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Arms race and space race cold war
Space race during the cold war thesis
Space race during the cold war thesis
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Space Exploration The Space Race began in or around the late-1950s, during the Cold War. The United States and Russia were both anxious to become the country to explore space. Unfortunately for the US, Russia launched the first artificial satellite and man-made object to orbit Earth, Sputnik. The launch of Sputnik surprised the United States, and we rushed to get our own space craft into space, and to beat Russia to anything else space related. In 1958, the United States’ first satellite, Explorer I, was launched. Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun directed the creation of this satellite, which was designed by the U.S. Army. This was also around the time that the president at the time, Dwight Eisenhower, signed a public order to create NASA, or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA is a federal agency that focuses on space exploration. Currently, NASA has quite a few rovers and orbiters out. They are also doing some advanced research. In 1959, Luna 2, a Soviet space probe, became the first probe to hit the moon. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut, became the first person to orbit Earth. He achieved this in a capsule-like spacecraft called the Vostok 1. The USA’s effort to send a human into space was called Project Mercury. The NASA scientists had created a different design of spacecraft for the trip, one with a smaller, more cone-shaped capsule that was lighter than the Vostok 1. On May 5th, 1961, Alan Shepard went into space, earning the title of first American in space. He, unlike Yuri Gagarin, did not orbit Earth. The first American to orbit the earth was John Glenn, who did this in February 1962. President Kennedy stated later that May that the US would land a man on the moon before the end of the... ... middle of paper ... ...lantis and Endeavour. Together, the orbiters have launched more than 130 times and have traveled more than half a billion miles. The shuttles were designed to hold 4 to 7 people at a time, though they have carried 2 and 8 people. The main goal of the Shuttle program was to find a reusable way to carry astronauts to and from space stations. Unmanned space exploration has been something the United States has been doing since the early Space Race. Unmanned space exploration would be sending things like satellites and rovers up into space, with no human or animal on the vehicle. Unmanned vehicles travel to other planets, moons, asteroids, etc. and take pictures of their moons, of the surface, and give us information concerning the planet, information such as measurements to tell what the planet is like inside. Unmanned vehicles have gone to every planet except Pluto.