The Space Race

Although many factors contribute to the questionable outcome of the Space Race, the United States of America proved to be above the competition. The idea of reaching outer space and even the moon brought many unwanted failures but also many world changing successes in both the United States and the U.S.S.R.

During the early years of the Space Race , success was marked by headline-making “firsts”. Russia took an early lead in the race, even after a few disappointing failures, and managed to be the first in outer space. Little was known by the Americans about the Soviet’s its space program. Detailed information about the missions and the identity of the program managers and engineers were closely guarded state secrets, no one beyond a closed circle of scientists and technicians knew when the Soviets were launching a rocket. The Soviets reported only their successes and managed to keep the failure of so many missions hidden for decades, up until 1989 when the notebook of Konstatin Feoktiskov, an engineer and cosmonaut of the Soviet-Union, was found and contained details about most Soviet launches. The largest of the Soviet’s known crashes was the explosion of the N-1, which was a rocket made to send men to the moon. It was a larg

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This, of course brought the Soviets one step closer to the goal of manned space flight. e failure and caused an enormous amount of destruction. On January 31, 1958 the launch went well, the satellite had reached an orbit that was higher than planned but I worked and was dubbed America’s first satellite. Kennedy agreed with Johnson even though in Kennedy’s eyes the benefits of a space race seemed awfully small compared to the cost. The mission was a large success and just weeks later on April 12, 1961; Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin circled the earth once and returned safely. Sputnik broke through the gravitational pull and started circling the earth at 560 miles above ground.

From 1958 through 1961, six more earth-orbiting Sputniks were launched by the U. S proved that they could conquer their failures and even their fear by putting the FIRST man on the moon. “Listen now for the sound which forever more separates the old from the new” (Aaseng, Nathan p 44). The dog survived for 100 hours before the oxygen supply in the satellite began to run out, the dog was painlessly put to sleep by remote control. was planning to launch their first scientific satellite in the late 1957.

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