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For a discussion of all spaceflight programs to date, see History of spaceflight. For a list of key events, see Timeline of space exploration. For other uses of the term "Space Race", see Space Race (disambiguation).
Space Race
Part of the Cold War
mission patch for the last leg of the Space Race, the Apollo-Soyuz spacecraft docking together in earth orbit
The Space Race closes with the joint Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission in 1975
Date4 October 1957—24 July 1975
Location
Outer Space
Belligerents
 United States  Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
James E. Webb
Robert R. Gilruth
Wernher Von Braun
Christopher Kraft
George Low
Thomas O. Paine
Samuel C. Phillips		 Sergey Korolyov
Vladimir Chelomey
Vasily Mishin
Nikolai Kamanin
Valentin Glushko

The Space Race was a technological and ideological competition between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (USA) for supremacy in outer-space exploration during the mid-to-late 20th century. The term refers to a specific period in human history, 1957-1975, and does not include subsequent efforts by these or other nations to explore space. The race involved pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, sub-orbital and orbital human spaceflight around the earth, and piloted voyages to the Moon.

The Space Race era occurred during the Cold War, with its origins in the missile-based arms race between these nations that arose just after the end of the Second World War; with both sides capturing advanced German rocket technology and personnel. It was motivated by the desire to display scientific and technological superiority, which translated into military strength. It effectively began with the Soviet launch of the Sputnik 1 artificial satellite on 4 October 1957, and concluded with the co-operative Apollo-Soyuz Test Project human spaceflight mission in July 1975 as a symbol of the détente between the USA and USSR. In between, it became a focus of the cultural, technological, and ideological rivalry between the two nations. It provided spin-off benefits including unprecedented increases in education funding, and spending on pure research and development that accelerated technological and scientific advancements. An unintended effect was that it also was partially responsible for the birth of the environmental movement, as this was the first time in history that humans came to see their home-world as it really was – when the first colour pictures from space showed a fragile blue planet bordered by the blackness of space.

Origins

Second World War

The Space Race can trace its origins to Nazi Germany in the 1930s and during the Second World War, as that nation was conducting research into, and finally building, operational ballistic missiles. Starting in the early 1930s, German aerospace engineers started to experiment with liquid-fuelled rockets, with the goal that one day they would be capable of reaching high altitudes and traversing long distances.[1] The head of the German Army's Ballistics and Munitions Branch, Lieutenant Colonel Karl Emil Becker, gathered a small team of engineers, that included Walter Dornberger and Leo Zanssen, to figure out how to use rockets as long-range artillery, to get around the Treaty of Versailles' ban on research and development of long-range cannons.[2] A young engineering prodigy, Wernher von Braun was recruited by Becker and Dornberger to join their secret army program at Kummersdorf-West in 1932.[3] Von Braun had romantic dreams about conquering outer space with rockets, and did not initially see the military value in missile technology.[4]

During the Second World War, General Dornberger was the military head of the army's rocket program, Zanssen became the commandant of the Peenemünde army rocket centre, and von Braun was the technical director of the ballistic missile program.[5] They would lead the team that built the Aggregate-4 (A-4) rocket, which became the first vehicle to reach outer space during its test flight program in 1942 and 1943.[6] By 1943, Germany began mass producing the A-4 as the Vergeltungswaffe 2 (“Vengeance Weapon” 2, or more commonly, V2), a ballistic missile with a 320 kilometres (200 mi)* range carrying a 1,130 kilograms (2,490 lb)* warhead at 4,000 kilometres per hour (2,500 mph)*.[7] Its supersonic speed meant there was no defense against it, and little warning on detection by radar.[8] Germany used the weapon to bombard southern England and parts of Allied-liberated western Europe from 1944 until 1945.[9] After the War, the A-4 became the basis of early American and Soviet rocket designs.[10][11]

At War’s end, American, British, and Soviet scientific intelligence teams competed to capture the German rockets, designs, and engineers.[12] Each of the Allies captured a share of the available members of the German rocket team, but the United States benefited the most with Operation Paperclip, capturing large quantities of complete V2 rockets, recruiting von Braun and most of his engineering team, who later helped develop the American missile and space exploration programs.[10]

Rocket teams assembled

With the German rocket centre at Peenemünde lying in the Soviet zone of occupation, they brought their best aerospace engineers to the eastern part of Germany to see what they could salvage for their use in future weapon systems.[13] The Soviet rocket engineers were led by Sergey Korolyov.[13] He had been involved in space clubs and early Soviet rocket design in the 1930s, but was arrested in 1938 during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and imprisoned for six years in Siberia.[14] After the war, he became the USSR's chief rocket and spacecraft engineer, essentially the Soviets' counterpart to Von Braun.[15] His identity was kept a state secret throughout the Cold War, and he was identified publicly only as "the Chief Designer."[15] In the west, his name was only officially revealed when he died in 1966.[15]

After almost a year in the area around Peenemünde, Soviet officials moved most of the captured German rocket specialists to Gorodomlya Island on Lake Seliger, about 240 kilometres (150 mi)* northwest of Moscow.[16] They were not allowed to participate in Soviet missile design, but were used as problem-solving consultants to the Soviet engineers.[17] They were to help in the following areas: consult on creating a Soviet version of the A-4; work on "organizational schemes"; research in improving the A-4 main engine; development of a 100-ton engine; assistance in the "layout" of plant production rooms; and preparation of rocket assembly using German components.[16] With their help, particullarly Helmut Groettrup's group, Korolyov reverse-engineered the A-4 and built his own version of the rocket, the R-1, in 1948.[18] Later, he developed his own distinct designs, though many of these designs were influenced by the Groettrup Group's G4-R10 design from 1949.[18] The Germans were eventually repatriated in 1951-53.[18]

