A Race Against Time

The space race was a very important part of the cold war because it provided a separate front than most wars. Most wars are just people fighting eachother with guns or planes or boats, but this way,  the U.S. and Russia were fighting on a more intellectual standpoint, trying to set new world records with technological advances in space travel. https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/space-race/ is a website from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which is a museum that is dedicated to the nation’s air and space program, so the information is not biased. 

There were many ways that the U.S. and the Soviets tried to best the other. In 1957, for instance, the Russians launched Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 into orbit. Sputnik 1 was the first man-made object to be launched into space, and Sputnik 2 carried the dog Laika aboard and it was the first living being to be shot into space by humans. Over the next 13 years, America and Russia kept making better and smarter advancements in space travel until, in 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong took the first human steps on the moon which the soviets were never able to do.