The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union(USSR) and the United States (US) for supremacy in space exploration.

Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national security and symbolic of technological and ideological superiority.

• The Space Race involved pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, sub-orbital and orbital human spaceflight around the Earth, and piloted voyages to the Moon.

• In 1955, with both the United States and the Soviet Union building ballistic missiles that could be utilized to launch objects into space, the "starting line" was drawn for the Space Race.

• In separate announcements, just four days apart, both nations publicly announced that they would launch artificial Earth satellites by 1957 or 1958.

• On 29 July 1955, James C. Hagerty, president Dwight D. Eisenhower's press secretary, announced that the United States intended to launch "small Earth circling satellites" between 1 July 1957 and 31 December 1958 as part of their contribution to the International Geophysical Year (IGY).

• Four days later, at the Sixth Congress of International Astronautical Federation in Copenhagen, scientist Leonid I. Sedov spoke to international reporters at the Soviet embassy, and announced his country's intention to launch a satellite as well, in the "near future".

• On 30 August 1955, Korolev managed to get the Soviet Academy of Sciences to create a commission whose purpose was to beat the Americans into Earth orbit: this was the defacto start date for the Space Race.

It effectively began with the Soviet launch of the Sputnik 1artificial satellite on 4 October 1957. 

It concluded with the co-operative Apollo-Soyuz Test Project human spaceflight mission in July 1975. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project came to symbolize détente, a partial easing of strained relations between the USSR and the US.

Timeline of the Space Race

• http://www.history.com/topics/space-race/videos#the-space-race

Date Significance Country Mission Name

August 21, 1957 Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)  USSR R-7 Semyorka SS-6

Sapwood

October 4, 1957 First artificial satellite  USSR Sputnik 1

November 3, 1957 First animal in orbit (Dog)  USSR Sputnik 2

January 31, 1958First US satellite; detection ofVan Allen belts

 USA-ABMA Explorer 1

December 18, 1958 First communications satellite  USA-ABMA Project SCORE

Timeline of the Space Race

January 4, 1959 Artificial satellite (Sun's)  USSR Luna 1

February 17, 1959 Weather satellite  USA-NASA(NRL)1 Vanguard 2

June 1959 Reconnaissance satellite  USA-Air Force Discover 4

August 7, 1959 Photo of Earth from space  USA-NASA Explorer 6

September 14, 1959 Probe to Moon  USSR Luna 2

October 7, 1959 Photo of the far side of the Moon  USSR Luna 3

April 12, 1961 Human in orbit  USSR Vostok 1

July 10, 1962First active communications satellite

 USA-AT&T Telstar

September 29, 1962 Artificial satellite by a non-superpower  Canada Alouette 1

June 16, 1963 Woman in orbit  USSR Vostok 6

March 18, 1965 Extra-vehicular activity  USSR Voskhod 2

December 15, 1965 Orbital rendezvous2  USA-NASA Gemini 6A/Gemini 7

March 1, 1966 Probe lands on another planet - Venus  USSR Venera 3

March 16, 1966 In-orbit rendezvous and docking  USA-NASA Gemini 8

December 24, 1968 Manned Lunar orbit  USA-NASA Apollo 8

July 20, 1969 Human on the Moon  USA-NASA Apollo 11

April 23, 1971 Space station  USSR Salyut 1

November 14, 1971 Satellite orbits another planet -Mars  USA-NASA Mariner 9

November 9, 1972 Geostationarycommunications satellite  Canada-BCE Anik A1

July 15, 1975 First U.S.-USSR joint mission  USSR USA-NASA Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

• The Space Race sparked unprecedented increases in spending on education and pure research, which accelerated scientific advancements and led to beneficial spin-off technologies. An unforeseen effect was that the Space Race contributed to the birth of the environmental movement; the first color pictures of Earth taken from deep space were used as icons by the movement to show the planet as a fragile "blue marble" surrounded by the blackness of space.

Technology—especially in aerospace engineering, electronics and telecommunicationfields—advanced greatly during this period. However, the effects of the Space Race went far beyond rocketry, physics, and astronomy. "Space age technology" extended to fields as diverse as home economics and forest defoliation studies, and the push to win the race changed the very nature of science education.

Advances in technology and education

• American concerns that they had fallen behind the Soviet Union in the race to space led quickly to a push by legislators and educators for greater emphasis on mathematics and the physical sciences in American schools. The United States' National Defense Education Act of 1958 increased funding for these goals from childhood education through the post-graduate level. To this day over 1,200 American high schools retain their own planetarium installations, a situation unparalleled in any other country and a direct consequence of the Space Race

Today over a thousand artificial satellites orbit earth, relaying communications data around the planet and facilitating remote sensing of data on weather, vegetation, and human movements for the nations who employ them. In addition, much of the micro-technology that fuels everyday activities, from time-keeping to enjoying music, derives from research initially driven by the Space Race.

The Environment

• An unintended consequence of the Space Race is that it facilitated the environmental movement, as this was the first time in history that humans could see their home-world as it really appears-–the first color pictures from space showed a fragile blue planet bordered by the blackness of space.

• Pictures such as Apollo 8's Earthrise, which showed a crescent Earth peeking over the lunar surface, and Apollo 17's The Blue Marble, which for the first-time-ever showed a full circular earth, became iconic to the environmental movement.

• The first Earth Day was partially triggered by the Apollo 8 photo. Astronauts returning from space missions also commented on how fragile the Earth looked from space, further fueling calls for better stewardship of the only home humans have—for now.

Sana KamalGrade 9/A