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Space Race

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General history

   Titan II rockets launched 12 U.S. Gemini spacecraft in the 1960s.
   Enlarge
   Titan II rockets launched 12 U.S. Gemini spacecraft in the 1960s.

   The Space Race was an informal competition between the United States
   and the Soviet Union that lasted roughly from 1957 to 1975. It involved
   the parallel efforts by each of those countries to explore outer space
   with artificial satellites, to send humans into space, and to land
   people on the Moon.

   Though its roots lie in early rocket technology and in the
   international tensions following World War II, the Space Race
   effectively began after the Soviet launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October
   1957. The term originated as an analogy to the arms race. The Space
   Race became an important part of the cultural, technological, and
   ideological rivalry between the USSR and the United States during the
   Cold War. Space technology became a particularly important arena in
   this conflict, both because of its potential military applications and
   due to the morale-boosting psychological benefits.

Background

Early military influences

   Rockets have interested scientists and amateurs for centuries. The
   Chinese used them as weapons as early as the 11th century. Russian
   scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky(1857-1935) theorized in the 1880s on
   multi-stage, liquid fuel rockets which might reach space and
   established the basics of rocket science. His 'Rocket Equation', which
   determines flight velocity, is still used in the design of modern
   rockets. He also wrote the first theoretical description of a man-made
   satellite. But only in 1926 did the American Robert Goddard design a
   practical liquid fuel rocket.

   Goddard performed his work on rocketry in obscurity, as the scientific
   community, the public, and even The New York Times scoffed at him. It
   took war to catapult rocketry to notoriety. This proved a harbinger for
   the future, as any "space race" would become inextricably linked to
   military ambitions of the nations involved, despite its mostly
   scientific character and peaceful rhetoric.

German contributions

   In the mid-1920s, German scientists began experimenting with rockets
   powered by liquid propellants that were capable of reaching relatively
   high altitudes and distances. In 1932, the Reichswehr, predecessor of
   the Wehrmacht, took an interest in rocketry for long-range artillery
   fire. Wernher von Braun, an aspiring rocket scientist, joined the
   effort and developed such weapons for Nazi Germany's use in World War
   II. Von Braun borrowed heavily from Robert Goddard's original research,
   studying and improving on Goddard's rockets.

   The German A-4 Rocket, launched in 1942, became the first such
   projectile to reach space. In 1943, Germany began production of its
   successor, the V-2 rocket, with a range of 300 km (185 miles) and
   carrying a 1000 kg (2200 lb) warhead. The Wehrmacht fired thousands of
   V-2s at Allied nations, causing massive damage and loss of life.
   However, more laborers were killed in the production of V2s than were
   killed by them in attacks.

   As World War II drew to a close, Soviet, British, and American military
   and scientific crews raced to capture technology and trained personnel
   from the German rocket program installation at Peenemünde. The USSR and
   Britain had some success, but the United States arguably benefited
   most, taking a large number of German rocket scientists – many of them
   members of the Nazi Party, including von Braun – from Germany to the
   United States as part of Operation Paperclip. American scientists
   adapted the German rockets – for use against hostile nations; and other
   uses. Post-war scientists, including von Braun, turned to rockets to
   study high-altitude conditions of temperature and pressure of the
   atmosphere, cosmic rays, and other topics.

Cold War roots

   After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became
   locked in a bitter Cold War of espionage and propaganda. Space
   exploration and satellite technology could feed into the cold war on
   both fronts. Satellite-borne equipment could spy on other countries,
   while space-faring accomplishments could serve as propaganda to tout a
   country's scientific prowess and military potential. The same rockets
   that might send a human into orbit or hit a specific spot on the Moon
   could send an atom bomb to a specific enemy city. Much of the
   technological development required for space travel applied equally
   well to wartime rockets such as Intercontinental ballistic missiles
   (ICBMs). Along with other aspects of the arms race, progress in space
   appeared as an indicator of technological and economic prowess,
   demonstrating the superiority of the ideology of that country. Space
   research had a dual purpose: it could serve peaceful ends, but could
   also contribute to military goals.