In America, Von Braun and his team were sent to the United States Army's White Sands Proving Ground, located in New Mexico, in 1945.[19] They set about assembling the captured V2s and began a program of launching them, and instructing American engineers how they worked.[20] These tests led to the first rocket to take photos from outer space, and the first two-stage rocket, the WAC Corporal-V2 combination, in 1949.[20] The German rocket team was moved from Fort Bliss to the Army's new Redstone Arsenal, located in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1950.[21] From here, Von Braun and his team would develope the Army's first operational medium-range ballistic missile, the Redstone rocket, that would, in slightly modified versions, launch both America's first satellite, and the first piloted Mercury space missions.[21] It became the basis for both the Jupiter and Saturn family of rockets.[21]


Cold War

The cold war would become the great engine, the supreme catalyst, that sent rockets and their cargoes far above Earth and worlds away. If Tsiolkovsky, Oberth, Goddard, and others were the fathers of rocketry, the competition between capitalism and communism was its midwife.

William E. Burrows,
This New Ocean, "The Other World Series", p. 147

The former World War II allies, the United States and the Soviet Union, became involved in the Cold War. The Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition existing after World War II, primarily between the Soviet Union and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, particularly the United States.[22] Although the primary participants' military forces never officially clashed directly, they expressed the conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, extensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, a nuclear arms race, and economic and technological competitions, such as the Space Race.[22]

The Cold War can be simplistically seen as a struggle between capitalism and communism.[23] America faced a new uncertainty in the early days of September 1949, when they discovered they no longer held a monopoly on the Atomic Bomb.[23] Their intelligence gathering agencies discovered that the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb, with the consequence that the United States could potentially face a future atomic war, that for the first time could devastate its cities.[23] A new paranoia with communism and its believers swept the nation, called McCarthyism.[23] In this atmosphere of distrust, the United States started an arms race with the Soviet Union that included the race for the Hydrogen Bomb and then in intercontinental strategic bombers to deliver those bombs.[23] With communism spreading through countries like China, Korea, and Eastern-Europe, the American political and popular culture became highly threatened by its new adversary, to the point by the mid-1950s "witch-hunts" were going on through society looking for communist spies.[23] Part of the American reaction to both Soviet's atomic and then hydrogen bomb tests, included maintaining a large Air Force, under the control of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), that employed intercontinental strategic bombers, and medium-bombers based at airbases in Europe and Turkey, close to Soviet airspace, to drop their nuclear bombs[24]

For their part, the Soviet Union had well-founded fears of invasion from the west, as it had been invaded several times in the past thousand years, most recently by the Nazi Germany in 1941.[25] Having suffered at least 27 million casualties during the Second World War, the Soviets were weary of their former ally, the United States, that in the late 1940s, was the sole possessor of atomic weapons, and they had also used these weapons operationally in a time of war, and could do so against them, and lay waste to most of its populated and military centres.[25] Since the Americans had a much larger air force, and offensive strike capability, and the Soviet Union had neither an equivalent air force, nor advance bases near the continental United States, Soviet premier Stalin ordered the development of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) in 1947, to counter the American threat.[17]

In 1953, Korolyov was given the go-ahead to develop the R-7 Semyorka rocket, basically four G4s mated together with a central sustainer stage.[18] It was successfully tested on 21 August 1957 and became the world's first operational ICBM the following month.[26] It would later be used to launch the first satellite into space, and derivatives would launch all piloted Soviet spacecraft.[27]

The United States, had multiple rocket programs divided amongst the different branches of the American armed services, which meant that each force developed its own ICBM programs. The Air Force initiated ICBM research in 1945 with the MX-774.[28] However, its funding was cancelled and only three partially successful launches were conducted in 1947.[28] In 1951, the Air Force began a new ICBM program called MX-1593, and by 1955 was receiving top-priority funding.[28] The MX-1593 program evolved to become the Atlas-A, with its maiden launch occurring on 11 June 1957, becoming the first successful American ICBM.[28] Its upgraded version, the Atlas-D rocket, would later serve as an operational nuclear ICBM and be used as the orbital launch vehicle for Project Mercury and the remote-controlled Agena Target Vehicle used in Project Gemini.[28]

With the Cold War as the engine for change, a coherent space policy would only evolve in the United States in the late 1950s, due to the competition with Soviets.[29] Korolyov would take much inspiration from the competition as well, achieving many firsts to counter the possibilities that the Americans might beat him to them.[30]

Early Space Race 1955–1961

The Space Race begins

With both the Americans and the Soviets building ballistic missiles that could be utilized to launch objects into space, 1955 would see the "starting line" be drawn for the Space Race.[31] In separate announcements, just four days apart, both the United States, and the Soviet Union publicly announced that they would launch artificial Earth satellites sometime in 1957 or 1958.[31] On 29 July 1955, James C. Hagerty, president Dwight D. Eisenhower's press secretary, announced that the United States intended to launch "small Earth circling satellites" between 1 July 1957 and 31 December 1958 as part of their contribution to the International Geophysical Year (IGY).[31] Four days later, at the Sixth Congress of International Astronautical Federation in Copenhagen, scientist Leonid I. Sedov spoke to international reporters at the Soviet embassy, and announced his country's intentions of launching a satellite as well, in the "near future".[31] Korolyov managed to get the Soviet Academy of Sciences to create a commission, to beat the Americans into Earth orbit, on 30 August 1955: this was the defacto start date for the Space Race.[31]

