A Cold War View of
The Space Race
(This following paragraph is an ultra-rightist, Cold War view.)
For reasons relating to the Cold War and national security,
the U.S. had to beat the Soviet Union in the Space Race.
Since 1945, the Unites States had led capitalist
countries in a battle for the hearts and economic
well-being of the world against the expansion of
Soviet-led Communism. Less developed countries
were “on the fence” when it came to how best to run
their governments and economies. Each year,
dozens of countries found themselves, in one way or
another, deciding if they would model themselves
toward Anglo-American capitalism or toward Sovietstyle communism. It was believed that the more
communist countries there were in the world, the
greater the chance that capitalist economies would
have been damaged and their national securities put
at great risk. These less developed countries looked
toward the accomplishments of the Soviet Union
and the United States as examples of how far
they might advance out of poverty under
capitalism or communism. The advancement of
technology and the ability to expand into and
exploit the “final frontier” were prime displays for
the world to see. If the decades-old communistrun Soviet Union could marshal their resources,
school systems, and scientists to advance into
space and other planets better than a democratic
and economic system that had been around for
centuries (like the British Empire), then it was
feared that the days of the U.S. lifestyle might
have been numbered.
U.S. Second to U.S.S.R
From the beginning, the Soviet Union had beaten the
United States in every leg of the Space Race!
The October 4, 1957, launch of the tiny “beeping” satellite may have been the
most significant event to occur since the explosion of the first atomic bomb in
1945. At the height of the cold war and into the International Geophysical Year,
the Soviet Union had beaten the U.S. into space.
Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington
railed at the "devastating blow to the prestige
of the United States as the leader in the
scientific and technical world."
Labor leader Walter Reuther
declared Sputnik a "bloodless
Pearl Harbor."
"The way the world interpreted
the launch clearly changed the
perception of the Soviet Union
and changed the character of the
U.S. in the way they reacted to it."
--Helmet Kohl,
Chancellor of West Germany
"The original launch was clearly one of the major events
of the 20th Century," says John Logsdon, director of
graduate studies in Technology, Science and Public
Policy at George Washington University.
The 185-pound Sputnik became a symbol
"I think the most significant thing was
of time; man had broken his gravitational
that Sputnik alerted the world as to what
shackles. And to military strategists,
the Soviets were up to militarily as well
Sputnik was confirmation that the
as scientifically," said Richard Thomas,
intercontinental ballistic missile had
who heads the Center for Strategic
surpassed the strategic bomber as the
weapon of the future.
Technology at Texas A&M University.
A So viet Surprise
The launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, began what came to be known as the space
race. But the competition to be the first to loft a satellite had begun well before. And the U.S.
lost.
Anthony R. Curtis, a professor at the Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, who is the author of
several books on space science and manages the Space Today Online website, says, "After the
end of World War II, research on rockets for upper-atmosphere research and military missiles
was extensive. Engineers knew they would be able to launch a satellite to Earth orbit sooner or
later."
By 1957, both superpowers were already hard at work. In 1954, a United Nations
committee had proposed that nations launch science satellites for space exploration.
The U.S.S.R. and the U.S. each announced plans for small research satellites in 1955.
The key to the Soviet win came not from the space race but from the weapons race,
sparked in the early 1950s by test explosions of the first hydrogen bombs. "There is little
question that military and political concerns drove the early space program and that science was
of secondary concern," says Rodger J. Koppa, an associate professor of industrial engineering
at Texas A&M University who was a crew performance specialist in the Apollo program.
While the U.S. planned to use airplanes to deliver nuclear weapons, the Soviets tried out a
new concept: rockets. Soviet engineers, headed by Sergei Korolev, had designed the first
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). It did not take the Soviets long to figure out that these
powerful rockets might also be capable of punching straight out of the atmosphere.
The first Soviet satellite, a highly polished aluminum sphere with two dangling antennas,
was completed in June 1957. Its official Russian name was Iskustvennyi Sputnik Zemli, or
"Artificial Fellow Traveler of the Earth." In August 1957 two Soviet ICBMs successfully flew
4,000 miles to test targets. The Russians were ready for an attempt.
