In the midst of the cold war, a powerful and frightening clash of two competing ideologies, shone a beacon of human perseverance and ingenuity: the space race. In recent history, some of the greatest advances in technological development occurred during wartime; WWI practically invented the airplane, and WWII created the first missiles. However, the technological developments of the cold war pushed the limits of mankind further than ever before. With both the US and Soviet governments practically shoveling money into defense and research programs, it is no surprise that some of the greatest strides in technology happened during this period. Great leaps were made in the fields of espionage, communications, security, warfare, and information. Perhaps one of the most remarkable leaps was when man conquered space. At the end of WWII, if you were to tell someone that men would “blast off” into space aboard rockets in just 20 years, you might be considered insane. Nonetheless, it happened. The space race is still often considered one of the most significant events in human history, not just because of the achievements made, but also because of the way it affected life for millions of people. The space race affected nearly every aspect of life for American and Soviet citizens, and therefore had long-lasting effects by causing widespread feelings of fear and pride, its use in propaganda, its emergence in pop culture, its change emphasis in education, and its new consumer technology.
Despite ultimately being peaceful, the space race started with a wave of fear and panic in the United States. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union changed the course of history by launching the first man-made satellite into orbit around Earth, it was called Sputnik. Former NASA astronaut Mike Mullane compares the shock of Sputnik to 9/11. He explains how the technology of the Soviet Union was thought to be decades behind that of the US, and how it caught America completely off guard. In 1957, most Americans considered the Soviet Union to be a 3rd world and backward country. The fact that the Soviets had been able to launch a satellite into orbit before the United States worried many Americans. Has America lost its position as the world’s powerhouse? Would the Soviets be able to use the same rockets for nuclear attacks on the United States? Was this a sign that communism would prevail and become the leading ideology? The free press only fed these worries, reporting the power and superiority of the Soviet missile program. In response to Sputnik, the United States attempted to launch a satellite into space on the Navy’s Vanguard TV3 rocket. With million of people watching both on site and on television, the Vanguard TV3 exploded just 4 ft off the launchpad. Vanguard’s failure brought about a second wave of fear among the people in the United States; not only had the Soviets launched a satellite first, but the United States remained incapable of launching one. Politicians, most notably John F Kennedy, played off of the American public’s fear of a “missile gap” between the US and USSR in their elections. After democrats accused president Eisenhower of “penny-pinching” and leaving America defenseless, Eisenhower’s popularity dropped nearly 30%. All in all, “America was shook”.
In the Soviet Union, the launch of Sputnik was much better received in than in the United States and instilled a sense of pride into the Soviet people. The post-WWII USSR for the average Soviet citizen was much worse than the post-WWII US for the average American citizen. America flourished and prospered in the 1950s, while the Soviet Union was still recovering from WWII. Where America had single family homes and suburbs, the Soviet Union had crumbling communal apartments. Where American families had cars and interstate highways, the Soviet families had bicycles and dirt roads. Where Americans had their own businesses, Soviets gave the products of their labor to the government. However, all of that was temporarily forgotten with success of Sputnik. People forgot about their poverty and repression and felt proud to be Soviet. Sputnik fueled Soviet citizens with the idea that giving up shallow consumerism was a fair price to pay for the good of science and human progress. The Soviet Union was no longer a laughing stock, and the Soviet people felt superior to Americans. Khrushchev even jokingly offered to help Americans with their missile development efforts. Sputnik was not only a point of pride for the Soviet Union but rather a display of strength for all of communism. 3rd world countries around the world began to consider the hammer and sickle as the best option for the future of their country. Confidence in communism was temporarily restored, and the Soviet empire had expanded once more, this time into space.
After recovering from the shock of Sputnik, the space race became a point of pride in the United States and unified the American people. Three months after the launch of Sputnik, the United States successfully launched the Explorer 1 satellite into orbit. While Explorer 1 helped tame the fear of the American people, it launched the space race into a new direction. The space race was no longer about who had the biggest rockets or whose missiles had the longest range, but instead became a symbolic race of two competing ideologies. President John Kennedy considered the space race a battle between freedom and tyranny. As the United States progressed through the space race, the American people were unified in praising their symbolic heroes. When Alan Shepard became the first American in space, he made headlines throughout the free world. When John Glenn became the first American in orbit, he returned home a hero. When Neil Armstrong became the first man to step on the moon, he was an instant celebrity. Although the accomplishments of these individuals were enormous, the American people were not only in love with them but rather America’s success that they were symbolic of. Had it not been for the Vietnam war raging on, race riots throughout the country, and the assassination of John F Kennedy, some historians predicted that the space race could have unified the world. American people from all walks of life were able to forget about their struggles and come together to celebrate their achievements and steps forward for humanity. Landing a man on the moon before the Soviets had removed nearly all fear of Soviet space supremacy, and Americans once more felt confidence in themselves and in their country.
