Early Space Advacements

1252 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: History essay on space race

“That’s one step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” That is one of the most memorable quotes said by Neil Armstrong (1969) when he landed on the moon. However, do you know about the previous events that lead to this remarkable achievement? Also, do you know about all the the other remarkable space achievements? This includes the motivation from President Kennedy’s speech, the successful use of satellites, and the previous manned missions. These events all helped in getting a man to land on the moon, which soon led to the conclusion of the Space Race. The course of action taken by America helped lead them to success when they landed a man on the moon. “First, 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.” Those are the words of President John F. Kennedy (1961) during his special message before a joint session of congress. Kennedy’s speech was so emotional and empowering, it united the nation under one cause: to land a man on the moon. Sadly, Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, which was two years after his goal was announced. His death sparked a new fire as America worked as one to get a man to the moon, one step at at time. The two space programs that were involved in the Space Race were NASA, which stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Soviet Space Program. NASA was established by Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 29th, 1958. It funded and oversaw all the American space missions during the Space Race, and is still running today, which helps preserve the history NASA had. In contrast, the Soviet Space Program began around the 1930s and ended in 1991 when it was replaced with the Russ... ... middle of paper ... ...: Past: Pioneer 5. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2013. Sullivan, George. The Day We Walked on the Moon: A Photo History of Space Exploration. New York: Scholastic, 1990. Print. "The Decision to Go to the Moon:President John F. Kennedy's May 25, 1961 Speech before Congress." The Decision to Go to the Moon:President John F. Kennedy's May 25, 1961 Speech before Congress. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. "The Mercury Project - Flight Summary." The Mercury Project - Flight Summary. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Dec. 2013. Van Riper, A. Bowdoin. "The 1969 Moon Landing: First Humans to Walk on Another World." Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 7: 1950 to Present. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 19-22. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

Show More
Related

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Man Takes First Steps On The Moon

    1608 Words  | 4 Pages

    As a result of the successful mission that landed the first men on the moon, called the Apollo 11 mission, many people were inspired to provide commentary on this landing. Although these texts describe unique individual purposes about this landing, they all effectively support their purposes through the use of several rhetorical devices.

    Read More

  • President John F. Kennedy´s Man on the Moon Challenge

    990 Words  | 2 Pages

    President Kennedy made this speech because of significant political pressure. Both his administration as well as the country as a whole had been subjected to a string of space related embarrassments by the Soviet Union. They were the first nation to launch a satellite into space (Sputnik-1, October 4, 1957), the first to put an animal into space (Sputnik-2 with the dog Laika aboard, November 3, 1957), the first to land a probe on the moon (Luna-2, September 12, 1959) and the first to place a man in orbit (Vostok-1 with Cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin aboard, April 12, 1961)1. President Kennedy knew national pride was on the line so he used the opportunity to push for the most ambitious (and expensive) project since the Panama Canal and th...

    Read More

  • NASA Program Pros And Cons

    1753 Words  | 4 Pages

    The moment astronauts set foot on Earth’s Moon, in July of 1969, the legacy of the United States’ space program changed forever. Countless Americans watched the launch and landing of Apollo 13 on their televisions with pride on that day, proud of their country for achieving such an insane goal as walking on the Moon. While NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, struggled through obstacle after obstacle, invented new technologies and advanced old ones, placed the first man on the Moon, because the Soviet Union threatened to beat the U.S. to the space frontier, the nation greatly congratulated the feat that began the technological era. After forty-five years, however, the awe Americans held over NASA’s programs dwindled considerably. Although NASA no longer holds the nation in awe over their moon mission achievements, NASA programs remain vital to the United States because they advance everyday technologies, inspire creative visions, and discover greater knowledge for the entire public to benefit from.

    Read More

  • Kennedy's Moon Speech: A Distraction in Crisis

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    On May 25th, 1961, the 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy proclaimed his goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade in his Moon Speech. Besides his talent as an esteemed speaker, his speech was efficacious due to him alluding to the hardworking nature of the American people, and how further exploration into space was an ample distraction to the copious number of tense situations that had plagued the world at the present time. During the early sixties, Communist dictator Fidel Castro was running rampant in Cuba, and with the country being near to the United States, President Kennedy had to use his power as the President to attempt to end the tyranny in Cuba. With the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the failure of the

    Read More

  • Pioneering Space

    4097 Words  | 9 Pages

    "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Those words, spoken by Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, have passed into history. Their emotional delivery, their meaning, and the historically monumental event they commemorate make them some of the most famous words ever spoken. Anyone who was old enough to remember the time can probably remember exactly where he or she was and what he or she was doing when man first walked on the moon. Along with the inscription on the plaque placed at the point of the landing ("we came in peace for all mankind"), Armstrong's words are often enough to bring tears to the eyes of nearly every American and indeed much of the world. As great an accomplishment as man's landing on the moon is, however, there are other momentous events that often seem forgotten in the glare of celebrity afforded to the space program's manned missions.

    Read More

  • It’s Time for America to Build a Moonbase

    1943 Words  | 4 Pages

    On May 25, 1961, Congress met in a joint session to hear the American president, John F. Kennedy, address them in a speech he referred to as a second State of the Union. In his speech, the young president geared America for a race that would send men to the moon. Kennedy challenged America to “take longer strides” and to take a “leading role in space achievement, which, in many ways, may hold the key to our future on earth” (Burrows 330-331). America rose to the challenge, and within a decade, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon, becoming the first of the human race to walk on a world besides our own. The giant strides of which Kennedy challenged us soon slowed to a crawl, however, and after a few more missions, America would not go back again, possibly for good. America would soon turn its attention to other earthly issues, and its moon program would become nothing more than a memory. This gives rise to an inevitable question: should humans return to the moon? This question has haunted us for years, continuously rising and then fading away again. In recent months, new discoveries have brought it to the forefront, and with these new discoveries, the answer becomes obvious: humans should once again set their sights for the heavens, and putting a civilian lunar base and colony on the moon should be our next step.

