Essay On Space Race. The United States and the Soviet Union thought it was a huge deal to be the first country to explore space. It was between and these two nations were determined to be the first to explore the unknown in space. What they were first trying to do was shoot these huge technologic metal things known as satellites into Aug 12, · Space Race at the End. Words: Length: 12 Pages Document Type: Term Paper Paper #: Read Full Paper. Three test launches in September failed miserably, but by October, the crew believed they were ready to test (Green and Lomask, 41). However, on October 4, , the Soviet Union shocked the United States and the world by successfully What Is The Space Race History Essay. The space race, a race to see who could make it to space first. It had origin ties to the arms race between America and the Soviet Union. The purpose of this research paper will be to get information on just what the space race was
The Space Race Essay: How It Changed Everything | WOW Essays
We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it. Type of paper: Research Paper. Topic: United StatesSpaceRaceAmericaWorldCold WarTechnologyspace race essay, War. Pages: Words: The Cold War was an era of rapid change the world over. The Soviet Union emerged from World War II victorious but weakened by war, needing to find a new path of industrialization and to maintain control of the myriad of satellite states it had collected as spoils; the United States emerged as the leading Western power, largely unaffected by the war, which was not fought on their own territory, and largely complacent with its position at first. The rest of the world was caught largely in the middle, and was progressively industrializing, space race essay.
The Space Race would become the technological challenge space race essay would bring about rapid innovation in both countries that would affect everyday life in a multitude of ways. It served many purposes, including unifying the people of the respective nations around a goal, boosting morale when achievements were announced, encouraging competition, changing the focuses of space race essay and the educational system, and, most importantly, advancing technology and science, as well as our place in the universe. In this paper, we will examine some of these effects, and look at their impact on us even today. First, space race essay, let us look at the background. While there had been cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the War, and even after, for example, when negotiating the Potsdam Agreement and in administrating Berlin untilwhen the Russians stopped attending the joint meetingsrelations worsened dramatically after the war.
The Blockade of Berlin inthe Korean War from toand the Soviet detonation of a nuclear bomb inmuch earlier than expected, were all major factors that increased tensions early on Beisner This period tended to focus on fear of the enemy from within, sleeper agents or even Americans who sympathized with communism, space race essay. A dramatic change of focus came about on October 4th,however, when the Soviets launched the first satellite, Sputnik I, into space in a low-earth orbit. While this was a major advance for science and human history, it was also a demonstration that the Soviets had technology capable of sending a warhead anywhere on Earth, and it caused great concern in the United States Kernan The event led directly to the founding of NASA inconcentrating American space research into one body with its own funding, and also led to the National Defense Education Act, which spent billions refocusing the education system in the United States, placing more emphasis on what are today known as space race essay STEM fields Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Flattau, et.
al Despite this refocusing, the Soviets still had a head-start. On November 3rd,they launched another satellite into space, this one carrying a dog, Laika, which would become the first animal in space. On April 12,space race essay, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the earth. The Americans were not far behind, though; Alan Shepherd was launched into space about three weeks after Gagarin, space race essay, and John Glen orbited the Earth on February 20, In and space race essay, President Kennedy publically put his support behind NASA, and famously gave a speech about landing an American on the moon before the end of that decade.
This was the kick-start the Apollo Program needed to get off the ground. While there were certainly challenges along the way, such as the Apollo 1 fire that killed the Apollo 1 crew and destroyed the spacecraft while it was still on the ground at Cape Canaveral, the achievements of the Apollo Program were many, and included the first orbit of the moon on Apollo 8 on which the iconic first photo of the earth rising over the moon was takenthe actual moon landing on July 20th,numerous important space walks, and the successful recovery of Apollo 13 after the first major American disaster in space. The research done on these missions was also invaluable, space race essay, as are the many moon rocks returned, which have told us much about the formation of the solar system and the Earth-Moon system.
