Cold War Races

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Cold War Races

Overview

• When the atomic bomb named Little Boy fell from the bomb bay of the Enola Gay toward the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, it was a moment that would change the world forever.
• The United States and the Soviet Union had come out of World War II as superpowers.
• These two countries came to characterize the conflicts between capitalism and communism.
• In an effort to prove which was the greater, each side engaged in the manufacture and stockpiling of nuclear weapons.

Real!

of USSR bombers was exaggerated.

• Schoolchildren carried out drills to prepare for bombings, and families built underground bunkers.

• After the United States detonated the first atomic bombs, the Soviet Union raced to create its own.
• US experts projected that the Soviet Union would not be able to complete an atomic bomb until at least 1953.
• An H-bomb possessed 800 times the power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
• The United States completed its hydrogen bomb by 1952, and the Soviet Union had a hydrogen bomb just one year later.
• Deep concern over Soviet technology started in 1954 when reports revealed that the USSR had long-range bombers with the capacity to deliver a nuclear payload to the United States.
• In the end, it was discovered that the range

Arms Race

• It bounced radio signals back to Earth, and individuals with proper receiving equipment could tune in to listen as the Soviet spacecraft passed over America several times each day.

• The space race between the United States and the USSR was officially launched on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union sent the first-ever artificial satellite into space.
• The satellite, named Sputnik I, showed the strides the USSR had made in technology.
• The International Council of Scientific Unions had declared 1957 and 1958 as years of suitable space conditions to launch artificial satellites that could map the Earth.
• No one was expecting what the Soviets accomplished in such a short time.
• The United States had an artificial satellite in the works, but the Soviets made it to space first.
• Sputnik I made a full orbit around Earth about every hour and a half.

Sputnik I

Reevaluating Education

• The growing fear of communism as a result of McCarthyism, coupled with the launch of Sputnik, led to fear among the American people about what else the Soviets could launch.
• US intelligence promoted the notion that there was a missile gap that would allow the Soviets to detonate a nuclear missile on American soil.
• Wanting to be prepared for whatever the Soviets had up their sleeves-and not wanting to be left in the dust-the United States geared up for a space race.
• Explorer, the first US satellite which was sponsored by the US Defense Department was sent into space on January 31, 1958.

• The Soviets achieved the milestones of putting the first man in space, then the first woman, and finally the first three men.
• They also boasted of the first spacewalk, the first spacecraft to orbit the moon, the first one to make contact with the moon, and the first unmanned craft to land on the moon.
• They launched the first spacecraft to impact Venus as well.

Education and NASA

• The launching of Sputnik also shed light on the shortcomings of the US education system.
• Since America was not the first to launch an artificial satellite, it seemed there must be something lacking.
• It was seen as a failure of the American educational system.
• Politicians were blamed for the lack of rigor in education, and people clamored for more attention on mathematics and science education.
• NASA brought together scientists, engineers, and pilots from many fields.
• Congress also passed the National Defense Education Act in 1958.

• The NDEA devoted millions of dollars to revamp education in America.
• The president took on the issue of education not just for improved competition on the world stage, but to alleviate some of the domestic problems like poverty.

Education and NASA (continued)

• The goals it set were daunting for students and teachers alike, and test scores plummeted.
• School enrollment fell, and confidence in teachers eroded.