In addition to provoking a widespread feeling of fear and pride in the United States, the space race perhaps affected people most by its emergence in American pop culture. Although major rocket launches and moon landings were some of the most viewed events in television history, the space race’s presence in pop culture was much bigger. There was not merely a sense of excitement that accompanied the space race, but instead, an entire atmosphere that affected nearly every American. When NASA scientist Wernher von Braun first appeared on Walt Disney’s television show Tomorrowland in 1955, he captured the minds and hearts of Americans. As von Braun talked passionately about spacecraft developments and different world, he transformed the American public’s view of space travel from irrational dreams to a realistic possibility in the near future. As the space race gained additional attention in the mid-1960s, it also gained prevalence in cinema and television. Space-related science fiction films became instant blockbusters as Americans became more interested in space, most notably Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 showed a future in which man had conquered space, and travel between planets was regular. The television series Star Trek was also tremendously popular and created a sense of curiosity about deep space exploration as a plausible future. The impact of these cinematic works are huge; from making space travel fathomable to the average man to creating a generation of children who wanted to grow up and be astronauts, pop culture is one of the main ways the space race hit home. The atmosphere of space-related curiosity created by the media during the space race surrounded nearly every American. Space was no longer the future, it was now.
Not only did the space race serve the American and Soviet people, but also the American and Soviet government as a form of propaganda. The launch of Laika, the first dog in space, by the Soviet Union in 1957 was seen to have very little scientific value, the main purpose was to serve as propaganda for the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution in the Soviet Union. The idea of using the success of the space race as propaganda to ignore more daunting issues was often implemented by the Soviet Union, and to a lesser degree by the United States. When the space race was on everybody’s mind, politicians wanted in. As mentioned previously, John F Kennedy used “the missile gap” as an election strategy during his presidential campaign. Similarly, when crop yield was dramatically below expectations and uprisings against the Soviet Union occurred in Hungary, the state-sponsored Soviet newspaper Pravda featured a front page article on Sputnik and a mere note on the back page regarding a minor uprising in Hungary, with no mention of crop yields. The public was often so distracted by the space that they could be fooled into thinking what the government wanted. However, the notion of using space as a way to capture the public’s imagination for election purposes did not exist much beyond the space race. When President George Bush tried to use his man on Mars by 2050 initiative, he was ridiculed. The space race presented a major propaganda opportunity, and many politicians took it.
Although the space race had captured the hearts of children, it also captured their minds as public education both in the United States and in the Soviet Union focused on science and mathematics. When Sputnik launched successfully into orbit and America’s Vanguard rocket had embarrassing failed, many Americans blamed the Soviet lead on the lack of educational rigor in the United States. New educational policies were implemented in the United States to increase focus on mathematics and science in public secondary education. Throughout America’s public schools, fine arts classes were being replaced with science and technology classes. The United States introduced a new college loan system in hope that more students would pursue a college or university education in the fields of science, math, engineering, and technology. Although the Soviet Union had always seen education as a priority, new programs were implemented during the space race that guaranteed job availability to individuals who pursued a higher education in the field of science, math, and engineering. Average Soviet citizens with a higher education were also given many more career option in the Soviet military. These sudden shifts in education were responsible for the massive amount of science and technology related career options available in the late 20th and 21st century. In a sense, the sudden government funding on science, math, and technology education during the space race also caused other major technological achievements in modern history, such as the miniaturization of computers and the internet.
Not only did the space race change the way American and Soviet people experienced life, but it also changed the technology they interacted with. As mentioned previously, many of the education reforms during the space race were ultimately responsible for new technology movements that emerged in the following decades. However, new technology available to the public also came directly from the space race. Some of the most notable examples in satellite television, global navigation, and smoke detectors. Satellite television revolutionized pop culture in the united states; evening news reports were replaced with live news and sports recaps were replaced with live games. The average American citizen now had access to all of the world’s entertainment and news by simply flicking a switch and turning a knob. Although similar technology was available for the Soviet Union, the state preferred to record and edit news to fit the government agenda as opposed to showing live programs. Navigation systems developed during the space race not only helped track satellites and astronauts, but was also useful in ship and airplane navigation. Navigation systems such as LORAN and GPS were modeled after systems that first tracked Sputnik. Smoke detectors, originally developed by NASA to detect onboard failures, became common in most households by the late 1960s. Many technological developments of the space race became available to US and Soviet citizens in the following years, and ultimately connected people and saved lives.
When broken down into its different aspects, the space race had such profound effects on US and Soviet citizens that it is easily one of the most significant events in the 20th century. Not only did it change the way American and Soviet people thought and interacted, but also changed the people as a whole. The Soviet Union were no longer an eastern European third world country, but rather a global superpower and equal to the United States. The United States was no longer just a major military and industrial hub, but rather a group of people who overcame challenged and reached for the stars. While many many say the United States “won” the space race by landing a man on the moon first, the real victory was inspiring a new generation and setting up the country for future scientific developments. Although the Soviet Union did ultimately collapse in 1991, it is likely that without their contributions to history, nobody would have ever had the will or the reason to land a man on the moon. The importance that the space race occurred after two devastating world wars cannot be understated. It was the world’s atmosphere at the time that allowed it to happen. Yet the space the space race marks something much larger than people or countries or technology or war or freedom, but rather a major turning point in human history: it was when humanity decided its future did not lay with war, but instead with science.