   The two superpowers each worked to gain an edge in space research,
   neither knowing who might make a breakthrough first. They had each laid
   the groundwork for a race to space, and awaited only the starter's gun.

Artificial satellites

Sputnik

   Sputnik 1 was the size of a large beach ball and weighed more than 80
   kg and orbited the Earth for more than two months.
   Enlarge
   Sputnik 1 was the size of a large beach ball and weighed more than 80
   kg and orbited the Earth for more than two months.

   On 4 October 1957, the USSR successfully launched Sputnik 1, the first
   artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, and the Space Race began.
   Because of its military and economic implications, Sputnik caused fear
   and stirred political debate in the United States. At the same time,
   the Sputnik launch was seen in the Soviet Union as an important sign of
   scientific and engineering capabilities of the nation.

   In the Soviet Union the launch of Sputnik and the following program of
   space exploration was met with great interest from the public. For the
   country recently recovered from devastating war it was important and
   encouraging to see the proof of technical prowess in the new era.

   Before Sputnik, the average American assumed that the U.S. had
   superiority in all fields of technology. Von Braun's counterpart in the
   Soviet Union, Sergei Korolev, the chief engineer who designed the R-7
   rocket which sent Sputnik into orbit, would later engineer the N-1,
   designed to launch cosmonauts to the Moon. In response to Sputnik, the
   U.S. would launch a huge effort to regain technological supremacy,
   including revamping the school curricula in the hope of producing more
   von Brauns and Korolevs. This reaction is nowadays known as the Sputnik
   crisis.

   Lyndon B. Johnson, Vice President to President John F. Kennedy,
   expressed the motivation for these American efforts as follows:

          In the eyes of the world, first in space means first, period;
          second in space is second in everything.

   The American public, initially discouraged and frightened by Sputnik,
   became captivated by the American projects which followed.
   Schoolchildren followed the succession of launches, and building
   replicas of rockets became a popular hobby. President Kennedy gave
   speeches encouraging people to support the space program and trying to
   overcome the skepticism of many who felt the millions of dollars might
   better go on building stocks of proven, existing armaments, or on
   fighting poverty.
   Explorer 1 model at NASA news conference.
   Enlarge
   Explorer 1 model at NASA news conference.

   Nearly four months after the launch of Sputnik 1, the U.S. launched its
   first satellite, Explorer I. In the meantime, a number of embarrassing
   launch failures had occurred at Cape Canaveral.

   The very first satellites were already used for scientific purposes.
   Both Sputnik and Explorer I were launched as part of each country's
   participation in the International Geophysical Year. Sputnik helped to
   determine the density of the upper atmosphere and Explorer I flight
   data led to the discovery by James Van Allen of the Van Allen radiation
   belt.

Satellite communications

   The first American communications satellite, Project SCORE, launched on
   December 18, 1958, relayed a Christmas message from President
   Eisenhower to the world. Other notable examples of satellite
   communication during (or spawned by) the Space Race include:

          1962: Telstar: the first "active" communications satellite
          (experimental transoceanic)
          1972: Anik 1: first domestic communications satellite (Canada)
          1974: WESTAR: first U.S. domestic communications satellite
          1976: MARISAT: first mobile communications satellite

Other noteworthy satellites

   The U.S. launched the first geosynchronous satellite, Syncom-2, on July
   26, 1963. The success of this class of satellite meant that a simple
   satellite dish no longer needed to track the orbit of the satellite, as
   that orbit remained geostationary. Henceforth ordinary citizens could
   use satellite-mediated communications transmissions for television
   broadcasts, after a one-time setup.

