SPACE RACE

The space race started in the 50s when 2 most powerful nations of that time, USSR & the US wanted to dominate the space sector.

USSR was way ahead of US in terms of early achievements like being first:- 

• First Human in space, Yuri Gagarin 1961
• First satellite: Sputnik I 1957
• Laika, the first dog in space launched with sputnik II in 1957
• Valentina Tereshkova, first woman Cosmonaut

It was apparent that the soviets were winning the space war. Sputnik’s launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans. It was the beginning of the space war, Americans saw soviet satellites above their heads as national security threat thus a special act was passed by the congress in 1958 which led to the foundation of NASA

In 1961 President John F.Kennedy announced that America is going to the moon, the mission was called Apollo 11.

The space race continued for over a decade until in 1969, when Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon.

While the US was celebrating the humongous success of Apollo 11, Soviets made four failed attempts to launch a lunar landing craft between 1969 and 1972, including a spectacular launch-pad explosion in July 1969.

SO DID US WON THE SPACE RACE

After the first man on the moon, everybody saw the next destination as mars. Everybody was convinced that by the end of the century the world will see the first man on Mars, but that never happened because the USSR gave up on the space race.

Apollo 11 cost about $288 Billion dollars in today's money. Without a threat from the Soviets, the US saw no reason to pour Billions of dollars in space expeditions because of which the space industry stagnated. 

But a new space race is being started by some private companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic & Blue Origin exploring ways to commercialise space.

It would be interesting to see what comes next in this space race.

As Kennedy said:

" we choose to go to the moon, not because it was easy but because it was it was hard"