Anika and Chinmayee
July 8, 2023
When the term “space race” is used, what usually comes to mind is a tacit war between the US and Russia in the mid-1900s as a result of a plethora of underlying tension. The space race was a result of the Cold War, a metaphorical war more than anything else. Though no blood was being shed, Americans and Russians took the Cold War just as seriously as any other war. When the then-Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first manmade satellite the world had ever seen, in 1957, American citizens and the government were determined to outdo the Russians. At the time, Americans were determined to conquer space, the next “frontier”. The fact that the Russians had the same goal only further motivated them to work as hard as possible. As a result of the Russians getting ahead in the space race, the American government put forth measures to fortify the education system in America. One such example was the concept of magnet schools, which were schools for gifted students who could study advanced topics related to science and mathematics.
At last, America’s efforts seemed to have produced results in 1958, when America produced
and launched its satellite, “Explorer I”. In that same year, NASA, one of he most famous and renowned federal space exploration agencies, was founded. It seemed like America was getting ahead in the race, but Russia retaliated in 1959 by launching Luna 2, the first probe to touch the moon. It was the Soviet
Union’s astronaut, Yuri Gagarin, that was the first human to orbit the Earth. And so, the US launched an effort dubbed Project Mercury, which set out to also put a human in space. NASA engineers first tested their devices on chimpanzees before finally launching Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space, into the cosmos.
John F. Kennedy, one of the more well-known presidents involved in the space race, claimed that America would land a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, and so Project Apollo began.
References
Mann, Adam, and Callum McKelvie. “What was the space race?” Space.com, 14 May 2023, https://www.space.com/space-race.html. Accessed 2 July 2023.
“The Space Race: Timeline, Cold War & Facts.” History, 22 February 2010, https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/space-race. Accessed 2 July 2023.
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