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Sep 30, 2016 · LIFE’s all-new special edition, The Great Space Race: How the U.S. Beat the Russians to the Moon recaptures those heady days, tracing the race’s early days and the politics surrounding it, the race to develop technology, and the elation of an entire nation as we watched the 1969 liftoff to the moon.
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- LIFE Special - 2016-9-30 SIP
- Causes of The Space Race
- NASA Is Created
- Space Race Heats Up: Men (and Chimps) Orbit Earth
- Achievements of Apollo
- Who Won The Space Race?
By the mid-1950s, the U.S.-Soviet Cold War had worked its way into the fabric of everyday life in both countries, fueled by the arms race and the growing threat of nuclear weapons, wide-ranging espionage and counter-espionage between the two countries, war in Korea and a clash of words and ideas carried out in the media. These tensions would contin...
In 1958, the United States launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. That same year, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a public order creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration. Eisenhower al...
In 1959, the Soviet space program took another step forward with the launch of Luna 2, the first space probe to hit the moon. In April 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit Earth, traveling in the capsule-like spacecraft Vostok 1. For the U.S. effort to send a man into space, dubbed Project Mercury, NASA engineers...
From 1961 to 1964, NASA’s budget was increased almost 500 percent, and the lunar landing program eventually involved some 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 employees of industrial and university contractors. Apollo suffered a setback in January 1967, when three astronauts were killed after their spacecraft caught fire during a launch simulation. Me...
By landing on the moon, the United States effectively “won” the space race that had begun with Sputnik’s launch in 1957. For their part, the Soviets made four failed attempts to launch a lunar landing craft between 1969 and 1972, including a spectacular launch-pad explosion in July 1969. From beginning to end, the American public’s attention was ca...
The Great Space Race between the U.S. and the USSR during the Cold War was a series of moving triumphs and tragedies, both technological and deeply human that riveted the nation even as it seemed the fate of the free world hung in the balance. Which nation’s rockets would reach the moon first?
Sep 22, 1998 · In general, Kennedy felt great pressure to have the United States “catch up to and overtake” the Soviet Union in the “space race.” Four years after the Sputnik shock of 1957, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space on April 12, 1961, greatly embarrassing the U.S.
Aug 23, 2023 · At the start, there were no set rules for the Space Race. What was the goal? What would count as winning? For Americans, President Kennedy's declaration focused the Space Race on a clear goal: landing a man on the Moon before the Soviets. The Space Race became a race to the Moon.
Sep 30, 2016 · Forged in the cauldron of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Gulag-and fueled by the development of nuclear weapons during the Cold War-The Great Space Race is an epic drama filled with triumphs and tragedies, both technological and deeply human, that riveted the U.S. even as it seemed the fate of the free world (perhaps even the world ...
Apr 12, 2022 · By Amy McKeever. April 12, 2022. • 12 min read. Tensions ran high at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the morning of April 12, 1961, as the Soviet Union prepared to launch the first human into space....
