The Space Race: A History from Beginning to End (The Cold War)

by Hourly History

In terms of public perception, the notion of rockets became indelibly linked not with real science, but with the fantasy of the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon comic strips. This ridicule of rocketry became so intense that respectable scientists avoided using the “R-word” wherever possible, even when they were involved in rocket research. For example, when in 1936 the respected Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) decided to form a group to study the practical applications of rockets, it was called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), even though jets were never produced or studied there. When the JPL began to produce rocket pods in 1941 to be used on American military aircraft to allow them to take-off in short distances, these were called Jet-Assisted Take-Off (JATO) units, even though they were not jets. Jets, it seemed, were safely scientific while rockets were still regarded as silly.

It took the Nazis to make people think seriously about rockets. There was nothing remotely whimsical about V2 rockets, the world’s first ballistic missiles which used the kind of liquid-fuel engines first imagined by Tsiolkovsky to carry more than 2,000 pounds of high explosive over 50 miles above the Earth at speeds of over 3,000 miles per hour.

Thousands of people were killed by these deadly Nazi weapons during World War II, and suddenly rocketry was no longer the a...

“Don’t tell me that Man doesn’t belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go—and he’ll do plenty well when he gets there.” —Wernher von Braun

At the close of the war in Europe, America had set out to find as many Nazi designers and technicians as possible in the hope of persuading these men to move to the U.S. to continue their research. Operation Paperclip brought over 1,600 Nazi scientists to America. Amongst these were almost all of the team behind the design of the V2 rockets, including the lead designer, Dr. Wernher von Braun.

The space race was preceded by a race to gain access to as much German missile research information and technology as possible.

In September 1957, another Jupiter-C rocket was launched. Once again, this had nothing to do with American efforts to put a satellite into orbit, but again Korolev’s team interpreted this as the final test before a satellite launch. Then it became know that American scientists were to present a paper at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC on October 6. The paper was titled “Satellite Over the Planet.” The Russians became convinced that the Americans intended to launch a satellite to coincide with the presentation of this paper. They were mistaken—the Vanguard rocket was not even close to being ready for launch, and the paper was merely intended as a report on progress to date. But to ensure that Russia got there first, Korolev scheduled the launch of Sputnik 1 for October 4, 1957.

On November 3, 1957, just 32 days after the launch of Sputnik 1, Russia successfully launched Sputnik 2, and this time, the satellite contained a living space traveler—a dog named Laika.

“I see Earth. It is so beautiful!” —Yuri Gagarin, first words in space

The term “the missile gap” was coined during the election to describe a perceived imbalance between the number of American nuclear missiles and the number of missiles fielded by the Russians. The truth was that no such gap existed—this misapprehension was based on faulty intelligence. However, there were close ties between the Soviet space program and their ability to produce nuclear missiles. For many Americans, the Russian lead in space strongly suggested that they were also leading in the production of secret missile technology.

In September 1961, Kennedy followed up his speech to Congress with a public address in which spoke about the space race. On September 12, the president addressed a crowd of around 40,000 people in the Rice University football stadium in Texas. He likened space to the frontiers of the old West in America and evoked the pioneering spirit of the first explorers there. He spoke about space itself, often in a romantic and appealing way, and about America’s role in its exploration: “We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained and new rights to be won and they must be won for the progress of all people. Only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new, terrifying theatre of war.”

Kennedy went on to talk about the difficulties and dangers involved, and in the most memorable and often quoted part of his speech he said: “We choose to go to the moon! We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

“Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said ‘Because it is there.’ Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.” —John F. Kennedy

In the United States, the first manned test flight of the Apollo spacecraft was scheduled for February 21, 1967. The flight was to be a low orbit test of the command module. On January 27, testing was in progress, and the men who were intended to be the three first Apollo astronauts—Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee—were strapped into their seats in the cramped capsule. Suddenly, a fire broke out inside the capsule. All three men died before they could be extricated. These were the first fatalities directly associated with the U.S. space program, and everyone involved was stunned.

Work on the giant N-1 rocket was not going well—it was becoming apparent that the design and development of this rocket had been rushed, causing major technical problems. These delays meant that it would not be possible for Mishin to meet his targets for a Russian moon mission. Mishin was also widely criticized within the Russian space program for his inability to make progress and for his increasing reliance on alcohol. Almost for the first time, the Russians seemed to be falling behind the Americans in the space race.

With the destruction of the second N-1 rocket, any realistic hope of the Soviet Union competing with the United States for the first moon landing ended. All the Russians could now do was wait and watch the American moon landing attempt.

At 20:18 UTC on July 20, 1969, mission control received a terse radio message: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Six hours later, with millions of people all around the world watching on television, Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module and down onto the surface of the moon. Eagle remained on the lunar surface for twenty hours, and during that period the two astronauts spent around two and a half hours walking on the moon. At 05:54 UTC on July 21, Eagle lifted off from the moon and rendezvoused with the command module in lunar orbit. On the moon’s surface, the Apollo 11 astronauts left a plaque which read: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July, 1969, AD. We came in peace for all mankind.”