What Was The Purpose Of The Space Race And Astronomical Exploration?

Question: what was the purpose of the space race and astronomical exploration?

Thesis: the U.S. and the USSR were trying to prove their scientific superiority and also protect their own territories from an attack from space.

Sub Questions:
How did the space race start?
What drove each nation further into space?
What were the achievements of the space race?
Who won the space race?

Essay:

The space race was a mid 20th-century competition between the U.S. And the USSR. Each side used different strategies and tactics to always have a plan to defend themselves from a space attack, and to always try to be a step ahead in terms of the development of space fairing vehicles. The U.S. and the USSR were trying to prove their own scientific superiority,
each acting on their own plans whilst also trying to sabotage each other.

The space race officially began in late 1957 when Sputnik 1, a Russian probe became the the first satellite in space. This sparked controversy in the United States Because they were not prepared for an attack from space, in response the U.S. Government created NASA (North American Space Agency). During NASA's first year the U.S. Department of Defence and NASA responded to the Sputnik launch by launching their own satellite; Vanguard-1. However, Vanguard-1, a satellite that non-military scientists had planned to launch for the IGY (international geophysical year), was not yet ready to launch. Thus the new explorer satellite was made and launched in 1958.
With both America and Russia now having their own satellites in space, each invested tens of millions of dollars to win the space race.
In early 1959, the Soviet space program launched Luna-2, the first man made probe to hit the moon. In April 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth, travelling in the capsule-like spacecraft Vostok-1. The United States effort to send people to space was called 'Project Mercury'. NASA engineers designed a smaller, lighter, cone-shaped capsule, and held a final test flight in 1961 before the Soviets were able to pull ahead with the Gagarin launch. On The 5th of May, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space. Later that month, President John F. Kennedy made the bold, public claim that America would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade, by the end of the year, the start of NASA’s lunar landing program dubbed 'Project Apollo' was in
place.

From 1961 to 1964, NASA’s budget was increased almost 500%, and the lunar landing program eventually involved approximately 34,000 NASA employees. Unfortunately the Apollo program suffered a setback in January 1967, when three astronauts were killed after their spacecraft simulation machine caught fire during a launch scenario. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union’s lunar landing program slowed, partly due to debate over the necessity of a man on the moon and to the death of Sergey Korolyov, chief engineer of the Soviet space program. Mid December, 1968 was the launch of Apollo 8, the first manned space mission to orbit the moon, from a launch facility on Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral, Florida.
On July 16, 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin set off on the Apollo 11 space mission, the first ever lunar landing attempt. After landing successfully on July 20, Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon’s surface; he famously said: “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Shortly after NASA's creation, the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency research group led by Wernher von Braun was transferred to the civilian space agency. Until 1970 Wernher served as the director of the now new Marshall Centre, which was responsible for developing launch vehicles and rocket engines, including the Saturn-V engine and Titan-3 rockets, which were made for both launching nuclear missiles and sending astronauts to the moon. Von Braun was an avid lover of space exploration. Dozens of organisations with thousands of employees worked on the USSR and US space programs. There were talented managers, and brilliant engineers on each side, but the careers of two individuals with important technical and managerial roles illustrate some of the differences. The American was a well-known personality in the highly publicised U.S. civilian space program. The Russian was known officially as the anonymous Chief Designer and was not publicly identified in the secretive Soviet system until after his death.

According to thespacerace.com, by landing on the moon, the United States were effectively victorious for the space race that had begun with Sputnik’s launch in 1957.
While the Soviets made four failed attempts to launch a moon landing mission between 1969 and 1972, including a launch-pad explosion in 1969. Throughout the space race, the American public was captivated by the space race, and the various developments made by the U.S. and Soviet space programs were heavily covered in the national media. This frenzy of interest was further encouraged by the new medium of television. Astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American, and ordinary men and women seemed to enjoy living around them. The Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their relentless, and massive efforts to prove the power of the communist
regime.

In conclusion, the American government's interest in lunar missions faded after the early 1972. In 1975, the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission sent three U.S. astronauts into space aboard an Apollo spacecraft that docked in orbit with a Soviet-made Soyuz craft. When the commanders of the two crafts officially greeted each other, their famous handshake in space served to symbolise the gradual improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late Cold War-era, and ultimately end the Cold War.