FREE ESSAY ON SPACE RACE

SPACE RACE

The tension that existed between the U.S. and Russia during the years after WWII was not
only a time that both countries patiently tried to keep the world from another war, but
was also a time of great rivalry in the exploration of space. As both counties diligently
experimented with plans for creating a way to get into the vastness of space, spies on
both sides were already in place to steal those ideas. And so the space race begun. Both
countries wanted to be the first to succeed so millions were spent as the world watched
as the U.S. and Russia went head to head in a battle that would change the world forever.

The space race began with the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957 as Roy Silver and
other reporters announced the next day reported that Radio signals from the first
satellite launched yesterday by the Russians were broadcast to radio and television
audiences here last night.The competition was to be the first to loft a satellite into
space and had begun way before Sputnik launched. After the end of World War II, research
on rockets for upper-atmosphere research and military missiles was extensive. Engineers
knew they would be able to launch a satellite to orbit Earth sooner or later. The first
United States proposal to place a satellite in orbit was made in 1954 by the U.S. Army.
It was not until January 31, 1958, that the United States joined the Soviets in space.
The Space Age began for the world's superpowers when the Soviets put Sputnik I, the first
man made satellite, into a shallow Earth orbit. Sputnik carried a battery-operator radio
transmitter that beeped as it circled the globe every 95 minutes. The 185-pound Sputnik
became a symbol of Soviet success, for the first time man had broken his gravitational
shackles. To military strategists, Sputnik was confirmation that the intercontinental
ballistic missile had surpassed the strategic bomber as the weapon of the future. In late
July of 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that the United States would
launch several small satellites, which was to begin July 1, 1957. Within a couple days,
the Russians announced similar intentions, but the Soviet satellite would be larger than
the American one. By mid-1957, the official Soviet press suggested the first launch was
months away. Few people in the United States paid much attention to the prediction
though. On October 4, 1957, Sputnik lifted off. Sputnik was only in orbit for three
weeks, but those who tracked it gained valuable information about the destiny of the
upper atmosphere and the manner in which it altered the satellite's orbit. On January 4,
1958, after ninety-two days in orbit, Sputnik I re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and
burned up. On November 3, 1957, the USSR launched Sputnik II. It was a much heavier
satellite, which carried the first living mammal into space. It was a dog named Laika.
Laika died after ten days in space. Some of the information sent from the satellite
showed that Laika was alive until there was no more oxygen left on board. Sputnik II
re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up on April 14, 1958, after 162 days in
space.
President Eisenhower announced on November 7, 1957 that James R. Killian would be the
first White House science advisor and soon approved one billion dollars for the first
direct federal aid to education--The National Defense Act. Plans for the establishment of
a civilian space agency got underway. On July 29, Eisenhower signed the National
Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, authorizing NASA. The administration was formally
founded on October 1, 1958. Until NASA was up and running, the military was in charge.
The US Army and Navy had ballistic-missile projects in process, and each wanted to be the
first to orbit an American satellite. The Navy got first shot on December 6, 1957. The
result was a spectacular failure. The Vanguard rocket rose a few feet above the launch
pad, and then fell back and blew up. Washington's officials then turned to the Army,
where a group of booster pioneers were creating a satellite at Redstone Arsenal in
Huntsville, Al. On January 31, 1958, it launched its Explorer I satellite from Cape
Canaveral on a modified Redstone ballistic missile. The thirty-one pound Explorer I was
considerably smaller that Sputnik I, but its orbit was much higher than Sputniks.
Explorer I also carried a Geiger counter designed to detect the presence of cosmic rays.
Explorer I's instruments recorded an increasing number of cosmic particles as its
altitude increased. Eventually James Van Allen described the discovery as zones or belts
of electrically charged particles trapped by Earth's magnetic field. By the first
anniversary of the Sputnik I launch, the United States was closing the gap in the space
race. America had launched three Explorers and one Vanguard, while the Soviets had
launched three Sputniks. However the Russians could not only claim the first launch of an
artificial object, but it could also claim the first launch of a living creature as well.
Also, at 185 pounds, Sputnik I weighed more that all four US satellites combined and
Sputnik III weighed more than 2,950 pounds. Although the Sputnik I launch is widely
believed to have signaled the start of the space race, some space policy historians do
not believe that the real competition actually started until seven years later. Some say
that initially, Eisenhower attempted to avoid an overreaction to the Soviet
accomplishments in order to foster a strong US program based on the United State's own
goals and abilities.
A new rivalry began on April 12, 1961, when Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made the first
manned space flight, an orbital mission in Vostok I. A month later, NASA astronaut Alan
Shepard became the first American in space. He made a brief suborbital flight. On
February 29, 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the planet. On
May 25, 1961, President Kennedy set the national goal of landing astronauts on the moon
and returning them safely to Earth within the decade. The Soviets denied that they had
any plans to put humans on the moon, but historical documents have proved this wrong.
Also their Luna launches proved that they had an interest in the moon. On September 13,
1959, the USSR's Luna II crashed on the moon carrying a copy of the Soviet coat of Arms.
Then on October 4, 1959, Luna III set out to orbit the moon and photographed seventy
percent of its farside. The last great first in space exploration came on July 20, 1969
when Neil Armstrong and his crew on Apollo 9 reached the moon.
It was difficult to tell which nation was really ahead in the space race each country
racked up a series of important firsts. The moon marked the finish line for the space
race and once that was conquered there was little left to explore with the current
technologies. But the space programs continue and with them bring us new technologies and
products. The cold war although was still in its prime but with the end of the space race
closed one of the sources from which it was fueled. 
Bibliography
www.nytimes.com/partners/aol/special/sputnik/sput-04.html (Primary Source)
Von Braun, Wernher & Fredrick I. Ordway III. History of Rocketry & Space Travel. (New
York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1975
Raibchikov, Evgeny. Russians in Space. (New York: Doubleday, 1971). 
Rowland, Robert. America's Agenda For Space. (Lincolnwood, Illinois: National Textbook
Co, 1990).