The Space Race was a 20th-century competition for supremacy in space flight capability between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (U.S.). It arose from the two countries’ missile-based nuclear arms race after World War II, aided by captured German missile technology and personnel from their missile program. The technological superiority required for such supremacy was regarded as both necessary for national security and symbolic of ideological superiority. The Space Race gave birth to pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, unmanned space probes to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human space flight to the Moon and in low Earth orbit.
On August 2, 1955, the Soviet Union responded to the United States’ announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year by declaring that they, too, would launch a satellite “in the near future.” The Soviet Union beat the United States to this with the orbiting of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, and later beat the United States to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961. The race reached a climax on July 20, 1969, when the United States landed the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. The USSR attempted but failed to launch manned lunar missions before abandoning them in favor of concentrating on Earth’s orbital space stations.
Following the April 1972 agreement on a cooperative Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, a period of détente ensued, culminating in the July 1975 rendezvous in Earth orbit of a U.S. astronaut crew and a Soviet cosmonaut crew. The end of the Space Race is more difficult to pinpoint than its beginning, but it was over by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, after which true space flight cooperation between the United States and Russia began.
Race To The Moon
Before Gagarin’s flight, U.S. President John F. Kennedy was ambivalent about America’s manned space program. “If Kennedy could have opted out of a large space program without harming the country, he would have done so,” said Jerome Wiesner of MIT, who served as a science advisor to presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and was opposed to manned space exploration. With Gagarin’s flight, Kennedy sensed the American public’s humiliation and fear of the Soviet lead. Kennedy eventually decided to pursue what became the Apollo program. On May 25, he used a Cold War speech titled “Special Message on Urgent National Needs” to ask for Congressional support. Khrushchev remained silent in response to Kennedy’s implicit challenge, refusing to publicly confirm or deny whether the Soviets were pursuing a “Moon race.” They did so secretly for the next nine years, as later revealed.
Following Kennedy’s death, President Johnson relentlessly pursued the Gemini and Apollo programs, promoting them to the American public as Kennedy’s legacy.
In 1967, both nations faced serious challenges, bringing their programs to temporary halts. Both had been rushing at full speed toward the first piloted flights of Apollo and Soyuz without paying due diligence to grow design and manufacturing problems. Both pioneering crews died as a result of the results.
After the Apollo 1 fire, the United States repaired the fatal flaws in an improved Block II command module version. During the latter half of 1967 and early 1968, the United States conducted unpiloted test launches of the Saturn V launch vehicle (Apollo 4 and Apollo 6) and the Lunar Module (Apollo 5).
The Soviet Moon program was in serious trouble, unbeknownst to Americans. After two consecutive N1 rocket failures in 1969, Soviet plans for a piloted landing were pushed back. The N-1 launch pad explosion on July 3, 1969, was a major setback.
The mission of Apollo 11 was to land in the Sea of Tranquility in July. Commander (CDR) Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot (CMP) Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin were chosen in January 1969. They trained for the mission until the day of launch. The Saturn V rocket, AS-506, lifted from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 in Florida at 9:32 a.m. EDT on July 16, 1969.
It took just over three days to travel to the Moon. After reaching orbit, Armstrong and Aldrin boarded the Eagle Lunar Module. Collins, who remained in the Command/Service Module Columbia, inspected the landing gear before they began their descent. Armstrong took over manual flight control at about 590 feet and guided the Lunar Module to a safe landing spot at 20:18:04 UTC on July 20, 1969, after overcoming several computer overload alarms caused by an antenna switch in the wrong position and a slight downrange error. Before leaving their craft, the first humans on the Moon waited six hours. Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon at 02:56 UTC on July 21, 1969. At least one-fifth of the world’s population, or approximately 723 million people, witnessed the first step. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” he said as he stepped off the landing footpad of the L.M.
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