Now that we have covered the background, space race essay, we will examine the effects the Space Race had on people at the time, and the effects it continues to have today. One major effect it had was to refocus the attitude of the American people. The focus had been to promote fear of the enemy within. The Space Race refocused these energies into something constructive. Instead of being purely fearful of the enemy, the focus became finding constructive ways to achieve things the enemy had not, and to focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The results of this are both obvious and hidden, but present in everyday life. Obviously, we landed humans on the moon, and that is a fantastic achievement. But technology we use every day was also developed, either directly by NASA or by repurposing technology developed by NASA.
A few examples include the ballpoint space race essay, satellite television, space race essay, the dust buster and other cordless power toolsmodern smoke detectors, space race essay, the joystick, memory foam, freeze-dried food, LEDs, scratch-resistant lenses, invisible braces, the design of many highways and runways with grooves in them to drain water and reduce risk of hydroplaning, enriched baby food, solar technology, ear thermometers, and more Conger. It would be nearly impossible to imagine life in the 21st Century without these things, and we have the space race to thank for them. The Space Race also served to boost morale by unifying the nation around a tangible goal.
During World War II, for example, morale had been extremely high as all efforts were focused around ending the war. But after the war ended and it became clear that the Soviets had also emerged as a super power, and a hostile one, morale gradually began to drop. After the embarrassment space race essay not being able to win the Korean War set in and paranoia spread among the public during the McCarthy era, there was no clear goal. Military defeat of the Soviets appeared less and less an option as both countries built up their nuclear arsenals with an eye toward mutually assured destruction. There was no clear goal to rally around, space race essay. Therefore, when President Kennedy announced that they would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade, it provided a clear goal for people to focus on, and a clear path to that achievement that they could follow in the news.
And even more clearly, it provided a singular event of massive historical significance, the moon space race essay, which was watched by an estimated million people worldwide and not only restored American faith in themselves and their achievements, but also sent a message of American achievement to people the world over. It is referred to often in popular culture, and still provides Americans with a sense of pride to this day. It is also viewed as a demonstration of what we can accomplish as a nation if we put all of our efforts into doing something. Astronauts, and the Apollo astronauts in particular, are revered as national heroes, and American children commonly dream of becoming astronauts.
The Space Race also reinforced one of the traditional values of American society: competition. It also indirectly encouraged more competition in education and the workplace, as more and more people were encouraged to engage in competition in order to achieve direct, tangible goals. As already mentioned, another major consequence of the Space Race was the redirection of the American educational system to focus more on STEM fields. In addition, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which would later become the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, was created to execute research and development projects in the defense department.
Funding for education, including higher education, also increased exponentially due to the National Defense Education Act. While the act is no longer space race essay today, the focus on STEM fields it began clearly still is Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum The Space Race highlighted the need for higher education, and a better-educated and technology-oriented workforce in general. These trends are still active today Flattau et. Technology and Science also saw great leaps forward. Some of the tangible inventions were already highlighted above. But even the technology that spun off from NASA spinoffs themselves ultimately has roots in the Space Race. Cellular telephone networks, the microchips in our cellular phones themselves, laptops, satellite navigation, space race essay, etc.
would all be nearly unthinkable without the investment made in the space race, and if they did exist in some form, would probably be entirely different than the technology so familiar to us today. The achievements of the Space Race also would lead to an increased understanding of our true place in the universe as humans. The image certainly shows the beauty that space race essay Earth, and to many highlights its uniqueness. This image was instrumental in the early environmentalist movement, as it can also be seen to demonstrate the fragility of the Earth and why we must protect it. This image was taken in from the Voyager 1 spacecraft, from a distance of about 6 space race essay kilometers from Earth.
It shows Earth as just a small, pale blue dot against the background of space. This image would also dramatically affect the way we see ourselves as humans in the context of the universe; it is incredibly powerful to see our planet as just a pale blue dot; for some, this highlights our insignificance in the universe, yet space race essay others, it highlights our amazing technological abilities, that we can send man-made spacecraft to such a distance that the Earth is made to appear insignificant Sagen These, of course, are only some of the iconic images produced by the Space Race which have made ourselves re-evaluate our place in the universe; but they are incredibly powerful ones, and have changed the course of human history.
