The Space Race: The Impacts of The Us and Ussr Space Race on The World

The Space Race: The Impacts of the United States and Soviet Union Space Race on the World

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HIS 104: Introduction to World History I

14th November 2016

The space race is often referred to as the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to reach space.  It was the goal of both these countries to have primary space exploration.  Artificial satellites, suborbital and orbital human flight and voyages to the moon show great advancement for this period in history.  Both the United States and Soviet Union attempted to out compete each other in hopes of becoming the front runner in space exploration.  The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union impacted the world significantly.

Beginning in the 1930’s, Nazi Germany researched and built operational ballistic missiles, experimenting with liquid fuel rockets.  It was hoped that one day the rockets would reach high altitudes and travel long distances^[1].  

It wasn’t until 1942 that a rocket called the V2 reached outer space during flight testing.  Germany quickly manufactured the rockets for their own use.  The rockets were capable of travelling long distances and carrying large payloads.  The supersonic speed of the rockets made them ideal for use as weapons because early radar systems would not be able to track the rockets^[2].  When Germany was defeated at the end of World War II, many of the V2 rockets ended up in the United States and Soviet Union as they would become the foundation for further weapon and space flight testing.  Both the United States and Soviet Union scrambled to capture as many German rocket engineers as they could, offering them citizenship and safety from persecution if they joined their country.  Many of the rocket engineers accepted the offers from the United States and the Soviet Union^[3].  Now that both countries had a team assembled, they projects were moved to a secret location to ensure that the prying eyes of the world would not know what was going on.  The secret locations had the highest levels of security to ensure that no unauthorized personnel entered the facilities^[4]. Using new design plans obtained from Germany, the Soviet Union developed their own rocket known as the V4.  The V4 was capable of traveling further and was less noticeable than the previous V2 model.  The United States developed the first rocket that was capable of carrying a camera into outer space to capture images; further development of this model of rocket could change it into a spy rocket capable of reaching outer space and taking pictures of other countries.  With more development, the Americans constructed a two stage rocket.  Later in 1950, the first medium range ballistic rocket was developed.  The Americans called it the Redstone Rocket^[5].