A Race to Space
After the WWII the Cold War started and soon enough space became another arena of competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Each side wanted to prove its superiority of its technology. The timeline of the space race starts approximately in 1957 with the USSR launching Sputnik 1. The space race eventually ends in 1969 with the first ever landing of men on the moon.
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SputnikThe history of space changed in October 1957 when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. Sputnik I was the world's first artificial satellite to be successfully launched. The satellite was about the size of a beach ball and weighed 183.9 pounds. It only took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. Its launching changed everything. It was a technical achievement that caught the world's attention and caught the U.S. off-guard. The launching of the Sputnik I ushered new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. It was the start of the race to space.
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NASAThe proclamation that President Kennedy made about landing a man on the moon before the decade ended set the stage for the NASA program. They took Kennedy's goal and made a testing ground for new rockets and such and they named it Kennedy Space Center. During 1961 and 1964, NASA's budget was increased almost 500 percent, making it possible to achieve many space operations. Although not all of NASA's launched were successful, they mad a great impact on space history during the space race. Along with the successful launched of Apollo 8, which was the first manned space mission to orbit the moon, NASA had many other successful launches, including the launch of the first man on the moon.
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Moon LandingOn July 20, 1969, there was a whole new meaning to space. The landing of the first ever man on the moon is made by NASA. Neil Armstrong is the first man to set foot on the moon.There were more than half a billion people watching the television just waiting for the first step to be taken. When the first step was taken, Armstrong proclaimed "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". The landing of men on the moon is eventually a winning end to the space race.
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