Race into space both sides4/8/2023 ![]() The unstated goal: Accomplish all of this before the Soviets. In 1958 NASA launched Project Mercury with three specific goals: Launch an American into orbit around Earth, investigate the human body’s ability to tolerate spaceflight, and bring both the spacecraft and astronaut home safety. ( Subscriber exclusive: See a visual timeline of every animal ever sent to space.)īut the true goal was to send humans to space. (Laika died within hours of the flight from heat and stress.) Just weeks after Sputnik’s 1957 launch, the Soviets famously sent a dog named Laika into orbit. had been launching rockets with animals- including fruit flies and rhesus macaques-into suborbital space since the late 1940s, while the U.S.S.R. Human space travel was not a novel concept in the 1950s. established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in July 1958 and began its own pursuit of spaceflight in earnest. ![]() Unwilling to concede space to the Soviet Union, the U.S. White House officials fretted over whether the world would see the Soviet Union as the more sophisticated superpower, writing in one report that Sputnik’s launch would “generate myth, legend and enduring superstition of a kind peculiarly difficult to eradicate or modify, which the U.S.S.R. President Dwight Eisenhower had his own concerns. Although it was no larger than a beach ball and had limited technical capabilities, Americans were frightened as they heard its radio signature “beep, beep, beep” as it passed overhead. On October 4, 1957, the world was taken by surprise when the Soviet Union announced that it had launched a satellite called Sputnik, Russian for “traveling companion,” into orbit. ![]() In turn, these early depictions of space travel made a lasting impression on real-life rocket scientists. The urge to explore beyond Earth inspired great fictional works like From the Earth to the Moon and A Trip to the Moon. scheduled a 1958 launch for its Project Vanguard, the Soviets quietly resolved to beat the Americans to the punch. In the mid-1950s, both countries announced plans to use these rockets to propel artificial satellites into space. To prove their superior technological capabilities, both countries began to build massive nuclear arsenals and rockets capable of hitting targets across the world. Thus began the Cold War, in which the U.S. had just demonstrated its ability to destroy entire cities by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force Japan’s surrender. grew increasingly suspicious of one another as the war drew to a close in 1945. ( Subscriber exclusive: Explore 50 years of lunar visits with our newest moon map.) The space race beginsĭespite being allies during World War II, the U.S. But it isn’t where the story of human spaceflight truly begins: That trajectory was charted years earlier by another Soviet success. ![]() It was a pivotal moment in the space race between the United States and Soviet Union that would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Moments later, the Soviet cosmonaut became the first person in space and, 89 minutes after launch, the first person to orbit the planet. He narrated his experiences to those on the ground as the rocket’s acceleration to 17,000 miles an hour pushed him back into his seat. Intelligent, diligent, and well-liked among his comrades, one memo written by Soviet Air Force doctors and obtained by historian Asif Siddiqi noted that Gagarin “understands life better than a lot of his friends.”Īt 9:07 a.m., Gagarin called out “ Poyekhali!”-Russian for “Off we go!”-as the rocket lifted off. After months of rigorous physical and technical training, the 27-year-old cosmonaut had been chosen for the historic flight in part for his unflappability. Two of the space program’s top engineers reportedly had to take tranquilizers that day as they waited for liftoff at the Kazakh launch site.īut Yuri Gagarin remained calm in the capsule atop the rocket. Of the 16 previous attempts to propel the U.S.S.R.’s Vostok rocket into orbit, half had failed. Tensions ran high at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the morning of April 12, 1961, as the Soviet Union prepared to launch the first human into space. ![]()
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