Living creatures in space

Animals in space

   Dogs launched by the U.S. on captured German V-2 rockets in 1946 became
   the first animals sent into space for scientific study. The first
   living creature sent into orbit, the dog Laika(In English Barker),
   traveled in the USSR's Sputnik 2 in 1957. However, technology did not
   exist at the time to recover Laika after her flight. She died of stress
   and overheating soon after reaching space. In 1960 Russian space dogs
   Belka and Strelka orbited the earth and successfully returned. The
   American space program imported chimpanzees from Africa, and sent at
   least two into space before launching their first human orbiter. In
   June 1997 the Air Force announced it would be giving away the last of
   its chimps through a public divestiture authorized by Congress. Two
   months after their transfer to the Coulston Foundation, a New Mexico
   research laboratory, the Save the Chimps Foundation filed suit to
   remove them. This action eventually allowed their "release" to
   semi-wild conditions in 1999 in a South Florida sanctuary.
   Soviet-launched turtles in 1968 on Zond 5 became the first animals to
   fly around the Moon.

Humans in space

   The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space when
   he entered orbit in Russia's Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, a day now
   celebrated as a holiday in Russia and in many other countries. 23 days
   later, on mission Freedom 7, Alan Shepard first entered sub-orbital
   space for the U.S. John Glenn, in Friendship 7, became the first
   American to successfully orbit Earth, completing three orbits on
   February 20, 1962.

   The first dual-manned flight also originated in the USSR, August 11 -
   15, 1962. Soviet Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space
   on June 16, 1963 in Vostok 6. Korolev had initially scheduled further
   Vostok missions of longer duration, but following the announcement of
   the Apollo Program, Premier Khrushchev demanded more firsts. The first
   flight with more than one crew member, the USSR's Voskhod 1, a modified
   version of the Vostok craft, took off on October 12, 1964 carrying
   Komarov, Feoktistov and Yegorov onboard. This flight also marked the
   first occasion on which a crew did not wear spacesuits.

   Aleksei Leonov, from Voskhod 2, launched by the USSR on March 18, 1965,
   carried out the first spacewalk. This mission nearly ended in disaster;
   Leonov almost failed to return to the capsule and, due to a poor
   retrorocket fire, the ship landed 1000 miles (1600 km) off target. By
   this time Khrushchev had left office and the new Soviet leadership
   would not commit to an all-out effort.

Lunar missions

   Though the achievements made by the US and the USSR brought great pride
   to their respective nations, the ideological climate ensured that the
   Space Race would continue at least until the first human walked on the
   Moon. Before this achievement, unmanned spacecraft had to first explore
   the Moon by photography and demonstrate their ability to land safely on
   it.

Unmanned probes

   Following the Soviet success in placing the first satellite into orbit,
   the Americans focused their efforts on sending a probe to the Moon.
   They called the first attempt to do this the Pioneer program. The
   Soviet Luna program became operational with the launch of Luna 1 on
   January 4, 1959, and Luna 1 became the first probe to reach the
   vicinity of the Moon. In addition to the Pioneer program, there were
   three specific American programs: the Ranger program, the Lunar Orbiter
   program, and the robotic Surveyor program, with the goal of locating
   potential Apollo landing sites on the Moon.

Lunar landing

   After the Soviet successes, especially Gagarin's flight, President
   Kennedy and Vice President Johnson looked for an American project that
   would capture the public’s imagination. The Apollo Program met many of
   their objectives and promised to defeat arguments from politicians both
   on the left (who favored social programs) and the right (who favored a
   more military project). Apollo’s advantages included:
     * economic benefits to several key states in the next election;
     * closing the “ missile gap” claimed by Kennedy during the 1960
       election through dual-use technology;
     * technical and scientific spin-off benefits

   In conversation with NASA’s director, James E. Webb, Kennedy said:

          Everything we do ought to really be tied in to getting on to the
          Moon ahead of the Russians... otherwise we shouldn't be spending
          that kind of money, because I'm not interested in space... The
          only justification (for the cost) is because we hope to beat the
          USSR to demonstrate that instead of being behind by a couple of
          years, by God, we passed them.

   Kennedy and Johnson managed to swing public opinion: by 1965, 58% of
   Americans favored Apollo, up from 33% in 1963. After Johnson became
   President in 1963, his continuing support allowed the program to
   succeed.