Initially, president Eisenhower was worried about how a satellite, passing over a nation from over 100 kilometres (62 mi)*, would affect a nation's sovereign airspace.[32] He was concerned that the Soviets would accuse the Americans of an illegal overflight, and score a propaganda victory at his expense.[33] He and his advisors believed that a nation's airspace sovereignty did not extend into outer space, acknowledged as the Kármán line, and would use the International Geophysical Year launches to establish this principle into international law.[32] Due to his fear of causing an international incident and being called a "war-monger" for using military missiles as launchers, Eisenhower selected the untried Naval Research Laboratory's Vanguard rocket, which was a research only booster.[34] This meant that von Braun's team were not allowed to put a satellite in orbit with their Jupiter-C rocket, because of its future as an intended military vehicle.[34] On 20 September 1956, von Braun and his team did launch a Jupiter-C that was capable of putting a satellite in orbit, but it was used instead as a suborbital test of rocket's nose cone re-entry technology.[34] Had von Braun's team orbited a satellite that day, the Space Race would have been over before it started.

First artificial satellites

Sputnik 1 the world's first artificial satellite.(Replica pictured)

Korolyev received word about von Braun's test, but thinking it was a satellite mission that failed, he started to expedite plans to get his own satellite in orbit. Since his R-7 was substantially more powerful than any of the American boosters, he made sure to take full advantage of it by designing Object D as his primary satellite.[35] Object D would dwarf the proposed American satellites, by having a weight of 1495kg (3300lbs), of which 320kg (700lbs) would be composed of scientific instruments that would photograph the Earth, take readings on radiation levels, and check on the planet's magnetic field.[36] However, things were not going along well with the design and manufacturing of the satellite, so in February 1957, Korolyev sought and received permission from USSR Councils of Ministers to create a prosteishy sputnik or simple satellite.[35]


On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, on Korolyov's R-7 missile, and initiated the Space Race, thereby making the USSR the first space power.[37] The Soviet government derived great propaganda value from the launch, to boost the morale of its own citizens and claiming to the world proof of the superiority of Soviet communism over Western capitalism.[38]

In the meantime, a public and embarrassing Project Vanguard launch failure had occurred at Cape Canaveral. Nearly four months after the launch of Sputnik 1, von Braun and the United States successfully launched its first satellite, Explorer 1, with an alternate program on an accelerated schedule, becoming the second space power.[39] Explorer 1 flight data confirmed the existence of the radiation belt theorized by James Van Allen, considered one of the outstanding discoveries of the International Geophysical Year.[39]

Before sending men into space, both countries took the cautious approach of sending mammals in automated spacecraft first, sending medical instrumentation back to Earth.

The Soviet Union launched the first animal in Earth orbit, the dog Laika (in English, "Barker") on Sputnik 2, November 3, 1957. The dog was not meant to be returned to Earth alive, being given a finite amount of air, food and water planned to run out before the orbit decayed due to atmospheric drag and the craft burned up like a meteor, which it did on April 14, 1958. In October 2002, it was revealed that a malfunction inhibited operation of the temperature control system, and Laika had actually died five to seven hours after launch from overheating and stress.

In 1960, the Soviets orbited the dogs Belka and Strelka and successfully returned them.[40]

The U.S. launched two chimpanzees: Ham sub-orbitally on Mercury-Redstone 2, January 31, 1961; and Enosfor two of three planned orbits on Mercury Atlas 5, November 29, 1961. Both chimps were successfully recovered alive.

First humans in space

The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space when he entered orbit in Vostok 1 on April 12 April 1961, a day now celebrated as a holiday in Russia and in many other Eastern bloc countries. He orbited the Earth for 108 minutes, but not as a pilot. Russian doctors did not know whether a cosmonaut would be disabled by weightlessness, so his manual controls were disabled and ground technicians controlled the craft. The lead architects behind the Vostok 1 mission were the rocket engineers Korolyov and Kerim Kerimov.

Twenty-three days later, Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard the MercurycapsuleFreedom 7. Though he did not achieve orbit, unlike Gagarin he was the first to exercise manual control of his spacecraft's attitude and retro-rocket firing.[41] The first Soviet cosmonaut to exercise manual control was Gherman Titov in Vostok 2 on 6 August 1961.[42]

Space Race redefined 1961-1969

Kennedy launches the Moon Race

On April 20, 1961, about one week after Gagarin's flight, American President John F. Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking Johnson to look into the status of America's space program, and into programs that could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up.[43]Johnson responded about one week later, concluding that the US needed to do much more to reach a position of leadership, and recommending that a piloted moon landing was far enough in the future that it was likely the United States would achieve it first.[44]

On May 25, Kennedy announced his support for the Apollo program in an address to a special joint session of Congress:

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."[45]

He began forming a policy of justification for the Space Race as a vital national security front in the Cold War, which he expressed to the public in his famous 12 September 1962 speech at Rice Stadium where he stated:


On February 20, 1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, completing three orbits in Friendship 7. His capability of manual attitude control became crucial when the automatic system failed.



