Space race

The Event Competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to develop space technology

Date Initiated with the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik I

The space race developed within the context of the Cold War and drove the United States government to increase its commitment to space technology and defense education, thereby allowing the country to become the leader in this area by the end of the 1960’s.

The United States and the Soviet Union emerged from World War II as the world’s leading superpowers and soon entered into a Cold War. New defense technologies developed during World War II continued into the postwar period as the superpowers entered into an arms race initially centered on the development of rocket-powered missiles with the ability to deliver weapons over long distances. The technological developments that led to the creation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching far-away targets also aided the development of space technology. American fear of the vast and secretive Soviet Union drove the U.S. defense and space programs of the 1950’s. Both countries sought to launch rocket-propelled satellites into space during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957-1958, but it was the successful Soviet launch of its satellite Sputnik I on October 4, 1957, that truly propelled the United States into the space race.

From Rocket Science to Satellites

Post-World War II advances in rocket science first made space exploration a real possibility. The United States government had attracted top German scientists and engineers, including the renowned V-2 rocket developer, Wernher von Braun . This team of German engineers began working with the U.S. Army, eventually taking up residence at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. There they worked with the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL).

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy worked on Viking research rockets, and the newly independent U.S. Air Force worked on a family of cruise missiles. NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and its advanced facilities also played a key role. Initially, presidentsHarry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower considered rocket science spending excessive. Eisenhower also had secret intelligence photos from U-2 spy planes that revealed Soviet military weaknesses.

The Soviets were developing their own basic rocket, the R-7. The Soviets were technologically behind the United States in other areas of modern weaponry, but Soviet leaders nonetheless stressed the missile program because they believed it to be of psychological importance. Wernher von Braun was convinced both that the Soviets also had intentions of launching a satellite and that he could do the same with the U.S. government’s approval. He issued a report in 1954 titled “A Minimum Satellite Vehicle,” in which he requested funds to pursue the project and stressed that the country’s prestige would be damaged if another country succeeded in launching a satellite prior to the Americans. The Eisenhower administration, however, was reluctant to grant approval or commit funds to the project.

In 1955, Soviet officials began to talk openly about launching an earth satellite during the upcoming IGY. The International Council of Scientific Unions sponsored the IGY, whose purpose was to allow scientists to coordinate their observations of various geophysical phenomena. Plans for the IGY renewed interest in the missile program, and both the United States and the Soviet Union announced plans to launch artificial satellites into Earth’s orbit. Some historians mark these announcements as the unofficial start of the space race. The various branches of the United States military realized the possible significance of satellites for photographic reconnaissance of other countries and vied for control of the national satellite program.

The U.S. government awarded control to the Navy based on its proposal in conjunction with the National Academy of Sciences, despite the project’s experimental nature. Wernher von Braun was upset that the government did not choose his Army ABMA-JPL proposal of the Explorer project. Meanwhile, the Soviets secretly planned to launch a satellite before the IGY in order to preempt the announced U.S. launch. In August of 1957, the Soviets successfully launched the R-7 rocket, and in October of 1957, they completed the first successful launch of an ICBM.

U.S. Reaction to Sputnik

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik I , the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth, in early October, 1957. Sputnik was a small aluminum alloy sphere weighing 184 pounds that carried two radio transmitters. Its name meant “fellow traveler.” Soviet leaders claimed the achievement was a victory over American materialism, and Sputnik quickly became Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s newest propaganda weapon. On November 3, 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik II, a 1,120-pound satellite containing Laika, a small dog. The dog’s presence seemed to indicate that manned space flight was their next goal.

President Eisenhower faced numerous questions about Sputnik at press conferences but claimed not to be worried. He assured the public that the launch was not a significant development in terms of national security. His confidence was the result of the earlier intelligence provided by U-2 spy planes, but the public was still unaware of this secret intelligence. The American public also viewed any scientific breakthrough as a security threat, especially as Soviet leaders continued to take advantage of the launch’s propaganda value. The Navy increased its schedule and made a highly publicized satellite launch on December 6, 1957. The Vanguard I rocket carried a four-pound satellite but failed after rising only three feet from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida . Newspapers in various countries dubbed it “Kaputnik,” “Flopnik,” and “Stayputnik.”

