The History of~The Cold War (Part 5: Race to Space)

As we left off from our last page (click here) we covered the Anti-Communist uprisings in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

This page will take a break from war and other military stuff, and talk about more.....scientific stuff. Like the infamous "Space Race".

After World War 2, both the USA and the USSR (as both sides had the help from German scientists) invested heavily in rocket technology. At first, it was to advance the "Arms Race". But, it wasn't just military arms, soon both sides will create another race: The Space Race. With most of the world, known to humans, they wanted to also explore outer space. To study its environment, and since outer space has an environment which is nothing like that on Earth, a lot of it needed to be studied. Both sides competed who would get more information on outer space.

The USA didn't think that the USSR would be serious in their pursuit to go into space. But in 1957, the Soviets answered back and proved the Americans wrong as they have launched their first space capsule "Sputnik".

With the launching of Sputnik, this would escalate the Space Race, and the USA would soon more seriously invest in its very own Space Program (which would lead to the USA creating the "National Aeronautics and Space Administration", or "NASA" for short).

When John F. Kennedy became President in 1961, he led the charge of advancing America's Space Program and promised the nation that it would lead the Space Race by the end of the '60s.

As you continue to read this page, you'll find out that the Space Race was a see-saw kind of race, both the USA and the USSR.

The Soviets were continuing their dominance of the Space Race by sending the first man into outer space: "Yuri Gagarin" in 1961, as well as human's first orbit around the Earth.

The following month, the USA would finally have an answer for the Soviets' space race dominance as they sent "Alan Shepard" who became the first American into outer space. Though Shepard wouldn't achieve orbit as Gagarin did, he was able to control his spaceship (called Freedom 7) upon re-entry.

It wouldn't be until the following year in 1962 when the USA would achieve the first man orbit around the Earth, and that credit would go to "John Glenn" as he manned the "Friendship 7" and completed 3 orbits around the Earth.

Around 3 years later, the Soviets would get ahead of the race again as they sent Cosmonaught "Alexei Leonov" into orbit to conduct a spacewalk, and he did for about 12 minutes.

Yeah, it's a seesaw kind of race. Despite this, the biggest prize has yet to be claimed.

Putting a human being on another body in outer space, in this case, it's our Moon.

Both sides would also start their own Moon mission tests, the USA had their "Apollo" program and the USSR had their "Soyuz" program. Unfortunately, both sides would also suffer major drawbacks in their respective programs. In the USA in the year 1967, their test run with Apollo 1 ended in utter disaster as the capsule exploded into flames, killing 3 of the Astronauts inside.

The Soviets weren't any more fortunate. In April of 1967 (3 months after the Apollo 1 disaster) the Soviets launched Soyuz 1 in what was supposed to be a 3-day test run but as the rocket launched, it exploded, killing the Cosmonaut inside.

Both sides were able to fix the problems with their first space capsules (the Apollo 1's hatch failed to open and the Soyuz 1's Parachute failed to deploy). The USSR would successfully connect their space capsules (The Soyuz 4 and 5) in orbit.

The USA would also conduct a successful unmanned test of their rocket (Saturn 5) in 1968, and even their tests for both the command and lunar modules. Despite a minor setback later in the year, they have succeeded in launching a manned test of the Saturn 5 by December 21.

The Soviets would begin to fall behind, however (and unbeknownst to the Americans) as a series of failures with the USSR's rocket (the N1) put the USSR's space program in serious jeopardy. In July of 1969, the N1 suffered an engine failure, and toppled onto the launchpad, destroying the rocket and the launchpad.

A few weeks, later (on July 16) The USA went ahead with it's Apollo program and launched a Saturn 5 containing Apollo 11 launched from the coast of Florida. Inside the Apollo 11 was 3 men (one of them named Neil Armstrong)

The very next day, on July 21, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the Moon. Another astronaut (Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr.) joined him. The Astronauts would stay on the Moon for around 3 days. But this would be called (still to this day) as mankind's greatest achievement. Though not officially, but this would bring an end to the space race.

What the US Moon landing did was help the USA claim the biggest prize: put a man on the Moon. But the race was still going on as the USSR wasn't at all looking to quit, though their N1 Rocket project continued to suffer drawbacks after failures in 1971 and 1972.

After the USA and the USSR agreed to something called the "Detente" (more on that in the next page) they also agreed to what is known as the "Apollo-Soyuz Test Project", the USA had made connecting devices that are compatible for the Soviet space modules.

On July 17, 1975. The 2 spacecrafts joined, shook hands and exchanged gifts and conducted experiments together. Thus, bringing an end to the space race.

The space race is over. But now is where we get down to business.

Coming up, we will cover the biggest headline event of The Cold War: a potential nuclear showdown. Click here to continue reading. Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.