Soviet response

Vostoks and Voskhods

The Soviet Union achieved the first dual piloted flights, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 on 11–15 August 1962. The two spacecraft came within approximately 6.5 kilometres (4.0 miles) of one another, close enough for radio communication.[46] While this represented a significant technical accomplishment to launch two spacecraft from the same pad in a very short period of time, there was no capability of the spacecraft to maneuver close to each other (within visual range), and over the course of the missions they continued to drift as far as2,850 kilometres (1,770 mi) apart.

The USSR launched the first woman in space, and also the first civilian, Valentina Tereshkova on 16 June 1963 in Vostok 6. Launching a woman was reportedly Koroloyov's idea, but was done purely for propaganda value. Tereshkova was one of a small corps of female cosmonauts who were amateur parachutists, but Tereshkova was the only one to fly. The USSR didn't send another woman into space until 1982, in response to the United States opening their astronaut program to women.

As the USSR's principal rocket engineer and designer, Korolyov had planned further, long-term missions for the Vostok spacecraft, and had four Vostoks in various stages of fabrication in late 1963 at his OKB-1 facilities.[47] At this time, the Americans announced their ambitious plans for the Project Gemini flight schedule. This included major advancements in spacecraft capabilities, including a two crew member spacecraft, ability to change orbits, perform an extravehicular activity (EVA), and dock with other spacecraft.[48] This was a major evolution over either the Mercury or Vostok spaceships, and Korolev felt the need to try to beat the Americans to many of these innovations.[47] Korolyov already had begun designing the Vostok's replacement, the next-generation Soyuz spacecraft, a multi-cosmonaut spacecraft that had at least the same capabilities as the Gemini spacecraft.[49] However, Soyuz would not be available for at least three years, and could not be called upon to deal with this new American challenge in 1964 or 1965.[50] Political pressure in early 1964 – that some sources claim was from Khrushchev, other sources claim it was from other Communist Party officials – pushed him to modify his four remaining Vostoks to beat the Americans for new space firsts in size of flight crews, and duration.[47]


On 12 October 1964, the Chief Designer delivered another Soviet space-first with Voskhod 1's launching, the first multi-crew-member space flight, with three cosmonauts in a modified Vostok spacecraft.[51] The USSR further touted another technological achievement by this mission: the first space flight in a shirt-sleeve-environment.[52] However, flying without spacesuits was not due to safety improvements in the spacecraft's environmental systems, but due to its limited cabin space, that did not allow for spacesuits, and exposed the cosmonauts to significant risk in the event of a potentially fatal cabin depressurization.[52] This feat would not be repeated until the Apollo Command Module, which flew in 1968, and was purposely designed from the outset to transport three astronauts in a shirt-sleeve environment while in space.

On 18 March 1965, about a week before the first American piloted Project Gemini space flight, the USSR accelerated the Space Race competition, by launching the two-cosmonaut Voskhod 2 mission with Pavel Belyayev and Alexey Leonov.[53] Voskhod 2's design modifications included the first airlock to allow for extravehicular activity (EVA), also known as a spacewalk.[54] Leonov performed the first-ever EVA as part of the mission.[53] A fatality was narrowly avoided when Leonov's spacesuit expanded in the vacuum of space, preventing him from re-entering the spacecraft.[55] He had to improvise, and perform the potentially fatal partial depressurization of his spacesuit in order to re-enter the airlock.[55] He succeeded in safely re-entering the ship, but he and Belyayev faced further challenges with the spacecraft's atmospheric controls flooding the cabin with 45% pure oxygen, which had to be lowered to acceptable levels before re-entry.[56] The re-entry faced two more challenges: an improperly timed retrorocket firing caused the Voskhod 2 to land 386 kilometres (240 mi) off its designated target area, the town of Perm; and, the instrument compartment's failure to detach from the descent apparatus, causing the spacecraft to become unstable during reentry.[56]

Leonid Brezhnev and a small cadre of high-ranking Communist Party officials, deposed Premier Khrushchev as Soviet government leader a day after Voskhod 1 landed, in what was called the "Wednesday conspiracy".[57] The new political leaders, along with Korolyov, ended the technologically troublesome Voskhod program, cancelling Voskhod 3 and 4, which were in the planning stages, and started concentrating on the race to the moon.[58] Voskhod 2 would end up being Korolyov's final achievement before his death, as it would be the last of the many "spectacular" space firsts flights, that demonstrated the USSR's domination in spacecraft technology in the early 1960s; making it, as historian Asif Siddiqi states, "the absolute zenith of the Soviet space program, one never, ever attained since."[59] There would be a two-year pause in Soviet piloted space flights, while Voskhod's replacement, the Soyuz spacecraft, continued its design and development.[60]

Gemini teaches lessons

Main article: Project Gemini

Focused by the commitment to a moon landing, in January 1962 the US introduced Project Gemini a two-crew-member spacecraft, which would support Apollo by developing the key spaceflight technologies of space rendezvous and docking of two craft, flight durations of sufficient length to simulate go to the Moon and back, and Extra-vehicular Activity for extended periods, doing useful work rather than just "walking in space." Although taking a year longer than planned to reach its first flight, Gemini took advantage of the two-year hiatus after Voskhod, enabling the US to catch up with the Soviets's lead in piloted spaceflight and pass them by achieving several significant firsts over the course of ten piloted missions:

