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Space Race Research Paper

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Today, ‘astronaut’ is a common career heard when children are asked what they want to be when they grow up. However, this was not the case in the early 20th century or even in the 1950s. The reason for this change was the space race, an extension of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States for superiority of space technology. It all started in October 1957 when Russia launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite, into orbit. The launch of Sputnik shocked the American public and brought about the beginnings of the space age, eventually leading to the founding of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the launch of Explorer I, and finally a man on the moon. Although the moon landing ended the space race, …show more content…

Despite that during the space race many thought that the monetary investment in space would not yield any achievements, they could not have been more wrong. In the article “Space Race”, of the 1965 New York Times, the author writes… “In the USSR - as everywhere else - there are great unmet needs to which at least some of the billions spent on space research could be more usefully diverted. In the Soviet Union, no less than in the United States, it is a distorted priority system that puts such prestige feats in space so far ahead of the real needs on earth” (The Space Race). However, what this author did not realize was that despite the appearance that the billions going to space research did not affect life on earth, but was only to prove superiority over the Soviet Union, it eventually improved life for everyone through the expansion of technology in everyday …show more content…

For example, Computed Axial Tomography (CAT) Scanners have greatly improved the diagnosis of disease and injury. Smoke detectors, first invented by NASA, have grown from being installed in only 10% of homes in 1975 to 95% in 2000, and as of today have cut home fire deaths by half (Dubner). Today, there are thousands of “artificial moons” (satellites) orbiting the Earth, without which life in the twenty first century would not be the same. Satellites are now used in not just for satellite television, but also satellite radio and Global Positioning Systems (GPS), both of which now come standard in the majority of cars. The water filter, another NASA invention, has changed the lives of countless people around the world, giving them access to clean water that they would not otherwise have (Otto). All of these inventions have changed life for nearly all Americans as well as for people across the

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