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Cold War: The Space Race

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Cold War: The Space Race
The Space Race
The space race began in 1957 after the cold war. The Soviet Union and The United States of America were fighting for superiority in the cold war. They thought that the first in space would be more superior. This was only the beginning of the race for space.
The First Satellites
After Russia heard rumors that the U.S. was planning on launching a satellite into space, they hurried and built Sputnik 1, the first satellite in space on October 4, 1957. Sputnik one was about the size of a beach ball. Sputnik 1 had weight of 183.9 lbs. and a diameter of 22.8 inches. The U.S. was afraid that with Russia having great accomplishments, that they would be able to drop bombs on the U.S.
After Russia built sputnik 1 they wanted to go further …show more content…
Aboard the cabin were the astronauts: Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee. Before the fire there were already some problems. First, there was a foul odor in one of the space suits. After some talking, they decided to continue the tests. Next, the communications was cutting out. The fire started when they were doing a launch rehearsal test. The fire started at 6:31 the fire was spotted. The fire was presumed started from some wires underneath Grissom’s seat.
On April 23, 1967, the Soyuz 1 was sent into orbit. This space craft was carrying the cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. The Soyuz 1 was supposed to be sent into space, stay there, and then another space craft, Soyuz 2, was going to rendezvous the Soyuz 1 and then dock. This did not happen. One of the solar panels on Soyuz 1 space craft was damaged. Although Russia knew that Soyuz 1 still had problems, the government overruled the engineers and launched it anyway. Russia planned on sending Soyuz 2 to fix the solar panel the next day but, a heavy rain the made it impossible for that to happen. When the space craft passed over Russia, Vladimir Komarov decided to try and fall to Russia and deploy a parachute so it would land safely. He tried this plan and during the descent the parachute failed to deploy and it fell into a field at 4,000 mph. Afterward there was a state
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