   The USSR showed a greater ambivalence about human visits to the Moon.
   Soviet leader Khrushchev wanted neither "defeat" by another power, nor
   the expense of such a project. In October 1963 he characterized the
   USSR as "not at present planning flight by cosmonauts to the Moon",
   while adding that they had not dropped out of the race. A year passed
   before the USSR committed itself to a Moon-landing attempt.
   Soviet Soyuz rockets like the one pictured above became the first
   reliable means to transport objects into Earth orbit.
   Enlarge
   Soviet Soyuz rockets like the one pictured above became the first
   reliable means to transport objects into Earth orbit.

   Kennedy proposed joint programs, such as a Moon landing by Soviet and
   American astronauts and improved weather-monitoring satellites.
   Khrushchev, sensing an attempt to steal superior Russian space
   technology, rejected these ideas. Korolev, the Soviet Space Agency's
   chief designer, had started promoting his Soyuz craft and the N1
   launcher rocket that had the capacity for a manned Moon landing.
   Khrushchev directed Korolev's design bureau to arrange further space
   firsts by modifying the existing Vostok technology, while a second team
   started building a completely new launcher and craft, the Proton
   booster and the Zond, for a manned cislunar flight in 1966. In 1964 the
   new Soviet leadership gave Korolev the backing for a Moon landing
   effort and brought all manned projects under his direction. With
   Korolev's death and the failure of the first Soyuz flight in 1967, the
   co-ordination of the Soviet Moon landing program quickly unraveled. The
   Soviets built a landing craft and selected cosmonauts for the mission
   that would have placed Aleksei Leonov on the Moon's surface, but with
   the successive launch failures of the N1 booster in 1969, plans for a
   manned landing suffered first delay and then cancellation.
   Earthrise, Dec 22, 1968 (NASA) Enlarge
   Earthrise, Dec 22, 1968 (NASA)

   While unmanned Soviet probes had reached the Moon before any U.S.
   craft, American Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on
   the lunar surface on 21 July 1969, after landing the previous day.
   Commander of the Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong received backup from
   command-module pilot Michael Collins and lunar-module pilot Buzz Aldrin
   in an event watched by over 500 million people around the world. Social
   commentators widely recognize the lunar landing as one of the defining
   moments of the 20th century, and Armstrong's words on his first
   touching the Moon's surface became similarly memorable:
     * Neil Armstrong's comment upon stepping onto the moon —
          + "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for
            mankind."
     * Problems playing the files? See media help.

   Unlike other international rivalries, the Space Race was not motivated
   by the desire for territorial expansion. After its successful landings
   on the Moon, the U.S. explicitly disclaimed the right to ownership of
   any part of the Moon.

Other successes

Missions to other planets

   Venus became the first planet flown past by a spacecraft in December
   14, 1962.
   Enlarge
   Venus became the first planet flown past by a spacecraft in December
   14, 1962.

   The Soviet Union first sent planetary probes to both Venus and Mars in
   1960. The first spacecraft to successfully fly by Venus, the U.S.'s
   Mariner 2, did so on December 14, 1962. It sent back surprising data on
   the high surface temperature and air density of Venus. Since it carried
   no cameras, its findings did not capture public attention as did images
   from space probes, which far exceeded the capacity of astronomers'
   Earth-based telescopes.

   The USSR's Venera 7, launched in 1971, became the first craft to land
   on Venus. Venera 9 then transmitted the first pictures from the surface
   of another planet. These represent only two in the long Venera series;
   several other previous Venera spacecraft performed flyby operations and
   attempted landing missions. Seven other Venera landers followed.

   The US launched Mariner 10, which flew by Venus on its way to Mercury,
   in 1974. It became the first, and so far the only, spacecraft to fly by
   Mercury.

   Mariner 4, launched in 1965 by the U.S., became the first probe to fly
   by Mars; it transmitted completely unexpected images. The first
   spacecraft on Mars, Mars 3, launched in 1971 by the USSR, did not
   return pictures. The US Viking landers of 1976 transmitted the first
   such pictures.

   The U.S also sent Pioneer 10 on a successful flyby of Jupiter in 1973.
   This foreshadowed the first flyby of Saturn in 1979 with Pioneer 11,
   and the first and only flybys of Uranus and Neptune with Voyager 2.

