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

by Hourly History

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.

Von Braun was fascinated by the possibility of space travel, however, and he began lobbying to have funds diverted from the design of missiles to the design of passenger-carrying rockets which could be used for the exploration of space. At the time, there was little interest in space travel, and the American administration believed that it was necessary to focus all their efforts into the production of ever more powerful Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) capable of delivering nuclear warheads into the Russian heartlands.

But just like von Braun in America, Korolev was fascinated by the possibility of exploring space, and he knew that the R-7 was also capable of carrying a small payload into space. In May 1954, he sent a secret document, Report on an artificial Satellite of the Earth, to the Soviet government. This report pointed out that American scientists were already interested in space and recommended using the R-7 to launch a small satellite into Earth’s orbit.

In May 1955, the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) reviewed plans for the launch of a satellite. It agreed that being the first nation to launch such a satellite would bring great prestige and would establish the principle of the “freedom of space”—that a country’s sovereign territory did not extend beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. On July 29, 1955, James Hagerty, President Eisenhower’s press secretary, held a press conference at which he announced that the United States would launch a “science satellite” into Earth’s orbit before the end of the International Geophysical Year, which would last from July 1957 to December 1958. Just four days later, on August 2, the Soviet Union responded with a press conference at the International Astronautical Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark at which they announced that “the realization of the Soviet satellite project can be expected in the near future.” With these announcements, the space race had begun.

Sputnik 1 would be a sphere just 58 cm in diameter and weighing less than 200 pounds. Instead of complex instrumentation, Sputnik 1 contained only two short-wave radio transmitters operating on different frequencies and each set to broadcast a series of beeps. In terms of scientific investigation, Sputnik 1 was almost completely pointless. But in terms of prestige, the first country to successfully launch a satellite of any kind would gain a great deal.

The launch was to take place at the newly named Baikonur Cosmodrome, a missile launch facility in southern Kazakhstan. Sputnik 1 was mounted on a modified R-7 rocket and, at 10:28 pm Moscow time, the launch took place. For a very nervous 95 minutes, personnel at the launch site waited. Then, their radio receivers finally picked up the distinctive “beep, beep, beep” of Sputnik 1 as it passed over Baikonur having completed its first orbit. The first human-made satellite was successfully orbiting the Earth.

On October 9, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke announced that “the day Sputnik orbited around the Earth, the United States became a second-rate power.”

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. The unfortunate canine died a few hours after launch, but it seemed to most Americans that the Soviet Union was able to launch space vehicles at will while the United States had failed to put a single item in orbit.

Bars around the United States began offering so-called Sputnik Cocktails—one-third vodka and two-thirds sour grapes.

A Russian delegate to the United Nations enquired whether America was interested in receiving help from the Soviet Union; Russia offered a program of technical assistance to backward nations, he happily explained.

“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.” —John F. Kennedy

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.”

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.”