Saturday, February 11, 2017
The start of the Space Race
The Space Race between Russia and the US began when the Russians launched their first satellite, Sputnik 1 into space. Because of the current situation between America and Russia, this made Americans think, "Hey, aren't we supposed to be the most technologically advanced country in the world? Why are the Russians in space before us?". This created a sense of urgency, a feeling that we had to get into space soon, because no one wanted to lose in anything to the Russians. Because of this, the US's satellite program was rushed into action and hurried the creation of their first satellite which, when launched, crashed back down to the ground, only reaching a few feet above the Earth's surface before coming back down and exploding. This disheartened the American people and made them think that the Soviets were better than them, because at the same time of the crash of the US's first satellite, the Russians were putting another satellite, the Sputnik 2, into space. This put the US even farther behind in the Space Race, but it also motivated them to put more resources into their satellite program. If Russia had not gotten ahead in the Space Race, would the US have focused on their space program as much as they did?
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I don't think so, simply because being behind in the Space Race put additional pressure on the US to work more quickly and efficiently. Another example of this is the missile gap in which the US benefited from overproduction, when they thought that the Soviets had more missiles than they actually did.
ReplyDeleteI think the United States would have taken a lot longer to have done anything in their space program, but the United States would probably have eventually made it to space in an attempt to beat the Soviet Union there, but this might have happened a decade or more later.
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