Men in spaceĪ Soviet cosmonaut named Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space when his ship, Vostok I, completed an orbit of the Earth in April 1961. In September 1959, the Soviets also landed a probe, Luna II, on the surface of the Moon. The following month (January 1959) the Soviets surged ahead again with the launch of Luna I, the first man-made satellite to leave Earth and take up orbit around the Sun. Within six months NASA had launched the first communications satellite, SCORE, which beamed down a message from Eisenhower. In July 1958 President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the formation of a dedicated space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). ![]() Two months later, the US Army and Air Force launched their nation’s first man-made satellite, Explorer I. In November 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik II, their second orbiting satellite and the first to contain a living creature, a dog named Laika. The Space Race picked up speed during the 1950s and early 1960s. Curtis Lemay, the United States Air Force chief, immediately prioritised research into new rocket technology. The Sputnik program also carried implied threats to US national security, since rockets that put satellites into orbit could also be used for military applications. But Sputnik also shocked Washington, shattering assumptions that the Soviets lagged behind America in rocket and space technology. Sputnik created a sensation, the New York Times suggesting it would “go down in history…as one of the greatest achievements of man”. It circled the Earth at a speed of 28,000 kilometres per hour, orbiting once every 90 minutes. Sputnik I (Russian for “traveller” or “wanderer”) was tiny in comparison to modern satellites, weighing just 90 kilograms. Soviet expertise was put on show in October 1957, when the USSR became the first country to launch a man-made satellite into orbit. Soviet advances A Soviet technician works on Sputnik prior to its launch in 1957ĭespite America’s acquisition of German rocket scientists, the Soviets nevertheless made rapid advances in this field. These German scientists played a vital role in designing, developing and testing American rockets and missiles for the duration of the Cold War. By July 1945, von Braun and dozens of his staff were being shipped to the US under Operation Paperclip. It was the Americans who captured von Braun in the final days of World War II. Though von Braun’s innovations caused thousands of civilian deaths, the Soviets and Americans coveted his expertise. One single V-2 rocket that landed on a Woolworth’s store killed 160 Londoners. Von Braun’s V-2s caused around 2,750 civilian deaths. Travelling at the speed of sound, the V-2s hit their targets just three minutes after launch their speed made them impossible to intercept with planes or anti-aircraft fire. In late 1944, more than 1,400 of these rockets – by then dubbed the V-2 – were launched at civilian targets in England. An impressed Adolf Hitler ordered the manufacture of thousands of explosive-tipped rockets based on von Braun’s designs. In 1942, Braun oversaw a rocket launch that achieved sub-orbital space flight, the first man-made object to do so. Arguably the leading rocket scientist of the early Cold War was Wernher von Braun, a former member of the Nazi Party and major in the much-hated Schutzstaffel or SS. Ironically, the early pioneers in rocket science were German rather than American or Russian. The first phase of the Space Race focused on the development of rocket systems. Nazi origins Wernher von Bruan, the former Nazi turned US space pioneer In reality, their victories were fairly evenly shared over the duration of the Space Race. Every ground-breaking invention, test, launch or milestone was publicised and feted with extensive media coverage, some of it verging on propaganda.īoth the United States and the Soviet Union repeatedly claimed to be ahead of the other in space exploration. ![]() ![]() Unlike other aspects of the Cold War, the Space Race was a very public phenomenon. Both superpowers spent millions developing space-capable rockets, putting artificial satellites into orbit, designing and building orbiter ships, training astronauts, launching manned space missions and, eventually, attempting to land men on the Moon and bring them home safely. The main aim of the Space Race was to achieve technological superiority. 8 The Space Race slows A public phenomenon
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