Launches and docking

   The first space rendezvous took place between Gemini 6 and Gemini 7,
   both U.S. craft, on December 15, 1965. Their successor, Gemini 8,
   performed the first space docking on March 16, 1966. The first
   automatic space docking linked the USSR's Cosmos-186 and Cosmos-188
   (two unmanned Soyuz spacecraft) on October 30, 1967.

   The first launch from the sea took place with the U.S.'s Scout B, on
   April 26, 1967. The first space station, the USSR's Salyut 1, commenced
   operations on June 7, 1971.

Military competition

   Out of view, but no less real a competition, the drive to develop space
   for military uses paralleled scientific efforts. Well before the launch
   of Sputnik 1, both the US and the USSR started developing plans for
   reconnaissance satellites. The Soviet Zenit spacecraft, which by the
   dual-use designed in by Korolev eventually became Vostok, began as a
   photoimaging satellite. It competed with the US Air Force's Discoverer
   series. Discoverer XIII provided the first payload recovered from space
   in August 1960 - one day ahead of the first Soviet recovered payload.

   Both the US and USSR developed major military space programs, often
   following a pattern whereby the US only completed a mockup before its
   program ended, while the USSR built, or even orbited, theirs:
    1. Supersonic Intercontinental Cruise Missile: Navaho (test program
       stopped) vs. Buran cruise missile (plan)
    2. Small Winged Spacecraft: X-20 Dyna-Soar (mockup) vs. MiG-105
       (flight-tested)
    3. Satellite Inspection Capsule: Blue Gemini (mockup) vs. Soyuz
       interceptor (plan)
    4. Military Space Station: MOL (plan) vs. Almaz (flown somewhat
       modified as Salyut 2, 3, and 5)
    5. Military Capsule with hatch in heat shield: Gemini B (tested
       crewless in space) vs. VA TKS, also known as Merkur space capsule
       (flown crewless as part of TKS)
    6. Ferry to Military Space Station: Gemini Ferry (plan) vs. TKS (flown
       crewless in space, and docked with a Salyut)

The "end" of the Space Race

   The July 17, 1975 rendezvous of the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft marks
   the traditional end of the Space Race.
   Enlarge
   The July 17, 1975 rendezvous of the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft marks
   the traditional end of the Space Race.

   While the Sputnik 1 launch can clearly be called the start of the Space
   Race, its end is more debatable. Most hotly contested during the 1960s,
   the Space Race continued apace through the Apollo moon landing of 1969.
   Although they followed Apollo 11 with five more manned lunar landings,
   American space scientists turned to new arenas. Skylab would gather
   data, and the Space Shuttle would work on returning spaceships intact
   from space journeys. Americans would claim that by first landing a man
   on the moon they had won this unofficial "race". Soviet scientists
   meanwhile pushed ahead with their own projects, and would likely not
   have conceded anything like defeat. In any event, as the Cold War
   cooled, and as other nations began to develop their own space programs,
   the notion of a continuing "race" between the two superpowers became
   less real.

   Both nations had developed manned military space programs. The USAF had
   proposed using its Titan missile to launch the Dyna-Soar hypersonic
   glider to use in intercepting enemy satellites. The plan for the Manned
   Orbiting Laboratory (using hardware based on the Gemini program to
   carry out surveillance missions) superseded Dyna-Soar, but this also
   suffered cancellation. The USSR commissioned the Almaz program for a
   similar manned military space station, which merged with the Salyut
   program.

   The Space Race slowed after the Apollo landing, which many observers
   describe as its apex or even as its end. Others, including space
   historian Carole Scott and Romanian Dr. Florin Pop's Cold War Project,
   feel its end came most clearly with the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission of
   1975. The Soviet craft Soyuz 19 met and docked in space with America's
   Apollo, allowing astronauts from the "rival" nations to pass into each
   other's ships and participate in combined experimentation. Although
   each country's endeavors in space persisted, they went largely in
   different "directions", and the notion of a continuing two-nation
   "race" became outdated after Apollo-Soyuz.

