Somewhere in the 20th century after World War 2, there’s an indirect war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in which is known as a cold war. So what exactly is a cold war? A cold war is a state of conflict between nations that are predominantly pursued by economic and political measures, propaganda, espionage, or proxy warfare waged by surrogates and does not entail direct military action or in simple words a very shady and indirect fight between nations. During this period, there is a competition between the two over many aspects and one of them is space exploration.
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War adversaries, the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) to achieve superior spaceflight capability. They both spent millions on matters such as developing space-capable rockets, artificial satellites, training astronauts, launching manned space missions. The first event in the space race was on the 2nd of August in 1955 when The USSR responds to the US announcement that they also have the intention of launching the first artificial satellite into space.
Two years, two months, and two days later, The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 1, the first Earth-orbiting satellite in history. Afterward, on 3 November 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launches Sputnik 2, which carries a stray dog named Laika into space, making them become the first nation to successfully send a living organism into orbit. On the 31st of January 1958, The US finally made a move in the competition. They entered the Space Race by launching Explorer 1, the first US satellite to reach orbit. It carried experimental equipment that led to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt. 1st October of the same year, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) which is very globally known and the most leading space administration until today, is created in the US, replacing the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA). On December 18th of the same year, The US launch SCORE which is the world's first communications satellite. The mentioned satellite broadcasted a pre-recorded Christmas message from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, becoming the first broadcast of a human voice from space. On 2 January 1959, the Soviet then launches Luna 1, the first "cosmic rocket" as it accidentally escaped the orbit of the Moon due to the object having too much speed. It becomes the first human-made object to leave the orbit of the Earth and orbit the sun instead. Seven months later, the US launches Explorer 6, the world's first weather satellite, and obtains the first pictures of Earth from space. 12 September of the same year, there’s another launch of the USSR’s Luna 2 and accomplishes its mission of creating the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon. On the 4th of October, The USSR again launches Luna 3 where they succeed in their mission of sending an object into orbit around the Moon and photographing the far side of the Moon. On 19th August 1960, on the Soviet Union's Sputnik 5, the first animals (two dogs, Belka and Strelka) and a range of plants went and returned alive from space. Next year, on the 31st of January, Ham, a US chimpanzee, becomes the first hominid in space and the first to successfully survive the landing. 12th April 1961, The Soviet Union’s Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin makes a single orbit around the Earth and becomes the first man to reach space. He remained in space for one hour and forty-eight minutes before landing in Saratov Oblast, west Russia. On the 5th of May in the same year, The US achieve the first pilot-controlled journey and first American in space with Alan Shepard aboard the Mercury-Redstone 3 (aka Freedom 7) spacecraft where Shepard did not orbit Earth and instead he flew 116 miles high lasting about 15 minutes. Two years later, 16 June 1963, Valentina Tereshkova from Russia becomes the first civilian and first woman in space and spends almost three days in space, orbiting the Earth 48 times in her spacecraft, Vostok 6. 18 March 1965, the USSR’s cosmonaut Alexei Leonov leaves his spacecraft, the Voskhod 2, in a specialized spacesuit and conducts a twelve-minute spacewalk, the first-ever. 14th July of the year, The US satellite named Mariner 4, performs the first successful journey to the planet Mars, returning the first close-up images of the Martian surface. The year 1967 is the most deadly of the Space Race for both the US and Soviet Union. In January, American astronauts Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee die when a fire ignited in their Apollo 1 capsule on the launch pad. Only a few months later the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is also killed when the parachute on his Soyuz 1 capsule fails to open on his re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. On 21 December 1968: US spacecraft Apollo 8 becomes the first human-crewed spacecraft to reach the Moon, orbit it, and successfully return to Earth. This is a new record. On the 20th July of 1969: Neil Armstrong and later Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon while their crewmate Michael Collins continues to orbit the Moon aboard the Apollo 11. This secured a victory for America in the Space Race with a televised landing witnessed around the world by 723 million people.
Space Race has contributed so much to the success of space studies until today than it has been in the past. The competition kind of benefited a lot to everyone too!
Sources:
Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, August 9). Cold War (general term). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_war_(general_term).
Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, August 31). Space race. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race.
Mann, A. (2019, August 7). What was the space race? Space.com. https://www.space.com/space-race.html.
Space race timeline. Royal Museums Greenwich. (n.d.). https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/space-race-timeline.
Written by: Sonalen Saing
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