  • On Gemini 3 (March 1965), astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom and John W. Young became the first to demonstrate ability to change their craft's orbit.
  • On Gemini 5 (August 1965), astronauts L. Gordon Cooper and Charles "Pete" Conrad set a record of almost eight days in space, long enough for a piloted lunar mission.
  • On Gemini 6A (December 1965), Command Pilot Wally Schirra achieved the first space rendezvouswithGemini 7, actively matching his orbit identically to the other craft and station-keeping at distances as close as1 foot (0.30 metres) and kept station for three orbits.[61]
  • Gemini 7 also set a human spaceflight endurance record of fourteen days for Frank Borman and James A. Lovell, which stood until both nations started launching space laboratories in the early 1970s.
  • On Gemini 8 (March 1966), Command Pilot Neil Armstrong achieved the first docking between two spacecraft, his Gemini craft and an Agena target vehicle.
  • Gemini 11 (September 1966), commanded by Conrad, achieved the first direct-ascent rendezvous with its Agena target on the first orbit, and used the Agena's rocket to achieve an apogee of 742 nautical miles (1,374 km), an earth orbit record never broken as of 4 June 2025 T 06:31 (UTC).
  • On Gemini 12 (November 1966), Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin spent over five hours working comfortably in three (EVA) periods, finally proving humans could perform productive tasks outside spacecraft. (This goal proved to be the most difficult to achieve.)

Most of the novice pilots on the early missions would command the later missions. In this way, Project Gemini built up spaceflight experience for the pool of astronauts who would be chosen to fly the Apollo lunar missions.

The American Moon program

The Soviet Moon program

Fatalities and disasters: the 1960s

Likely the worst disaster during the Space Race was the R-16 failure in 1960, when improper shutdown and control procedures during hasty on-pad repairs caused the missile's second stage engine to fire straight onto the full propellant tanks in the still-attached first stage. The toxic fuel and fire killed around 100 top Soviet military and technical personnel. In 1967, both nations faced serious challenges that brought their programs to a halt. Both nations had been rushing at full speed on the Apollo and Soyuz programs, without paying due dilligence to growing design and manufacturing problems. The results proved fatal to both pioneering crews.

In the US, the first Apollo mission crew, Command Pilot "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and PilotRoger Chaffee, were killed by suffocation in a cabin fire that swept through their Apollo 1 spacecraft during a ground test on 27 January 1967. The fire was probably caused by an electical spark, and grew out of control, fed by the spacecraft's pure oxygen atmosphere that was greater than normal atmospheric pressure.[62] An investigative board detailed design and construction flaws in the spacecraft, and procedural failings including the failure to appreciate the hazard of the pure-oxygen atmosphere, and inadequate safety procedures.[62] All these flaws had to be corrected over the next twenty-two months until the first piloted flight could be made.[62] Mercury and Gemini veteran Gus Grissom had been a favored choice of Deke Slayton, the grounded Mercury astronaut who became NASA's Director of Flight Crew Operations, to make the first piloted landing.

In 1980 it was disclosed that the USSR had covered up the March 23, 1961 death of Soviet cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenkofrom massive third-degree burns in a fire in a high-oxygen isolation test chamber. This revelation subsequently caused some speculation as to whether the Apollo 1 disaster might have been averted had NASA been aware of the incident. Bondarenko was an early Vostok cosmonaut once slated in lieu of Gagarin to make the first piloted flight. The Soviet government literally erased all traces of Bondarenko's existence in the cosmonaut corps upon his death.[63]

Meanwhile, the Soviets were having their own problems with Soyuz development. Engineers are said to have reported 200 design faults to party leaders, but their concerns "were overruled by political pressures for a series of space feats to mark the anniversary of Lenin's birthday." On April 24, 1967, the USSR suffered the death of its first cosmonaut, Colonel Vladimir Komarov, the single pilot ofSoyuz 1. This was planned to be a three-day mission to include the first Soviet docking with an unpiloted Soyuz 2, but his mission was plagued with problems. Immediately, his craft was short of electrical power because only one of two solar panels had deployed. Then the automatic attitude control system began malfunctioning and eventually failed completely, resulting in the craft spinning wildly. Komarov was able to stop the spin with the manual system, which was only partially effective. The flight controllers immediately aborted his mission after only one day and he made an emergency re-entry.

Then a fault in the landing parachute system caused the primary chutes to fail, and the reserve chutes tangled together, causing Komarov to be killed on impact.

Fixing these and other spacecraft faults caused an eighteen-month delay before piloted Soyuz flights could resume, similar to the US experience with Apollo. This, combined with Korolyov's death, lead to the quick unraveling of the Soviet Moon landing program. Komarov had been Korolyov's first choice for a landing; now, Gagarin and Aleksei Leonov became the most likely candidates.[citation needed]

Other astronauts died while training for space flight, including four Americans (Ted Freeman, Elliot See, Charlie Bassett, Clifton Williams) all died in crashes of T-38 aircraft. Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, met a similar death when he crashed in aMiG-15 'Fagot' while training for a Soyuz mission, in 1968. When the US Apollo 15 left the moon, the astronauts left behind a memorial in honor of all the people who had perished during the efforts to reach the moon from both the Soviet Union and the United States. This included the Apollo 1 and Soyuz 1 crews, and astronauts and cosmonauts killed while in training. In 1971, Soyuz 11 cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov asphyxiated during reentry. Since 1971, the Soviet/Russian space program has suffered no further losses.