   Even at this point of cooperation the Soviet leadership was alarmed at
   the prospect of USAF involvement with the Space Shuttle program and
   began the competing Buran and Energia projects. In the early 1980s the
   commencement of the US Strategic Defense Initiative further escalated
   competition that only resolved with the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in
   1989.

Organization, funding, and economic impact

   The huge expenditures and bureaucracy, needed to organize successful
   space exploration, led to the creation of national space agencies. The
   United States and the Soviet Union developed programs focused solely on
   the scientific and industrial requirements for these efforts.
   NASA insignia

   On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics
   and Space Act of 1958 establishing the National Aeronautics and Space
   Administration ( NASA). When it began operations on October 1, 1958,
   NASA consisted mainly of the four laboratories and some 8,000 employees
   of the government's 46-year-old research agency for aeronautics, the
   National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). While its
   predecessor, NACA, operated on a $5 million budget, NASA funding
   rapidly accelerated to $5 billion per year, including huge sums for
   subcontractors from the private sector. The Apollo 11 Moon landing, the
   high point of NASA's success, cost an estimated $US 20 to 25 billion.

   Lack of reliable statistics makes it difficult to compare U.S. and
   Soviet space spending, especially during the Khrushchev years. However
   in 1989, the then-Chief of Staff of the Soviet Armed Services, General
   M. Moiseyev, reported that the Soviet Union had allocated 6.9 billion
   rubles (about $4 billion) to its space program that year. Other Soviet
   officials estimated that their total manned space expenses totalled
   about that amount over the entire duration of the programs, with some
   lower unofficial estimates of about four and half billion rubles. In
   addition to the murkiness of the figures, such comparisons must also
   take into account the likely effect of Soviet propaganda, which pursued
   the goal of making the Soviet Union look strong and of confusing the
   Western analysis.

   Organizational issues, particularly internal rivalries, also plagued
   the Soviet effort. The USSR had nothing like NASA (the Russian Aviation
   and Space Agency originated only in the 1990s). Too many political
   issues in science and too many personal views handicapped Soviet
   progress. Every Soviet chief designer had to stand for his own ideas,
   looking for the patronage of a communist official. In 1964, between the
   various chief designers, the USSR was developing 30 different programs
   of launcher and spacecraft design. Following the death of Korolev the
   Soviet space program became reactive, attempting to maintain parity
   with the US. In 1974 the USSR reorganized their space program, creating
   the Energia project to duplicate the US Space Shuttle with Buran.

   The Soviets also operated in the face of an economic disadvantage.
   Although the Soviet economy was the second largest in the world, the US
   economy was the largest. Eventually the Soviets' inefficient
   organization and lack of funds led them to lose their early advantage.
   Some observers have argued that the high economic cost of the space
   race, along with the extremely expensive arms race, eventually deepened
   the economic crisis of the Soviet system during the late 1970's and
   80's and was one of the factors that led to the collapse of the Soviet
   Union.

Legacy

Deaths

   When America's Apollo 15 left the moon, the astronauts left behind a
   memorial to astronauts from both nations who had perished during the
   efforts to reach the Moon. In the United States, the first astronauts
   to die during direct participation in space travel or preparation
   served in Apollo 1: Command Pilot Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot
   Edward White, and Pilot Roger Chaffee. These three died in a fire
   during a ground test on January 27, 1967.

   Flights of the Soviet Union's Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 also resulted in
   cosmonaut deaths. Soyuz 1, launched into orbit on April 23, 1967,
   carried a single cosmonaut, Colonel Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, who
   died when the spacecraft crashed after return to Earth. In 1971, Soyuz
   11's cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav
   Volkov asphyxiated during reentry. Since 1971, the Soviet/Russian space
   program never lost a single person.

   Other astronauts died in related missions, including four Americans who
   died in crashes of T-38 aircraft. Russian Yuri Gagarin, the first man
   in space, met a similar death when he crashed in a MiG-15 fighter in
   1968.

Advances in technology and education

   Technology, especially in aerospace engineering and electronic
   communication, advanced greatly during this period. The effects of the
   Space Race however went far beyond rocketry, physics, and astronomy.
   "Space age technology" extended to fields as diverse as home economics
   and forest defoliation studies, and the push to win the race changed
   the very ways in which students learned science.

