Space Race
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” With these eleven words astronaut Neil Armstrong brought the greatest technological race on Earth to its end. But, he did so standing on the moon, giving America one of the most illustrious victories in its short and dense history. Leaving behind the Soviet Union, the United States literally rocketed past their competitor to claim supremacy in the Cold War (a silent war for power). However, both countries achieved success in advancing technology to heights never before seen or even thought of; despite lying in the shadows of two world wars and the Great Depression of the world. The Space Race (1957-1969) between rising powers United Sates and the Soviet Union embodied the battle for world supremacy during the Cold War but took technology to the most significant heights in a shorter time than ever before in human history. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R) established the legitimate beginning of the space race. In the early 1930’s, Soviet military leaders showed intelligence in rockets, missiles, and engines; potential was evident for militaristic rocket use. However, the communist leader, Joseph Stalin, forever in fear of losing powers, initiated a purge of intelligent soldiers in 1937. The Gas Dynamics Laboratory and Petrapavlovskaya Fortress in then Leningrad (St. Petersburg) were left to the captured German Rocket Scientists. Russian rocket designer Sergei Korolev was taken to a gulag and Valentin Glushko, engine expert, escaped punishment (a rivalry was created). Korolev was able to participate in a prison research facility, and after liberation he created the R-7 missile or “Little Seven”. Despite the failure of the first launches, his most profound invention simulated a nuclear strike mission on August 3, 1957, and on October 4, it became a space launcher. Sputnick 1 became the first manmade object in space after being launched by the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile; thus