Benefits Of The Space Race

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On July 29, 1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, or NASA. The Act “to provide for research into the problems of flight within and outside the Earth's atmosphere, and for other purposes." It provided for the resources to commit to and win the “Space Race” which had begun a year earlier and had become a “competition” between the United States and the communist Soviet Union to be ahead of the other in exploring space. It was important to have the advantage over the Soviet Union in using space technology and gaining a military advantage. On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union put the first satellite into space, by launching it with a ballistic missile. The satellite was named “Sputnik” which means “traveler” in Russian. It was only about the size of a basketball but weighed almost 200 pounds. The United States was caught off guard and it was scary to think that if the Soviets could launch a satellite with a ballistic missile, maybe they could be could launch a warhead into space. …show more content…

They thought of themselves as being ahead of everyone else in technology so they began to work on building their own satellite and the race was on. Things didn't go well for the United States at the beginning of the race. The Soviet Union launched “Sputnik II” in November of 1957 before the United States had launch even its first satellite. And “Sputnik II” had a dog on board it! That sounds kind of like an “in your face” move to me. The U.S. did try to launch a satellite the following month but it exploded soon after takeoff. Finally, they were able to launch Explorer I, a satellite designed by the Army, on January 31,

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