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Revision as of 23:24, 19 August 2004 by AlexG (talk | contribs) (Apollo origins etc)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Space Race was an unofficial competition between the United States and the USSR in space exploration and technology, and especially to the race between the two nations to land a human being on the moon in the second half of the 1960s. Significant events in the Space Race include:
- first artificial satellite - Sputnik 1 (October 4, 1957, USSR)
- first animal in orbit - Laika - Sputnik 2 (1957, USSR)
- first fly by moon - Luna 1 (January 4, 1959, USSR)
- first artificial satellite of the Sun - Luna 1 (as above)
- first spacecraft on moon - Luna 2 (September 13, 1959, USSR)
- first human in space - Yuri Gagarin, Vostok 1 (April 12, 1961, USSR)
- first human in orbit - Vostok 1 (as above)
- first spacecraft to successfully fly by Venus - Mariner 2 (December 14, 1962, USA)
- first dual manned flight (August 11-15, 1962, USSR)
- first woman in space - Valentina Tereshkova (June 16, 1963, USSR)
- first geostationery satellite - Syncom-2 (July 26, 1963, USA)
- first flight with more than one crew member - Voskhod 1 (October 12, 1964, USSR)
- first space flight where cosmonauts did not wear spacesuits - Voskhod 1 (as above)
- first spacecraft to successfully fly by Mars - Mariner 4 (1965, USA)
- first spacewalk - Aleksei Leonov on Voskhod 2 (March 18, 1965, USSR)
- first space rendezvous - Gemini 6/Gemini 7 (December 15, 1965, USA)
- first soft landing on the Moon - Luna 9 (February 3, 1966, USSR)
- first space docking - Gemini 8 (March 16, 1966, USA)
- first spacecraft in moon orbit - Luna 10 (April 3, 1966, USSR)
- first sea launch - Scout B (April 26, 1967, USA)
- first automatic space docking - Cosmos-186/Cosmos-188 (October 30, 1967, USSR)
- first human orbital flight of moon - Apollo 8 (December 27, 1968, USA)
- first human landing on moon - Apollo 11 (July 20, 1969, USA)
- first automatic rover on the moon - Lunokhod 1 (November 17, 1970, USSR)
- first spacecraft on Venus - Venera 7 (1971, USSR)
- first space station - Salyut 1 (June 7, 1971, USSR)
- first spacecraft on Mars - Mars 3 (1971, USSR)
- first spacecraft to fly by Jupiter - Pioneer 10 (1973, USA)
- first (and as of 2004 the only) spacecraft to fly by Mercury - Mariner 10 (1974, USA)
- first spacecraft to fly by Saturn - Pioneer 11 (1979, USA)
- first reusable spacecraft in space - Space shuttle (April 12, 1981, twentieth anniversary of Gagarin's flight, USA)
- first modular space station - Mir (February 20, 1986, USSR)
- first (and as of 2004 the only) spacecraft to fly by Uranus - Voyager 2 (1986, USA)
- first (and as of 2004 the only) automatic space flight of a reusable spacecraft - Buran (November 15, 1988, USSR)
- first (and as of 2004 the only) spacecraft to fly by Neptune - Voyager 2 (1989, USA)
The term "space race" was coined by analogy to the arms race between the Soviet Union and United States. The Cold War sense of cultural competition required each nation to try to outdo the other, in order to "demonstrate" which had the better system. Space technology was a particularly important arena for this conflict, because of its futuristic image - rocketry was still a comparatively new field - and obvious military applications.
The Soviets beat the Americans in most firsts, but did not manage to beat them to the moon. After so many early Soviet successes, especially Gagarin's flight, President John F. Kennedy was keen to find an American project that could capture the public imagination. The idea of the Apollo program was developed during the Eisenhower administration, but discarded because the President thought the operation was too expensive, and had little scientific or military reward. Kennedy, however, seized upon the project as the ideal focus for American efforts in space. While unmanned Soviet probes reached the moon before any American craft, the American Neil Armstrong was the first human visitor - an event watched by millions of people around the world. This has come to be recognised as a defining moment of the twentieth century.
Technology and especially aerospace engineering advanced greatly during this period. In the sense that it was contested during the 1960s, the space race is usually considered to have been ended by the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975.
In 2003, with the successful manned space flight by China, there has been speculation of a new space race with the United States considering creating a permanent base on the Moon and/or a manned mission to Mars.
The Ansari X Prize, a competition for private suborbital spaceships, has also been called the new space race.