Who Won The Space Race

The Launch of Sputnik and the Start of the Space Race

On October 4, 1957, the world watched in awe and fear as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first man-made satellite, into space. This small metal ball, less than two feet in diameter, ignited a space race between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. that would last for eighteen years and change the world as we know it. However, Sputnik was not the first piece of human technology to enter space. That superlative goes to the V-2 rocket used by Germany in missile attacks against Allied cities during the final years of World War II. Although it wasn’t very effective, at the end of the war, both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had captured the technology and the scientists that had developed it and began using them for their own projects.

The Threat of Nuclear War and the Race to Launch Satellites

By August 1957, the Soviets had successfully tested the first intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7, the same rocket that would be used to launch Sputnik two months later. The frightening aspect of Sputnik was not the orbiting ball itself, but the fact that the same technology could be used to launch a nuclear warhead at any city. Not wanting to fall too far behind, President Eisenhower ordered the Navy to speed up its own project and launch a satellite as soon as possible. However, on December 6, 1957, the Vanguard TV3 satellite took off and crashed to the ground two seconds later, causing a huge embarrassment for the United States.

The U.S. Catches Up and the Goal to Land on the Moon

Fortunately, the Army had been working on their own parallel project, The Explorer, which was successfully launched in January 1958. However, the U.S. had barely managed to catch up before they were surpassed again as Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in April 1961. Almost a year passed and several more Soviet astronauts completed their missions before Project Mercury succeeded in making John Glenn the first American in orbit in February 1962. By this time, President Kennedy had realized that simply catching up to each Soviet advance a few months later wasn’t going to cut it. The U.S. had to do something first, and in May 1961, a month after Gagarin’s flight, he announced the goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. This goal was achieved through the Apollo program with Neil Armstrong taking his famous step on July 20, 1969.

The End of the Space Race and the Benefits of Space Exploration

With both countries next turning their attention to orbital space stations, there’s no telling how much longer the space race could have gone on. But because of improving relations negotiated by Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Nixon, the U.S.S.R. and U.S. moved toward cooperation rather than competition. The successful joint mission, known as Apollo-Soyuz, in which an American Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soviet Soyuz craft and the two crews met, shook hands, and exchanged gifts, marked the end of the space race in 1975.

So, what was the point of this whole space race? Was it just a massive waste of time and resources? Two major superpowers trying to outdo each other by pursuing symbolic projects that were both dangerous and expensive? Perhaps, but the biggest benefits of the space program had nothing to do with one country beating another. During the space race, funding for research and education, in general, increased dramatically, leading to many advances that may not have otherwise been made. Many NASA technologies developed for space are now widely used in civilian life, from memory foam in mattresses to freeze-dried food, to LEDs in cancer treatment. And, of course, the satellites that we rely on for our GPS and mobile phone signals would not have been there without the space program. All of which goes to show that the rewards of scientific research and advancement are often far more vast than even the people pursuing them can imagine.