Sputnik 1 was finally mounted onto its rocket at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on
October 2 and covered with a nose cone. The radio was tested in the assembly building, and the
booster was transported outside to the launchpad on a railcar. Finally, on October 4, a bugler
sounded several notes on the launchpad and, at 10:28 P.M. Moscow time, the rocket was
ignited.
After an anxious wait of 95 minutes following the launch, Sputnik sailed over the
Cosmodrome, its beeping radio signal confirming that it was in orbit. Notes Dr. Curtis, "When the
official TASS news agency telegraphed the news around the globe at 5:58 P.M., New York time,
October 4, everyone knew the space age had dawned."
One Is Not Enough:
The Soviets did not sit back and enjoy the worldwide adoration. Three
months later, the Soviets capped their success by launching Sputnik 2, a
much heavier satellite which carried the first living mammal into space--a dog
named Laika. Biological data was returned for approximately one week.
The launches touched off a wave of anxiety in the United States, where
one attempt after another to match the Russian fete seemed to end in
frustrating failure. For most people in this country, news of the Sputnik launch
came as a bolt out of the blue. For a time, it fueled wild speculation that the
Soviets would send an expedition to the moon within three to eight years and
space ships to Mars and Venus within 10 years.
America Responds with...."Kaputnik"
The U.S. threw down the gauntlet.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower made a radio
and TV speech on November 7, naming James
R. Killian the first White House science adviser,
and soon approved $1 billion for the first direct
federal aid to education--the National Defense
Education Act--"to meet the pressing demands
of national security in the years ahead." The
blow to American self-esteem was clear: It
might be that Americans were not as smart as
the Soviets! Plans for the establishment of a
civilian space agency got under way. On July
29, President Eisenhower signed the National
Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, authorizing
the formation of NASA.
Until NASA was up and running in October
1958, the ball remained in the court of the U.S.
military. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy had
ballistic missile projects in progress, and each
wanted to be the first to orbit an American
satellite.
The Navy got the first shot on December 6,
1957. The result, which took place before the
world's media, was a spectacular failure. There,
before hundreds of film crews, live television and
radio commentators that were on hand to
broadcast America’s entry into the space race,
America’s Vanguard rocket gloriously rose a few
feet above the launch pad! ...And then, after a
couple of seconds, it sank back down and
crumpled in bits of crunching metal and
explosive fire. Its tiny six-inch satellite rolled out
of the flames, still transmitting its radio signal.
Sarcastic newspapers immortalized the event as
"Kaputnik" and "Stayputnik."
Washington officials then turned to the
army, where a group of booster pioneers were
creating a U.S. answer to the Soviet ICBMs at
Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. The
army scored on January 31, 1958, launching its
Explorer 1 satellite from Cape Canaveral on a
Jupiter-C rocket, a modified Redstone ballistic
missile. That satellite, which carried an
instrument package developed by a team at the
University of Iowa under the direction of James
A. Van Allen, discovered the famous radiation
belts around the Earth that now bear Van Allen’s
name.
Three months after Sputnik, the U.S. had
regained a measure of its national self-esteem.
Still, America could not keep up with the Russians:
* The Soviet Union became the first to launch a human being into outer space.
* Soviet Union cosmonauts were the first to orbit the planet.
* By the time the United States caught up and sent Astronaut John Glen into
three orbits around the Earth, the Soviet Union had already had one of their
cosmonauts complete 25 orbits.
* The Soviet Union was the first to launch a larger two-man vehicle into orbit.
* In 1959, the Soviet Union flew the first spacecraft by the Moon, Luna 1.
* The Soviet Union was the first to have a woman pilot a space orbiting vehicle,
breaking another orbiting record and another payload-size record in the process.
* Plus, the Soviet Union continued a string of satellite launches. The average U.S.
citizen could often walk out into his or her back yard, gaze up at a star-lit sky and
see a point of light moving slowly and steadily across the sky: A Soviet satellite.