Some consider the end of the space race to be the docking of an Apollo spacecraft with a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The mission was symbolic of joint American-Soviet cooperation, and a warming of relations between the nations. It is worth noting the impact that this cooperation has on NASA today; this cooperation set a precedent of cooperation in space, one which would continue between space race essay United States and Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union with cooperation on the International Space Station and now, space race essay, after the retirement of the Space Shuttles, has resulted in NASA being entirely dependent on the Russian space program to continue a presence of American astronauts in space.
While perhaps not the ideal situation, space race essay, for the moment, the system seems to be working. Such cooperation would have been almost unthinkable in the s, although President Kennedy did briefly attempt to convince Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev that a cooperative moon mission would be beneficial to both countries and send a strong message before a meeting of the United Nations on September 20, While it is interesting to speculate on what such an early joint venture between the two nations might have resulted in, what needs to be emphasized here is that the current NASA program of cooperation with the Russian space agency and its complete reliance on them for transportation currently grew indirectly out of the Apollo-Soyuz docking inand thus it shaped the world, and the structure of NASA, today.
As has been demonstrated here, were it not for the Space Race that the Cold War triggered, the world would look quite different today. The trend of indiscriminate paranoia during the s might well have continued later into the cold war in an intensified form similar to McCarthyism had the Space Race not provided a unifying goal and something for the Space race essay States to take pride in. It helped the nation to move on from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by rallying around his specified dream and goal as well. If not given specific achievements to point to, morale might have declined even further than it did during the riots and assassinations in and the Vietnam War and its disastrous results for the nation.
The Space Race created a space race essay adulation for astronauts, treating them as heroes, space race essay, and making the profession an incredibly revered one. The Space Race also encouraged everyone to work harder, much in the way World War II had encouraged massive recycling drives, production improvements in factories, and a general mobilization to involve the effort in everyday life. Education was changed forever, space race essay, with more funding being provided for science, math, and engineering, and more funds made available for people to pursue higher education Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum Curriculum was restructured, and it was recognized that in order to be successful as a nation, we needed to produce scientists, engineers, space race essay, and mathematicians ourselves up until that point, the United States was still relying heavily on German scientists, such as Werner von Braun or Robert Oppenheimer; after Sputnik, there was a clear recognition that they needed to start home-growing talent space race essay these fields, as well.
Technology and science made great leaps forward, with a cooperation with private industry which led to many of the technologies developed by and with NASA for specific purposes in space exploration to also be given applications in everyday life, improving quality of life in society not just in America, but the world over as well. Thanks to the Space Race, we also space race essay to reevaluate our position on the planet, in the solar system, space race essay, and the universe; and a new emphasis would come to be placed on our duty to the planet itself, once we were able to view ourselves from afar and truly realize how amazing yet fragile the Earth is. The impact of the Space Race on everyday life, not just for Americans, but for people all over the world, would be almost impossible to overestimate.
It is so broad-reaching that it can hardly be measured, and is not in any way limited to just the topics discussed in this paper. It is a prime, awe-inspiring example of what can be accomplished if the effort to achieve results is there- and what amazing results it did achieve. The Space Race ended up being, in the end, a peaceful and benefit-rich outlet for pent-up Cold War energies which became one of the most amazing things humanity itself has ever achieved, and from which all of us, every human on this planet, benefit from, directly or indirectly, space race essay, on a daily basis.
Beisner, Robert L. American Foreign Relations Since A guide to the Literature. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Bizony, Piers. Issue 42, Spring Conger, Cristen. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. March Smithsonian Magazine, space race essay.
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Essay On Space Race. The United States and the Soviet Union thought it was a huge deal to be the first country to explore space. It was between and these two nations were determined to be the first to explore the unknown in space. What they were first trying to do was shoot these huge technologic metal things known as satellites into Aug 12, · Space Race at the End. Words: Length: 12 Pages Document Type: Term Paper Paper #: Read Full Paper. Three test launches in September failed miserably, but by October, the crew believed they were ready to test (Green and Lomask, 41). However, on October 4, , the Soviet Union shocked the United States and the world by successfully What Is The Space Race History Essay. The space race, a race to see who could make it to space first. It had origin ties to the arms race between America and the Soviet Union. The purpose of this research paper will be to get information on just what the space race was
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