The Space Race & The Birth of NASA
The First in Space
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), to achieve firsts in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that occurred following World War II. Overall the USA won the Space Race because they kept on throwing more and more money into this race and that resulted in sending Neil Armstrong up to the moon who became first to walk on it !
HOWEVER, the real pioneers of space discovery was the Soviet cosmonauts.
But why???
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961.This clearly shows that the Soviet Union were the first to go up in space because Yuri went in 1961 and Neil went up in 1969! Also the Soviet Union have the record of first woman in space, first animal in space and the first shuttle in space.Although the USA won the Space Race the Soviet Union were the true space pioneers! This victory of the USA encoraged them to create the world famous NASA...
The Birth of NASA
While this new federal agency would conduct all non-military space activity, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created in February 1958 to develop space technology for military application. On July 29, 1958, Eisenhower (president of America) signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, establishing NASA.Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was an American army general and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961, he was also the one who signed the contract of NASA!
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › NASA
Comments (12)
02 Dec 2019
Thank you researching this and linking these together for us! Can you also think of a question we could talk about, inspired by your post?
appreciative_dove | Whyteleafe School B
Tom @ the BNC's comment
07 Dec 2019
Here are a few suggestions:
- How can we make Space Travel more economical?
- Can we make Space Exploration cheaper?
-Could we send drones up into space instead of space crafts?
-Have we explored enough?
-Is there more life beyond Earth?
Great questions! What do others think? And what do YOU think, appreciate_dove?
appreciative_dove | Whyteleafe School B
Tom @ the BNC's comment
10 Dec 2019
I think that if it wasn't for the Space Race we wouldn't know about anything else except that there is the Sun,Moon and obviously Earth.We would be completely lost without the falling out between the Soviets and the Americans.As we know (by reading my article), after America had won the space race they realised that this topic of space should go worldwide and that there is more to see out there.Consequently, they formed an organisation that is globally now known as NASA.If you didn't know, NASA stands for:
National
Aeronautics
Space
Administration
I think that we should all agree that if it weren't for the space race we would probably have less of an idea about our solar system and anything else around us!
02 Dec 2019
This is an interesting topic
03 Dec 2019
Since the comment does present an argument I will make one, that argument is: Was the space race a good or bad thing.
There are convincing reasons for both sides of the argument.
On one hand the space race between the USSR caused intense rivalry which was bad for the environment because they launched rockets and that released a huge amount of CO2 and in addition to this it would have caused more tension between the two nations because they, at the time, were fighting and the added pressure of the space race would have caused more rivalry. Both countries used up a lot of money taking part in the space race.
NASA spent about $23 billion dollars on manned programs from 1961 through the first lunar landing in July 1969 (Mercury: $.4 billion; Gemini: $1.3 billion; and Apollo: $21.3 billion). Estimates for the Soviet manned programs range from $4.8 billion to $10.1 billion or less than 50% of NASA's budget. That is a lot of money, that money could be spent on helping the poor and investing more money is education.
On the other hand, the space race was the thing that sparked interest in space exploration. With out space we would be far back in cancer research, telecoms and water purification systems, all of these things have been beneficial to our lives; for example: satellites have radically improved weather forecasting which has saved lives. As well as this, the moon mission has shown the younger generations that they are capable of much more then the think. When the sun becomes a red giant and the Earth becomes inhabitable, the human race will probably have to move to a different planet. Scientists are already creating the technology to do that. The thing that we should thank for that is the space race.
A very good set of reasons for each side. Where did you find your figures for the first paragraph?
appreciative_dove | Whyteleafe School B
versatile_molecule's comment
05 Dec 2019
This was a really detailed argument, you deserved that star!
03 Dec 2019
There are two things I want to correct. they are. In the first line I meant post not comment and on the line which starts with 'on', in the first paragraph, I meant between the USSR and the USA.
04 Dec 2019
I dont like Donald Trump !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
appreciative_dove | Whyteleafe School B
warm_politics's comment
07 Dec 2019
What do you mean?
04 Dec 2019
I dont like Donald Trump !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You must be logged in to post a comment