To the Moon

American Buzz Aldrin during the first moonwalk in 1969

The United States kept on track in 1967 and 1968, fixing the fatal flaws in an improved version of the Block II command module, and proceeding with automated test launches of the Saturn V launch vehicle and Lunar Module lander. Grissom's mission, to checkout the first piloted Apollo spacecraft, was completed by his backup crew commanded by Schirra on Apollo 7, launched on 11 October 1968.

The Soviets also fixed the parachute and control problems with Soyuz, and the next piloted mission Soyuz 3 was launched on 26 October 1968. The goal was to complete Komarov's mission of rendezvous and docking with the un-piloted Soyuz 2. Ground controllers brought the two craft to within200 metres (660 ft) of each other, then cosmonaut Georgi Beregovoi took over control. He got within 1 metre (3.3 ft) of his target, but was unable to dock before expending his maneuvering fuel. The Soviet Zond spacecraft was almost ready for piloted circumlunar missions in 1968, although testing was not yet complete. After a successful flight around the Moon, Zond 4 crashed on March 7, 1968 during its return to Earth. Official announcements said that Zond 4 was an automated test flight which ended with its intentional destruction because its recovery trajectory positioned it over the Atlantic Ocean instead of over the USSR. At the time, the Soyuz 7K-L1/Zond spacecraft was not yet ready for piloted missions after five unsuccessful and partially successful automated test launches: Cosmos 146 on 10 March 1967; Cosmos 154 on 8 April 1967; Zond 1967A 27 September 1967; Zond 1967B on 22 November 22 1967.[64]

Neil Armstrong's historic first words on the Moon.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The Apollo program then hit another snag: the first piloted Lunar Module (LM) was not ready for orbital tests in time for a December 1968 launch. NASA planners overcame this challenge by changing the mission flight order, delaying the first LM flight to early 1969, and sending Apollo 8 into lunar orbit without the LM in December on a new 'C-prime' mission.[65] Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to orbit the Moon on 24 December and safely splashed down on December 27.

This mission was in part motivated by intelligence rumors the Soviets might fly a piloted circumlunar Zond flight in late 1968.[66] In September 1968, Zond 5, a Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft, with tortoises on board, made a circumlunar flight and returned to Earth, accomplishing the first splashdown in the Soviet space program, in the Indian Ocean.[67] It also scared NASA planners, as it took them several days to figure out that it was only an automated flight, not a piloted flight with cosmonauts, because voice recordings were transmitted from the craft en route to the Moon.[68] On 10 November 1968 another automated test flight of the 7K-L1 spacecraft – Zond 6 – was launched, but this time, it encountered difficulties in its re-entry, and depressurized and deployed its parachute too early, causing it to crash on land, only 16 kilometres (10 mi) from where it was launched six days earlier.[69]

It turned out there was no chance of the piloted circumlunar flight happening due to the unreliability of the Zonds and the successive launch failures of the N1 rocket in 1969, Soviet plans for a piloted landing suffered first delay and ultimately cancellation.[70] A significant setback was the launch pad explosion of the N-1 on 3 July 1969.[71] The rocket hit the pad after an engine shutdown, destroying itself and the launch facility.[71]

While robotic Soviet probes had reached the Moon before any American craft, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the lunar surface on 20 July 1969 (Eastern Time Zone).[72] Commander of the Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong was accompanied by Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin in an event watched by over 500 million people around the world.[73] The lunar landing is widely recognized as one of the defining moments of the 20th century, as are Armstrong's words on first touching the Moon's surface: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

The Apollo program followed the first landing with six more attempts through 1972, five of which were successful. A serious Service Module failure on Apollo 13, in April 1970, aborted the landing and placed the crew's lives in jeopardy, but they were able to use the LM as a "lifeboat" and returned to Earth safely.

The Space Race ends (1970–1975)

Sayluts and Skylab

Having lost the race to the Moon, the USSR decided to concentrate on orbital space stations. They launched six more Soyuz flights after Soyuz 3 in 1969 and 1970, then launched the first space station, the Salyut 1 laboratory designed by Kerim Kerimov, on 19 April 1971. Three days later, the Soyuz 10crew attempted to dock with it, but failed to achieve a secure enough connection to safely enter the station. The Soyuz 11 crew of Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev successfully docked on 7 June and completed a record 22-day stay. The crew became the second in-flight space fatality during their re-entry 30 June. They were asphyxiated when their spacecraft's cabin lost all pressure, shortly after undocking. The disaster was blamed on a faulty cabin pressure valve, that allowed all the air to vent into space. The crew were not wearing pressure suits, and had no chance of survival once the leak occurred.

Salyut 1's orbit was increased to prevent premature re-entry, but further piloted flights were delayed while the Soyuz was redesigned to fix the new safety problem. The station re-entered on October 11, after 175 days in orbit. The USSR attempted to launch a second Salyut-class station designated DOS (Durable Orbital Station)-2 on 29 July 1972, but a rocket failure caused it to fail to achieve orbit.