   American concerns that they had fallen so quickly behind the Soviets in
   the race to space led quickly to a push by legislators and educators
   for greater emphasis on mathematics and on the physical sciences in
   U.S. schools. America's National Defense Education Act of 1958
   increased funding for these goals from childhood education through the
   post-graduate level. To this day over 1,200 U.S. High Schools retain
   their own planetarium installations, a situation unparalled in any
   other country worldwide and a direct consequence of the Space Race.

   The scientists fostered by these efforts helped develop for space
   exploration technologies which have seen adapted uses ranging from the
   kitchen to athletic fields. Dried watermelon and ready-to-eat foods,
   stay-dry clothing, and even no-fog ski goggles have their roots in
   space science.

   Today over a thousand artificial satellites orbit earth, relaying
   communications data around the planet and facilitating remote sensing
   of data on weather, vegetation, and human movements to nations who
   employ them. In addition, much of the micro-technology which fuels
   everyday activities from time-keeping to enjoying music derives from
   research initially driven by the Space Race.

   The USSR remained the undisputed leader in rocketry, even up to the end
   of the Cold War. The U.S. became superior in electronics, remote
   sensing, vehicle guidance, and robotic control.

Recent events

   Although its pace has slowed, space exploration continues to advance
   long after the demise of the Space Race. The USA launched the first
   reusable spacecraft ( space shuttle) on the 20th anniversary of
   Gagarin's flight, April 12, 1981. On November 15, 1988, the USSR
   launched Buran, their first and only automatic reusable spacecraft.
   These and other nations continue to launch probes, satellites of many
   types, and huge space telescopes.
   The Space Shuttle Columbia seconds after engine ignition, 1981 (NASA)
   Enlarge
   The Space Shuttle Columbia seconds after engine ignition, 1981 (NASA)

   The possibility of a second international space race appeared at the
   end of the 20th century, with the European Space Agency taking the lead
   in commercial rocket launches with Ariane 4, and competing in unmanned
   space exploration with NASA. ESA's efforts have culminated into
   ambitious plans such as the Aurora Programme that intends to send a
   human mission to Mars no later than 2030, and has set various flagship
   missions to reach this goal. With US President Bush's similar
   announcement in 2004, outlining a timeframe for the construction and
   mission plan of the Crew Exploration Vehicle (a subsequent return to
   the Moon and later to Mars by 2030), the two major space agencies have
   similar plans. As of 2005 ESA might have a headstart, as it has teamed
   up with Russia. They are likely to co-fund and develop the CEV
   counterpart Kliper spacecraft that is scheduled to first launch in
   2011, years earlier than its American opponent, which is yet in an
   early draft status. As of 2006 the ESA has yet to fund a study of
   Kliper.

   Other nations are also capable of increasing competition in space
   exploration, most notably China. Although China's funding is not in the
   same league with ESA or NASA, the successful manned space flights of
   Shenzhou 5 and Shenzhou 6 and plans for a space station by the Chinese
   space program of the People's Republic of China have shown what the
   country can accomplish. The United States military is evidently keeping
   a close watch on China's space aspirations, with the Pentagon releasing
   a report in 2006 detailing concerns about China's growing space power.
   In addition to China, India and Japan also have active space programs,
   with India planning to launch an unmanned lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1,
   by early 2008. India also has plans for manned space flights.

   Another kind of space race may differ in nature from the original
   Soviet-American competition, as it could occur between commercial space
   enterprises. Early efforts in what is commonly referred to as space
   tourism, to run the first commercial trips into orbit, culminated on
   April 28, 2001 when American Dennis Tito became the first fee-paying
   space tourist when he visited the International Space Station on board
   Russia's Soyuz TM-32. The Ansari X Prize, a competition for private
   suborbital spaceships, has also evoked the prospect of a new space race
   by private companies. In late 2004, British aviator-financier Richard
   Branson announced the launch of Virgin Galactic, a company which will
   use SpaceShipOne technology, with hopes of launching sub-orbital
   flights by 2008.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race"
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