While learning about the space race I became increasingly interested and curious as to why it became such a big deal. There are obvious reasons, such as the fact we would be making huge technological advances. Despite the huge leap in progress, I want to know why the space race was amplified by the leaders in the Cold War.
It all starts with the fact that Russia and the US were in a power hungry fight to be considered the top country. Fight is not the best word for this because no country actually ever did anything. Russia and the US through this war basically just flexed their muscles at each other, but never threw a punch. Once the US created a atomic bomb, and kept that from Russia despite their alliance, jealousy started. Russia thought they had the right to know about this because of the alliance, however Stalin stayed calm and collected because his spies had been informing him. Once the US had finally tested and used this nuclear weapon, soon after Russia tested their first nuclear weapon. This was the first round of flexing their every growing muscles. Then the United States decided they would build up their muscles more by creating a hydrogen bomb. Once they tested the bomb, and it was hugely successful, the United States flexed their muscles once again almost gloating at Russia. Things cooled down slightly for a while, however when FDR made a comment about having better color TV than Russia, it was taken as another challenge. Russia then abruptly sent Sputnik, the first man made object sent into space, out into the sky shocking everyone. Sputnik never really did anything, just simply reminded the United States that they had gotten an object into space before us through sending a beep through our radios. This is where Russia flexed their muscle once more. This further provoked the United States to continue on with this childish fight.
The fact that this went on for so long shows us something very valuable. The two countries were in a power struggle and did not trust the other enough to simply back down and seem week. Both countries had the idea in their head that the other was going to attack them at any point in time, but this clearly was a huge misunderstanding. Russia wanted to build up their country, and the US just wanted to avoid all wars over seas. I find it ridiculous that countries will act like this just to intimidate the enemy or to become even more strong that they already are. This topic once again proves the point that in any type of war each country is only in it to do the best for themselves, and if it comes down to choosing between winning and losing at the cost of an ally, I would believe that they would only think of themselves. Honestly, war just makes people and their government one crazy mess.
Why do you think that the space race came to be such an important event during the Cold War? Apart from the fact that both nations fought for the top spot in power control. How might the space race have triggered these countries to pay more attention to their educational purposes and financial state. Because of this the space race costed both nations billions of dollars in weapon supply and advancement in technological studies. Every day they were constantly spending about $50 million on nuclear weapons and productions therefore this had weakened their economy.
ReplyDeleteNote, it wasn't Russia, but rather the USSR, also the space race was a big deal just because space was what you might call the last frontier, there was nothing left to conquer and explore, so whoever made the biggest progress in space was obviously the bigger man and was thus the bigger power. Since the USSR and the US were in a locked struggle in the arms race, where in many parts there was no obvious leader, if there even was one, then space was obviously a chance for both to really flex and in many ways to win the cold war.
ReplyDeleteI agree that war makes things worse for the countries. But from the space race, the U.S. was able to make many improvements in space technology as Well as USSR too. The Space Race had done no harm, but had created advances in technology
ReplyDeleteI think the main reason it was so important was because it was basically a race between communism vs. capitalism. I do not think that the main goal of it was to show that they can get into space, but rather that one is greater than the other. If communism were to get ahead of capitalism in the space race, they can say that they are ultimately better and greater because they are 'winning' the space race. I remember in class we were watching a documentary and the US said how they are ahead in the advancement of the TV and the USSR said something along the lines of soon they will be better and ahead of the US, too. I think this is very similar to the space race because they were always in competition against each other. It seems silly that they spent so much money on this, but I think the main idea was just to out due the other to prove the importance of their political view and how it is better than the other.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this. The US and USSR wanted to prove to the other side who was better and ultimately were wasting their money and time on this event, although they did produce new advances in technology that most likely would not have happened if it was not for this.
DeleteI think it was a fear tactic. Up until this point, American citizens had been pretty secure in the knowledge that America was the most technologically advanced nation in the world. The USSR might have more men, but the US would crush them with their advanced weapons and their developed bombs! However, this notion was crushed when Sputnik made orbit. Now Americans were worried: if Russia is ahead in the space race, what's to say that they're not ahead in all aspects of technology? What's to say that they won't destroy us with bigger bombs? It instilled fear.
ReplyDelete