Launch of Explorer I

In 1958, the federal government gave von Braun’s team of Army scientists authorization for an attempted launch of their Explorer satellite on a Jupiter rocket. Learning from the Navy fiasco, von Braun’s team scheduled a nonpublicized launch for January 29, 1958. The satellite Explorer I was successfully launched on January 31 after a weather delay. Information obtained from an experiment onboard Explorer I built by Professor James A. Van Allen led to his hypothesis that there was a dense radiation belt around the earth. The newly discovered radiation belt was given his name. On March 17, 1958, the Navy successfully placed its Vanguard I satellite into orbit. The U.S. space program continued to have its problems, however, and by end of the decade, less than one-third of the country’s thirty-seven attempted satellite launches had made it into orbit.

Political Responses

The Soviet achievements also had a large impact on the last years of Eisenhower’s presidency. Many Americans wondered if his administration was old and out of touch as the country appeared to be losing the space race. His earlier hesitance to initially begin a national satellite program, allowing the Soviets to launch one first, proved politically damaging. The nation’s educational system also came under public scrutiny and criticism, in part because of the leak of the Gaither Report in 1957. The report implied that the United States was slipping in nuclear capacity as the Soviets were gaining strength in the same area. Eisenhower seemed passive despite the apparent threat to national security and would not release earlier U-2 intelligence reports that showed that the United States in fact was not behind the Soviet Union in terms of defense technology. Eisenhower wanted to limit defense spending and push for a test ban treaty to limit the arms race but faced opposition even from people within his own administration. His critics called for dramatic increases in spending for defense and for the space program.

The federal government took several steps to ensure that American space technology would not continue to lag behind that of the Soviet Union. In 1958, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) to provide funding for school and university scientific and foreign language studies. Congressional hearings were conducted regarding the state of the American defense and space programs. These hearings resulted in an agreement on the need for a unified national space program but no agreement as to which government agency should be in charge. In 1958, Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which President Eisenhower signed into law. NACA was absorbed into the new agency. One week after NASA formed, the federal government gave the agency the go-ahead for Project Mercury, a manned spaceflight program.

Most Americans supported the new space program although criticism of the space program included charges that its true purpose was for public relations or profit and that it drained tax money away from domestic problems. The defense budget rose from one-third to one-half of the entire federal budget by the end of the 1950’s.

Impact

The space race was a direct result of the Cold War arms race and was grounded in Cold War fears and tensions, and it had implications far beyond its political influence. Numerous federal funds went to what President Eisenhower termed the military-industrial complex, or the link between federal defense and space programs and private enterprises. The decade-long growth in the space program benefited those businesses and industries, who in turn benefited from government contracts to build spacecrafts and their components. Furthermore, because one of NASA’s goals was to research and develop ways to apply space technology to civilian life, Americans saw enjoyed benefits such as improved communications, weather forecasting, medicine, and energy research and applications.

Elements of the space race also seeped into everyday life and popular culture. Schools began performing air-raid drills, and people began building bomb shelters in or near their homes. Likewise, the loss of national confidence emanating from the launch of Sputnik fostered numerous Sputnik gags and jokes—for example, “the contents of a Sputnik cocktail are two parts vodka and one part sour grapes.” Films, such as War of the Satellites (1958) and Spy in the Sky (1958), as well as popular toys, such as the Satellite Space Race Card Game, revealed America’s simultaneous fascination and depth of fear of space-related issues. Moreover, the vast amount of publicity surrounding the launch of Sputnik showed the growing importance of both print media and televised news shows.

Subsequent Events

The space race continued throughout the next decade as the United States space program sought to better the achievements of the Soviet Union. In May of 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard , onboard Freedom VII, became the first American in space under the Mercury program, while in February, 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth onboard Friendship VII. Both achievements were direct responses to Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s earlier accomplishment of the same feats. The manned space program then focused on a new goal when President John F. Kennedy challenged the Soviet Union to a race to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The political and cultural shock of Sputnik was the impetus behind the Apollo program, which enjoyed widespread public support. The program achieved success when Neil Armstrong of Apollo 11 became the first man to walk on the moon in 1969. Many historians credit this triumph as the unofficial end of the space race, although both countries continued space exploration into the next decades. By the end of the Cold War during the early 1990’s, the two countries were working together on such projects as the International Space Station.

Bibliography

Bilstein, Roger E. “Orders of Magnitude: A History of the NACA and NASA, 1915-1990.” The NASA History Series. Washington, D.C.: NASA Office of Management, Scientific, and Technical Information Division, 1989. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the development of the space program and the creation of NASA during the period from 1945 through 1964.

Dickson, Paul. Sputnik: The Shock of the Century. New York: Walker, 2001. This examination of the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik satellite and its political and social impact on the U.S. also chronicles the history of rocket research and the fight between branches of the U.S. military for control of the space program.

McDougall, Walter A. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. This Pulitzer Prize-winning study examines the U.S., European, and Soviet space programs within their political contexts.