By Brianna Johnson Space Race In The 1950s and 1960s

A Little Taste…

What Was It? The Space Race was a race that started between the U.S and the Soviet Union in 1957. This was 12 years into the Cold War. For years they were in competition to be the first to make it to space.

They Beat Us… In October, 1957, the Soviet Union started the Space Race when they launched the first satellite named Sputnik to be hurled into orbit around the Earth.

Sputnik… Sputnik was actually no larger than a beach ball and sent meaningless signals back to earth, but it had a profound effect on the thinking of citizens and governments around the globe. It was a shiny steel sphere about 23 inches across with four antennas trailing behind it. Russian engineers wanted to make sure that people around the globe could both see and hear it. Sputnik was polished so it would reflect light that could be seen with the naked eye even from 175 miles up in the sky. And it broadcast a "beep-beep" pattern of signals that could be picked up by amateur radio operators around the world.

Our Reaction… The reaction of the U.S and around the world was astonishment and somewhat fear. All of a sudden, there was an "enemy satellite" streaking across the sky over the U.S. At the time, no one knew what it was capable of doing. What U.S political leaders did know was that if the Soviet Union had rockets powerful enough to launch a satellite, they had rockets powerful enough to launch atomic bombs on the U.S. This was a scary thought.

Headlines Were Going Crazy! We were Surprised and mad at the same time !

We Tried… And Failed. The "space race" between the Soviet Union and the United States was on. But our first attempts at catching up ended in spectacular explosions. We tried to create our own version of Sputnik called Vanguard TV3, but we failed miserably. This satellite was a disaster, so it was nicknamed “Flopnik”.

Explorer 1 Later on came the first successful U.S satellite named Explorer 1 in 1958. Both Sputnik and Explorer 1 were launched as part of each country’s contributions to the International Geophysical year.

Contributions… Sputnik helped to determine the density of the upper atmosphere and Explorer 1 flight data led to the discovery by James Van Allen of the Van Allen Radiation Belt.

Animals In Space Dogs launched by the U.S on captured German V-2 rockets in 1946 became the first animals sent into space for scientific study. This was before the creation of Sputnik and the beginning of the Space Race.

Poor Laika… The first living creature sent into orbit was a dog named Laika. She traveled in the U.S.S.R’s Sputnik 2 in 1957. While no technology existed at the time to recover Laika after her flight, she died of stress and overheating soon after reaching space.

Other Animals… In 1960, Russian space dogs Belka and Strelka orbited the Earth and successfully returned. NASA imported Chimpanzees from Africa, and sent at least two into space before launching their first human orbiter. Soviet- launched turtles on the rocket Zond 5 became the first animals to fly around the moon.

First Humans in Space A Soviet cosmonaut (FYI: a Russian astronaut) named Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space when he entered orbit in Russia’s Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. Twenty-three days later on mission Freedom 7, Alan Shepard first entered sub-orbital space for the U.S. John Glenn became the first American to successfully orbit Earth, completing 3 orbits on Feb.20, 1962.

Soviet Still On Top… A Soviet Valentina Tereshokva, became the first woman in space on June 16, 1963 in the Vostok 6. Aleksel Leonov from Vokshod 2, launched by the USSR on March 18, 1965 carried out the first spacewalk. Unfortunately this mission ended early in a disaster. Leonov almost failed to return to the capsule and due to a poor retrorocket fire, the ship landed a 1000 miles off target. The USSR had also launched probes to the moon before us

President Kennedy had a conversation with NASA’s director James E President Kennedy had a conversation with NASA’s director James E. Webb and said: "Everything we do ought to... be tied in to getting on to the Moon ahead of the Russians... we hope to beat the USSR to demonstrate that instead of being behind by a couple of years, by God, we passed them. "

Armstrong On The Moon While unmanned Soviet probes had reached the moon before any U.S craft, American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on lunar surface on July 21, 1969.

Neil’s first words on the moon That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

Luna 15 On July 21, 1969, while Apollo 11 astronauts finished the first human moonwalk, Luna 15 - an unmanned Soviet spacecraft in lunar orbit at the time, began its descent to the moon. Launched only three days before the Apollo 11 mission, it was the third Soviet attempt to return lunar soil back to Earth. The Russian craft crashed on the moon at 15:50 UT – just a few hours before the scheduled American lift off.

Its Over! After the Luna 15 failure, the Soviet Union never made another attempt to go to the moon again, The Space Race was over