Have you ever heard of the Cold War? If so, then you are familiar with one of the greatest paradoxes of the twentieth century: from 1948 to 1989, a war without warfare existed between the United States and the Soviet Union.
A notable feature of the Cold War was the race to explore space. On October 4, 1957, the Soviets launched the space race by putting the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit around the earth. Not to be outdone, the United States retaliated by sending into space a satellite of its own. Also in 1958, Congress established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The main task of the fledgling agency was to keep up with the Soviets in the space race.
NASA faced its first great challenge in 1961. In April the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the earth, giving the space race new momentum.
Less than a month after Gagarin’s flight, Alan Shepard became the first American to make a space flight. Nine months later, John Glenn made three orbits of the earth.
During this time, President John F. Kennedy proclaimed that the foremost goal of the nation’s space program was to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. The question in the minds of Americans was, could the nation meet the President’s challenge? Americans also wondered if NASA could land an astronaut on the moon before the Soviets.
Then just as the decade was ending, NASA achieved its greatest triumph. On July 20, 1969, the spacecraft Eagle landed on the surface of the moon. With millions watching
around the world, Neil Armstrong took his famous moonwalk. With Armstrong’s first step, the Americans had won the space race.