The US also had plans to fly a piloted space laboratory as part of the Apollo Applications Program, using Apollo hardware. These originally called for its construction in orbit from a spent Saturn S-IVB rocket stage (used to launch the Apollo craft into earth orbit), but was ultimately pre-fabricated on Earth and launched by the first two stages of the Saturn Vlunar launch vehicle. Named Skylab, it launched on May 14, 1973 after completion of the Apollo lunar program. It weighed169,950 pounds (77,090 kg), was 58 feet (18 m) long by 21.7 feet (6.6 m) in diameter, with a habitable volume of10,000 cubic feet (280 m3). Skylab 3 (84 days) on 8 February 1974. Skylab stayed in orbit another five years before re-entering the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia on 11 July 1979.

After the DOS-2 failure, the USSR attempted to launch four more Salyut-class stations through 1975, with another failure due to an explosion of the final rocket stage, which punctured the station with shrapnel so that it wouldn't hold pressure. While all of the Salyuts were presented to the public as non-military scientific laboratories, some of them were actually covers for military reconnaissance stations.

Détente

Apollo–Soyuz Test Mission

the five crew members of ASTP sitting around a miniture model of their spacecrafts
The final Space Race crew, ASTP. From left to right: Donald "Deke" Slayton, Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand, Alexey Leonov, andValeri Kubasov.

While the Sputnik 1 launch can clearly be called the start of the Space Race, its end is harder to pinpoint. In May of 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev negotiated an easing of relations known as detente, creating a temporary "thaw" in the Cold War. In the American spirit of good sportsmanship after winning the Moon race, and in light of the USSR's willingness to be a bit more open about their (non-military) space projects, the time seemed right for cooperation rather than competition, and the notion of a continuing "race" began to subside.

The two nations planned a joint mission to dock the last US Apollo craft with a Soyuz, known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). To prepare, the US designed a docking module necessary for compatibility between Apollo's docking system with the docking system the Soviets used, which allowed any of their craft to dock with any other (e.g. Soyuz/Soyuz as well as Soyuz/Salyut). The module was also necessary as an airlock to allow the men to visit each other's craft with incompatible cabin atmospheres. The USSR used the Soyuz 16 mission in December 1974 to prepare for ASTP.

The joint mission began when Soyuz 19 was launched first on 15 July 1975 at 12:20 UTC, and the Apollo craft was launched with the docking module six and a half hours later. The two craft rendezvoused and first docked on July 17 at 16:19UTC. The three astronauts conducted joint experiments with the two cosmonauts, and the crew shook hands, exchanged gifts and visits in each other's craft.

After the Space Race, the United States began developing a new generation of reusable orbital spacecraft known as the Space Shuttle, while the USSR continued to develop space station technology using their Soyuz vehicle as the shuttle.

Legacy

Advances in technology and education

Technology, especially in aerospace engineering, electronics and telecommunication fields, advanced greatly during this period. The effects of the Space Race however went far beyond rocketry, physics, and astronomy. "Space age technology" extended to fields as diverse as home economics and forest defoliation studies, and the push to win the race changed the very ways in which students learned science.

American concerns that they had fallen so quickly behind the Soviets in the race to space led quickly to a push by legislators and educators for greater emphasis on mathematics and on the physical sciences in American schools. The United States' National Defense Education Act of 1958 increased funding for these goals from childhood education through the post-graduate level. To this day over 1,200 American high schools retain their own planetarium installations, a situation unparalleled in any other country worldwide and a direct consequence of the Space Race.

The scientists fostered by these efforts helped develop for space exploration technologies which have seen adapted uses ranging from the kitchen to athletic fields. Dried fruits and ready-to-eat foods, in particular food sterilisation and package sealing techniques, stay-dry clothing, and even no-fog ski goggles have their roots in space science.

Earthrise, as seen from Apollo 8, December 24, 1968 (NASA)

Today over a thousand artificial satellites orbit earth, relaying communications data around the planet and facilitating remote sensing of data on weather, vegetation, and human movements to nations who employ them. In addition, much of the micro-technology which fuels everyday activities from time-keeping to enjoying music derives from research initially driven by the Space Race.

Even with all the technological advances since the first Sputnik was launched, the former Soviet Union's R-7 Semyorka rocket, that marked the beginning of the space race, is still in use today. It is servicing the International Space Station (ISS) as the launcher for both the Soyuz andProgress spacecrafts, and more notably in terms of the end of the Space Race, ferrying American astronauts to and from the station as well as Russian crews.

The Environmental Movement

An unintended effect was that the Space Race also was partially responsible for the birth of the environmental movement, as this was the first time in history that humans came to see their home-world as it really was – when the first color pictures from space showed a fragile blue planet bordered by the blackness of space.[74] Pictures like Apollo 8's Earthrise, which showed a crescent Earth peeking over the lunar surface, and Apollo 17's The Blue Marble, which for the first-time-ever showed a full circular earth, became iconic to the environmental movement.[74] The first Earth Day, was partially triggered by the Apollo 8 photo.[75] Astronaunts returning from space missions, also made comments about how fragile the Earth looked from space, further fuelling calls for better stewardship of the only home humans have: for now.[76]