    Read More

  • What Was The Impact Of Apollo 11?

    556 Words  | 2 Pages

    When no other country had accomplished space travel to the moon, the United States set the president by sending Apollo 11 on a space exploration. The United States was a front-runner in the race to land a man on the moon. Apollo 11 was launched into space in 1969 and was quite different from the Apollo 10. The successful lunar landing of Apollo 11 made the United States a respected and competitive player in space technology.

    Read More

  • Neil Armstrong Hero

    690 Words  | 2 Pages

    The final hero of the present that will be analyzed is Neil Armstrong, who is most remembered for being the first human to ever set foot on the Moon. Some of Armstrong’s other accomplishments were his naval service and his participation in the Korean War during combat missions (Launius, 368). Armstrong was endowed with extraordinary qualities of heart and mind. He dreamed of becoming an astronaut and through perseverance and great service, he was transferred to astronaut status in 1962, only one of nine members of the second class to be chosen for space flight (Launius, 368). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration along with Armstrong set out to achieve a near-impossible goal to send the astronauts into space to land on the Moon.

    Read More

  • The American Space Program

    1611 Words  | 4 Pages

    Over the years since its beginning, the American space program has executed many major successful projects that were lead mainly by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, in which America completed without the assistance of other countries. Perhaps the most well-known feat of NASA was the world’s first moon landing, performed by Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin Jr., which occurred on July 20th, 1969 (Andrews). This was an outstanding achievement considering that NASA had competed against the Soviet Union in order to put the first man on the moon and came out on top even though the Soviet Union had had a head start. But even though the moon landing is the most well-known, other projects have produced far more useful results. For instance, the Hubble Space Telescope is considered to be “one of the finest research tools in astronomical history,” and the 44 foot-long telescope was sent into space on April 24, 1990; however, the telescope initially had a probl...

    Read More

  • Apollo 11: The Space Race

    1422 Words  | 3 Pages

    Different parts of the world all wanted to have a man on the moon. “In 1957, the Soviet Union had ignited the space race with its launch of the Sputnik 1, the world’s first Satellite” (Bodden 13). “The U.S. rushed to keep up with the space technology of the Soviet Union, launching the Explorer 1, its own small satellite. That same year, the U.S. formed a special space program which they named NASA” (Bodden 12). An amazing amount of preparation was put into not only the Apollo 11 mission, but also many other NASA Apollo missions as well, for the stakes were high. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy proposed a national goal of landing on the moon by the end of the 1960’s. It took NASA eight years to fulfill this intention (Apollo 11). The announcement by the President was a step in creating the full-fledged race. Multiple test flights then took place for America, including the one in March 1969 using the spacecraft that would actually go to the moon. That was just the start of the great American victory to

    Read More

  • John F Kennedy Man On Moon Speech

    279 Words  | 1 Pages

    Have you ever wanted to land in the moon? Maybe so I will be informing you about this. This is what I will be telling you John F Kennedy's dream. Another is the first trip to the moon by man. One more is how this impacted the world.

    Read More

  • Kennedy Man On The Moon Speech Analysis

    824 Words  | 2 Pages

    President Kennedy has shown the commitment, justified the struggles, and now developed the need in every listener’s mind why America needs to be the first country to land a person on the moon. Looking back, he obviously succeeded. His speech was the major turning point in making the move happen, and rhetorical questions, allusions, and repetition all played an important role in making the speech so persuasive and inspiring.

    Read More

  • The Effect of the Moon Landing on America

    919 Words  | 2 Pages

    Neil Armstrong looked at it not only as a great triumph for America, but also for the human race when he said "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" on his first step on the moon (Dunbar). On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech about what he called "urgent national needs" at a stadium at Rice University in Houston, Texas (“NASA Moon Landing”). In that speech, he challenged America to "commit itself to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the decade"(Schlager and Lauer). This became known as Kennedy's challenge and the idea was to outperform the Soviets. While the Soviets were off to a better start with the launch of Sputnik I, we soon rose to the challenge and accomplished our goal only eight years later on June 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin safely landed on the moon. With the great accomplishments of Apollo 11, America had bettered the Soviets and established superiority in space.

    Read More

  • Moon Landing

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” It was July 20 1969, the day that reshaped our nation and gave us unparalleled dreams for the future. The impact of the day goes far beyond our pride and nationalism; that day would change space exploration and technology forever. Just like a shooting star, that day would give us a glimpse of hope. A chance to see an event so breathtaking and defying, it would be man’s greatest accomplishment in the 20th century. As millions of people watched from their TV sets, a rush of euphoria came over the nation as Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the surface of the moon. It was the first time in the history of mankind that we would step on the surface of another celestial body. John F. Kennedy dared us to dream, he inspired the nation to reach for the moon, to set ourselves apart from the rest of the world. The Space Race was symbolic of many things. Our future as the technically dominate nation was secured in place; just as secure as Old Glory would be, when she was driven down into the soil of the moon. We not only reached the moon, we conquered it as a nation; united.

    Read More

  • nasa

    1553 Words  | 4 Pages

    The space race had its beginning in the 1950s. It were the two countries the Soviet Union and the United States, who fought against each other to become the first in space. The Soviet Union was first in space with the launch of the Sputnik 1 artificial satellite on 4th of October 1957, which meant, that the United States had to hurry, if they were not to be forgotten in the space race.

    Read More

More about Early Space Advacements

Open Document