“A Competitive Race to Conquer Space”

On October 4th, 1957

On this day, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the very first made-made object in space. This act inaugurated the “Space Age”, with the United States steadily falling behind. The threat of the Soviets’ rocket and satellite technology heralded the beginning of the “Space Race” between the two nations.

The first U.S. satellite, Explorer, was launched a year later. By that time, however, the Soviet Union had already boarded a dog on Sputnik II and sent it into orbit. By the 1960’s, the Soviet space program had crafts containing people, and made efforts to orbit and land on the moon. We were not able to rival these achievements until the late 60’s with the launching of Apollo 11 and the successful lunar landing.

This event was positive, seeing as it fueled the American space program to expand beyond its horizons and independently develop this state-of-the-art technology; while it was also negative, due to its contribution of the furthering tensions during the Cold War.

This led to an immense impact on the entire world. Sputnik I could detect radio-signal distribution, meteoroids, and the density of the upper atmospheric layer. This relay of information fueled further advancements in other areas of science. There was unprecedented funding for research and education, which resulted in a great number of government spin-off technologies. Additionally, this “race” initiated the environmental movement- color pictures of Earth taken from deep space became icons depicting our planet as a fragile “blue marble” amidst a black void.

I definitely have an appreciation for the effort to compete in such a dangerous field, and produce such remarkable results.