Notes

  1. ^ Cornwell (2003), p. 147
  2. ^ Cornwell (2003), p. 146
  3. ^ Cornwell (2003), p. 148
  4. ^ Cornwell (2003), p. 150
  5. ^ Burroughs (1998), p. 96
  6. ^ Burroughs (1998), pp. 99-100
  7. ^ Burroughs (1998), pp. 98-99
  8. ^ Stocker (2004), pp. 12–24
  9. ^ Gainor (2001), p. 68
  10. ^ a b Schefter (1999), p. 29
  11. ^ Siddiqi (2003a), p. 41
  12. ^ Siddiqi (2003a), p. 24-41
  13. ^ a b Siddiqi (2003a), pp. 24-34
  14. ^ Siddiqi (2003a), pp. 4, 11, 16
  15. ^ a b c Schefter (1999), pp. 7-10
  16. ^ a b Siddiqi (2003a), p. 45
  17. ^ a b Gatland (1976), pp. 100-101
  18. ^ a b c d Wade, Mark. "Early Russian Ballistic Missiles". Encyclopedia Astronautix. Retrieved 24 July 2010.
  19. ^ Burroughs (1998), p. 123
  20. ^ a b Burroughs (1998), pp. 129-134
  21. ^ a b c Burroughs (1998), p. 137
  22. ^ a b Schmitz, (1999), pp. 149-154
  23. ^ a b c d e f Burroughs (1998), pp. 147-149
  24. ^ Polmer and Laur (1990), pp. 229-241
  25. ^ a b Burroughs (1998), pp. 149-151
  26. ^ Hall & Shayler (2001), p. 56
  27. ^ Siddiqi (2003a), pp. 468-469
  28. ^ a b c d e Wade, Mark. "Atlas". Encyclopedia Astronautix. Retrieved 24 July 2010.
  29. ^ Burroughs (1998), p. 138
  30. ^ Siddiqi (2003a), p.383
  31. ^ a b c d e Schefter (1999), pp. 3-5
  32. ^ a b Schefter (1999), p. 8
  33. ^ Schefter (1999), p. 6
  34. ^ a b c Schefter (1999), pp. 15–18
  35. ^ a b Cadbury (2006), pp.154–157
  36. ^ Schefter (1999), p. 19
  37. ^ "Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age". NASA.
  38. ^ Both Sides of the “Moon”, an October 12, 1957 leader from The Economist
  39. ^ a b Brzezinski (2007), pp. 254–267
  40. ^ http://epizodsspace.testpilot.ru/bibl/gerd/gerd/text/19.htm (Russian)
  41. ^ Gatland (1976), pp. 153-154
  42. ^ Gatland (1976), pp. 115-116
  43. ^ Kennedy to Johnson,"Memorandum for Vice President," 20 April 1961.
  44. ^ Johnson to Kennedy,"Evaluation of Space Program," April 28, 1961.
  45. ^ http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/Urgent+National+Needs+Page+4.htm
  46. ^ Gatland (1976), pp.117-118
  47. ^ a b c Siddiqi (2003a), pp.384-386
  48. ^ Siddiqi (2003a), p. 383
  49. ^ Schefter (1999), p. 149
  50. ^ Schefter (1999), p. 198
  51. ^ Special (1964-10-13). "Space Troika On Target". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. UPI. p. 1.
  52. ^ a b Schefter (1999), p. 199–200
  53. ^ a b Tanner, Henry (1965-03-19). "Russian Floats in Space for 10 Minutes; Leaves Orbiting Craft With a Lifeline; Moscow Says Moon Trip Is 'Target Now'". The New York Times. New York. p. 1.
  54. ^ Siddiqi (2003a), p. 448
  55. ^ a b Schefter (1999), p. 205
  56. ^ a b Siddiqi (2003a), pp.454-460
  57. ^ "Kremlin summit probably greased skids for Mr. K.". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. 1964-10-16. p. 11. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |First= ignored (|first= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Last= ignored (|last= suggested) (help)
  58. ^ Siddiqi (2003a), pp. 510-511
  59. ^ Siddiqi (2003a), p. 460
  60. ^ Schefter (1999), p. 207
  61. ^ "THE WORLD'S FIRST SPACE RENDEZVOUS". Apollo to the Moon; To Reach the Moon — Early Human Spaceflight. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Retrieved 2007-09-17. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  62. ^ a b c Seamans, Robert C., Jr. (1967-04-05). "Findings, Determinations And Recommendations". Report of Apollo 204 Review Board. NASA History Office. Retrieved 2007-10-07.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  63. ^ Oberg, James,Uncovering Soviet Disasters, Chapter 10: "Dead Cosmonauts", pp 156-176, Random House, New York, 1988, retrieved 8 January 2008
  64. ^ Williams, David R. (6 January 2005). "Tentatively Identified Missions and Launch Failures". NASA NSSDC. Retrieved 30 July 2010.
  65. ^ Kraft (2001), pp. 284–297
  66. ^ Chaikin (1994),pp.57–58
  67. ^ Siddiqi (2003b), pp.654–656
  68. ^ Turnhill (2003), p. 134
  69. ^ Siddiqi (2003b), pp.663–666
  70. ^ Siddiqi (2003b), pp. 665 & 832-834
  71. ^ a b Siddiqi (2003b), pp. 690–693
  72. ^ Murray (1990), p. 356
  73. ^ Paterson, Chris (2010). "Space Program and Television". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |access date= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  74. ^ a b Poole (2008), p. 13
  75. ^ Poole (2008), p. 152
  76. ^ Poole (2008), p. 108

References

See also

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