Space Race (1955-1975) (PDF)

Pre-University Paper from the year 2020 in the subject Didactics - English - Miscellaneous, grade: 14, , language: English, abstract: Many children dream of being astronauts and traveling to space. Many hopeless romantics look at the sky in the evening, count the stars and think about how beautiful the moon and sun is. But does anyone ever wonder what's happening up there? Or what are the conditions like? How did the children start dreaming of such thoughts? What are the reasons why humanity started discovering space? And does it have any advantages for us? Or is it just a political game between two great powers? In my research work I am going to try to answer these questions.

After World War II, it did not take long for a new conflict to begin, which occurred between the world's two greatest powers. The democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union. The battle was known as The Cold War (1947-1991). Neither country fought directly in an open fight. They used many different places to demonstrate their great power, to show their opponent what kind of weapons they have. Starting with the Berlin Blockade (1948-1949), the Vietnam War (1956-1975) and The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, until the last crisis occurred during the 1983 NATO exercise. The conflict did not just remain on Earth. In the late 1950s, Space was a new dramatic theater in the Cold War for this Power showing off race. Both countries tried to overcome the achievements of the other, which was called the Space Race.

At the beginning I will explain how this cooption started and what the reasons were. The leadership was for the Russians, so they were more successful in the beginning, therefore I will write about the achievements they had before the United States joined this race. But the United States wasn't satisfied with being behind in the "game", so they decided to set up NASA space exploration and they challenged themselves with one of the biggest projects that had great success in the late 1960s and these are my fourth and fifth points that I want to discuss. Thereafter I will investigate whether there was a winner in the end or not. Lastly, I will show the benefits of these races, because thanks to it, there are many new useful inventions and developments that have made our lives easier.