Space Race

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Beginning in 1955, the Space Race was a technological “race” between the US and the USSR, the main goal of which was to establish a leader in spaceflight. The rivals believed that the technology gained by spaceflight was necessary for national security and research potential, in addition to proving the technological superiority of each ideology. The early endeavors of it included the launching of probes and satellites to Mars, Venus, the Moon, the Space Race also began with manned spaceflight in low-earth orbit. The Space Race was officially sparked on August 2, 1955 when the USSR declared that they had plans of launching their own probe on 4 days later in response to the US's announcement of launching an unmanned satellite into space for the International Geophysical Year. The Soviets took an early lead with the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. The most popular event of the space race was the Apollo 11 moon landing. In April 1972, the tension was cooled down due to an agreed co-operative Apollo-Soyuz Project, which lead the way to an American Astronaut and Soviet Cosmonaut meeting in orbit, and further co-operation between the USSR and the US. Let's start a bit earlier and get a more detailed view.
The roots of the space race began back in the early 1930s, shortly before Nazi Germany came to power. In these years, German scientists experimented with liquid-fueled rockets, aspiring to reach the limits of space. This technology came to fruition in late World War II when Germany built the first ballistic missile. Lieutenant Colonel Karl, head of the German Ballistic and Munitions branch, formed a squad of scientists and engineers to turn rockets into a form of artillery in order to evade the Treaty of Versailles' ban on long...

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...d 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." Some were surprised when he announced his support for NASA, because of Kennedy's record of criticizing the US's space program during his candidacy. His support for the space was backed up with his claim that a moon landing would be beneficial to national security, and would focus national resources elsewhere. On September 12 of 1962, This was verbalized in his well-known “We choose to go to the Moon” speech, at Rice University stadium. The spot where he gave the speech would soon be very close to Johnson Space center.
Years later, after multitudes of tests and the Apollo 1 fire, NASA began test launches of the famous Saturn V rocket. Other tested spacecraft included the launch vehicles Apollo 4 and 6, and the Apollo 5 lunar module.

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