists. Despite the increased lack of support from the Americanpublic in funding the space programs, the two presidents had to makebig sacrifices to ensure that the space programs were successful.Therefore, it can be argued that the Space Race had an impact on theAmerican politics.

Anotherimpact that the Space Race had on the American society is the taxburden. In an attempt to make the country successful in the SpaceRace, the United States presidents needed to direct more resources tothe space programs. The source of such resources was to be solicitedthrough taxing the public. This was evident as put by J.F. Kennedyduring the commence of the Space Race the president made it clearthat in case America was to accomplish its goal of going to the moon,Americans needed to make sacrifices. The sacrifices that theAmericans were to make were to come mostly through taxes. Also,according to the J.F. Kennedy’s argument, if America was going tomake it to the moon, then the NASA’s budget had to be increased. 10 This was an indication that heavy taxation was to be expected withthe success of the space programs. Therefore, the American public wasto be taxed highly so as to support the success of the Space Race.

Also,the Space Race had an impact on the American society because it madethe society change their belief system as they support things thatare unbelievable. This created an opportunity for people to explorefurther and discover the knowledge that they did not possess. Forinstance, during the Space Race, people believed that it was possibleto land on the moon and return to the earth alive. Although it seemedunbelievable, people had to make sacrifices and believe that landingon the moon was feasible. It was through this belief that people wereexposed to new knowledge and discoveries. Thus, it can be argued thatthe Space Race helped people to open up to new challenges, whichprovided an avenue for new discoveries. This is because the SpaceRace resulted in the space exploration, which made people know thingsthat they never knew.

Furthermore,another impact that the Space Race had on the American society isthat it changed the educational system as well as the imaginations ofthe people. led to the exploration of the space, andthis required the support of the educational system. Following thelaunch of the Sputnik satellite,lawmakers and the public commenced asking for a greater focus on mathand science in schools. This was because they believed that puttingmore emphasis on math and science would help in adding more knowledgeto learners and lead to more developments in the space explorations.Thus, the educational system changed for the better during the SpaceRace. Alternatively, the Space Race changed the thinking of thepeople since it comprised of different technological advancements.Different things, which are utilized today can be indicated to be asa result of space exploration, or can be said to have been improvedby space exploration. 11 For instance, as a result of space exploration, better sunglasseswere made, improved heat-absorbing sportswear became discovered, andsatellite television became made among other things. This led to anew perception of the universe.

Fromthe analysis of the impacts of Space Race on the American society, itcan be argued that the Space Race had a positive impact on theAmerican society. This is because most of the impacts were positiveon the society. For instance, it led to changing the educationalsystem for the better, transformed the thinking of individuals, andled to a positive transformation of American politics since it led topoliticians to support space exploration.

Duringthe Cold War, Space Race emerged as a competition between the UnitedStates of America and the Soviet Union in exploring space through theuse of artificial satellites, as well as manned spacecraft. Also,Space Race can be perceived to be part of the larger race in armssince developments in space research could easily become shifted tomilitary research. Instead of these two nations engaging in actualbattle, during the Cold War, they engaged in challenging each otherthrough scientific and technological developments. In an attempt toexplore the space, the United States supported various programs. TheSpace Race can be associated with different impacts on the Americansociety. Some of which include creating an opportunity for people toexplore further and discover the knowledge that they did not possess,increasing the tax burden, and transforming the educational systemamong other things. From the different impacts of Space Race on theAmerican society, it can be argued that Space Race led to a positiveimpact on the American society since most of the impacts werepositive.

Bibliography

Cadbury,Deborah. SpaceRace: The Untold Story of Two Rivals and Their Struggle for the Moon ., 2006

JFK`sMoon Shot: Q &amp A With Space Policy Expert John Logsdon .

JohnF. Kennedy Moon Speech – Rice Stadium. Retrieved from http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm

Kay,W D. DefiningNasa: The Historical Debate Over the Agency`s Mission .Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Lamb,Lawrence E. Insidethe Space Race: A Space Surgeon`s Diary .Austin, Tex: Synergy Books, 2006.

McConnell,William S. LivingThrough the Space Race .Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006.

Tomlin,Gregory M. Murrow`sCold War: Public Diplomacy for the Kennedy Administration .Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of NebraskaPress, 2016.

1 Kay, W D. Defining Nasa: The Historical Debate Over the Agency`s Mission . Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. P. 64.

2 Lamb, Lawrence E. Inside the Space Race: A Space Surgeon`s Diary . Austin, Tex: Synergy Books, 2006. P. 94.

3 Tomlin, Gregory M. Murrow`s Cold War: Public Diplomacy for the Kennedy Administration . Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2016. P. 83.

4 Cadbury, Deborah. Space Race: The Untold Story of Two Rivals and Their Struggle for the Moon . , 2006. Pp 74.

5 Tomlin, Gregory M. Murrow`s Cold War: Public Diplomacy for the Kennedy Administration . Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2016. P. 102.

6 McConnell, William S. Living Through the Space Race . Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. P. 56.

7 McConnell, William S. Living Through the Space Race . Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. P. 61

8 JFK`s Moon Shot: Q &amp A With Space Policy Expert John Logsdon .

9 McConnell, William S. Living Through the Space Race . Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. P. 85.

10 John F. Kennedy Moon Speech – Rice Stadium. Retrieved from http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm

11 McConnell, William S. Living Through the Space Race . Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. P. 116.

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The Space Race: a Race for Supremacy and Technological Dominance

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