Race to the Moon
When John F. Kennedy became President, the U.S.
did not yet have enemies on the Moon, but it certainly
looked like it might one day. On September 13, 1959, the
U.S.S.R.'s Luna 2 crashed onto the moon, carrying a copy
of the Soviet coat of arms. Then, on October 4, 1959,
Luna 3 set out to orbit the Moon and photographed 70
percent of its far side.
Responding to these Soviet “moon shots” and the first
orbital flight of the Earth by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri
Gagarin (on April 12, 1961), President Kennedy, on May
25, 1961, set the national goal of landing astronauts on
the Moon and returning them safely to Earth within the
decade. The Soviets had proven they could “hit” the
moon, Kennedy was challenging them and us to a much
more intricate task: To land on the moon with human
pilots, and then relaunch from the lunar surface for a safe
return to Earth. Given time, all scientists knew that
technology would naturally bring us to the day when
humans could travel to the moon and back. But
Kennedy’s challenge to accomplish such a feat within a
mere nine years seemed daunting to many scientists and
engineers, if not impossible.
In a tone which hearkened to the previous century’s
spirit that called Americans to push and carve a coast-tocoast “manifest destiny,” and to achieve the impossible
long-term task of building a transcontinental railway, the
world heard Kennedy say,
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and
do the other things, not because they are easy but
because they are hard! Because that goal will serve
to organize the best of our energies and skills.
Because that challenge is one we are willing to
accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one
we intend to win."
- John F. Kennedy
September 12, 1962.
Now the two superpowers were fully engaged in a battle
that would end on the Moon.
Studies were begun almost immediately in the Soviet
Union to meet the American challenge. Both countries
spent billions and stretched their scientific, engineering,
and educational resources to what seemed beyond their
limits. Both countries developed and tested several new
rockets and space vehicles, as well as developed lunar
landing vehicles.
Both countries settled on a multi-staged rocket design
that would send a ship, lunar landing vehicle, and an
earth-reentry capsule. Every section of these vehicles
would be disposable. Two stages of lift-off rockets (or
boosters) would be shed from the ship and burn up in
earth’s atmosphere or left for a decaying orbit. A third
stage would push the capsule and “lunar module” to the
moon. In Moon’s orbit, the lunar module would separate
from the rocket and land in a hovering maneuver on the
moon. A top section of the lunar module would then
blast off from this lunar landing section, and return to
the capsule (and 3rd stage of rockets) waiting in
Moon’s orbit. Once the men were back in the
capsule, this last chunk of lunar module would also
be disposed of at some point. Finally, upon entering
Earth’s atmosphere, the astronauts would only need
the protective reentry capsule, and the rocket stage
that took them to the moon and back would be shed.
A disposable craft at every stage!
While the American program had its share of
setbacks, the Soviet program experienced major
failures and delays in all areas. They started late, in
reaction to the American program, instead of being
first out of the blocks. The Soviet Union had a major
leadership change with Premier Khrushchev's ouster
in 1965, while Lyndon Johnson saw the Apollo
program through from its inception to within months of
the lunar landing. Sergei Korolev, the Russian chief
designer, died just months before the first test flight of
the Soyuz. The series of failures and disasters that
followed can be partly attributed to the lack of his firm
hand to guide the program. The higher priority Soviet
ballistic missile programs commanded the attention
and talent of the same design bureaus that were
working on the moon program. As nice as it would be
to beat the Americans to the moon, it seemed that the
Soviet Union was more concerned with being able to
match the U.S. Air Force’s ability to accurately deliver
nuclear weapons by way of supersonic missiles.
Until the very end, it was difficult to tell which
nation was out in front, as both contenders racked up
a series of important space firsts. The winner was not
declared until U.S. astronaut Neil A. Armstrong
bounced out of the Apollo 11 lunar lander on July 20,
1969, and, with the whole world watching on live
television, made his now famous statement:
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for
mankind."