Space Race Research Paper

During the time right after the cold war, the United States and the Soviet Union became engaged in a “Space Race” to see which country could get a man on the moon first and ultimately claim space for their nation. The Soviet Union led the way by sending the first satellite into space and then the first human. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin was the first human to go into space and make a complete orbit around the earth. Yuri was a Russian Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He became an international celebrity over night. He returned to earth as a national hero in his country. His flight is still the shortest flight, 108 minutes from launch to landing. Although Yuri moved up the ranks in the Soviet Air Force, he was banned from the space program.
The leaders of his country were afraid that Yuri, their national hero, would be injured or killed during another space mission. Even though Yuri only flew one mission into space, his accomplishment helped lead the way for space exploration in the Soviet Union, the United States, and the entire world. Yuri’s successful mission showed the world that a human could survive outer space which allowed space travel to continue moving toward its main goal of getting a human being safely on the moon. This accomplishment of the Soviet Union only made the United States try harder than ever to be the first to get a man on the moon. Yuri died only seven years after his heroic journey because the training jet he was piloting crashed. Who knows what Yuri Gagarin would have gone on to accomplish if he were to have lived a longer life. Longer life or not, he still goes down in history as the first man to go into space and will always be remembered as sparking the beginning of the great “Space Race.” Yuri Gagarin grew up in a difficult time and in a difficult place, but he persevered and was able to accomplish something amazing because God was with him.
Most people do not know that Yuri was a baptized believer because he never spoke about it much. Growing up in anti-religious Soviet Union discouraged Yuri from openly talking about his faith. The first manned space flight was not just an everyday task. Yuri put his life in the hands of the scientists and engineers of the Soviet government and all he had was trust and the belief that God would take care of him. It is said that before his mission, he began to think about his own mortality. A friend of Gagarin says that he will always remember what Yuri Gagarin said, “An astronaut cannot be suspended in space and not have God in his mind and his
heart. In learning about Yuri Gagarin, I learned that it doesn’t matter where or who you come from, you can still achieve great things.
Yuri Gagarin was born to simple potato farmers in the Soviet Union and grew up during WWII and the Cold War. The Soviet Union was not a pleasant place at that time. His parents were farmers on a collective farm owned by the government. During the Soviet Union at that time, there wasn’t much to look forward to or aspire to. However, Yuri Gagarin knew from a young age that he wanted to be a pilot. He left home at 15 to further his education instead of becoming a farmer or carpenter, like his dad. He had dreams and did whatever it took to make those dreams come true. Once he became a pilot he wanted to take his dream even farther and become an astronaut. His body was put through so many tests, most men wouldn’t have been able to stand much less do well. Yuri achieved his dream because he never stopped trying or gave up and just let society tell him what he should do. Yuri has shown me that your family and your circumstances do not control who you are or who you can be; you determine who you are and how far you can go in life. If you put God first, he will allow you to accomplish things you never even dreamed of. As the Bible says, “With God all things are possible”, even being the first human in
space.