Charles River Editors - The Race to the Moon: The History and Legacy of the Cold War Competition Between the Soviet Union and the United States

The Russian Space Program

The Vostok I return capsule

Of all the goals the Bolshevik Revolution aimed to bring about, perhaps nowhere were Russian promises delivered on more than in the success of the Soviet Space program of the 1950s and 1960s. As a result of Russian innovation and technology, but also due to incredible drive to modernize and compete with the United States for world power, Russia was finally and triumphantly modernized in the eyes of her own people and the world. Neil deGrasse Tyson recognized the Soviet legacy in space in his Space Chronicles , citing the Soviets important measure[s] of space achievement: first spacewalk, longest spacewalk, first woman in space, first docking in space, first space station, longest time logged in space.

In fact, the Soviet Union spent much of the 1950s leaving the United States in its dust (and rocket fuel). President Eisenhower and other Americans who could view Soviet rockets in the sky were justifiably worried that Soviet satellites in orbit could soon be spying on them, or, even worse, dropping nuclear bombs on them. Dovetailing off their success developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Soviets were the first to make enormous advances in actual space exploration, and on the night of October 4, 1957, the Soviets prepared to launch Object D atop one of its R-7 rockets. As the worlds first ICBMs, R-7 rockets were built primarily to carry nuclear warheads, but Object D was a far different payload. Object D and the R-7 rocket launched from a hastily constructed launch pad, and within minutes it entered orbit. It took that object, now more famously known as Sputnik-1, about 90 minutes to complete its orbit around the Earth, speeding along at 18,000 miles per hour while transmitting a distinct beeping noise by radio.

Thanks to its transmission, and the bright mark it created in nighttime skies across the world, the world was already aware of the launch and orbit of Sputnik-1 before the Soviets formally announced the successful launch and orbit of their satellite. Naturally, the West wasnt thrilled to learn about the Soviets launch of the first artificial object into Earths orbit. Sputnik-1 could be measured in inches, but that large rocket it was attached to could wreak havoc if equipped with a nuclear warhead. Moreover, if Americans could see Sputnik-1, they were justifiably worried Sputnik-1 could see them.

In 1960, when Eisenhowers administration began planning and funding for the famous Apollo program that would land the first men on the Moon in 1969, the Soviet Union was already thinking further ahead, literally. In one of the worst kept secrets of the Space Race, the Soviet Union launched two probes, Korabl 4 and Korabl 5, toward Mars in October 1960.

Eventually, the Space Race produced some of the most iconic moments of the 20 th century, including the landing of the first men on the Moon, and today, the race is widely viewed poignantly and fondly as a race to the Moon that culminated with Apollo 11 winning the race for the United States. In fact, it encompassed a much broader range of competition between the Soviet Union and the United States that affected everything from military technology to successfully launching satellites that could land on Mars or orbit other planets in the Solar System. Moreover, the notion that America won the Space Race at the end of the 1960s overlooks just how competitive the Space Race actually was in launching people into orbit, as well as the major contributions the Space Race influenced in leading to todays International Space Station and continued space exploration.

The American Space Program

The insignia for the Apollo 1 mission

There's always a possibility that you can have a catastrophic failure, of course; this can happen on any flight; it can happen on the last one as well as the first one. So, you just plan as best you can to take care of all these eventualities, and you get a well-trained crew and you go fly. - Gus Grissom, December 1966

The Apollo space program is the most famous and celebrated in American history, but the first successful landing of men on the Moon during Apollo 11 had complicated roots dating back over a decade, and it also involved one of NASAs most infamous tragedies. Landing on the Moon presented an ideal goal all on its own, but the governments urgency in designing the Apollo program was actually brought about by the Soviet Union, which spent much of the 1950s leaving the United States in its dust (and rocket fuel). In 1957, at a time when people were concerned about communism and nuclear war, many Americans were dismayed by news that the Soviet Union was successfully launching satellites into orbit.

Among those concerned was President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose space program was clearly lagging a few years behind the Soviets space program. From 1959-1963, the United States worked toward putting satellites and humans into orbit via the Mercury program, but Eisenhowers administration was already designing plans for the Apollo program by 1960, a year before the first Russian orbited the Earth and two years before John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed Congress and asked the nation to commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. Given Americas inability to even put a man in orbit yet, this seemed like an overly ambitious goal, and it isnt even clear that Kennedy himself believed it possible; after all, he was reluctant to meet NASA Administrator James E. Webbs initial funding requests.

As Apollo 11s name suggests, there were actually a number of Apollo missions that came before, many of which included testing the rockets and different orbital and lunar modules in orbit. In fact, it wasnt until Apollo 8 that a manned vehicle was sent towards the Moon and back, and before that mission, the most famous Apollo mission was Apollo 1, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

There were no delusions regarding the dangers of manned space travel, but they were brought home on January 27, 1967, when all three astronauts were killed by a fire that ignited in the cabin during a launch rehearsal. To this day, there is still debate over what ignited the fire, but the disaster made clear that the modules being used by NASA had a series of fatal flaws. After the Apollo 1 tragedy, NASA changed its plans by first running a series of unmanned missions to test the Saturn rockets and the different modules throughout 1967 and early 1968. and it would not be until Apollo 7 launched about 20 months after the disaster that NASA dared to conduct another manned mission.