Who Was Neil Armstrong - 尼尔·阿姆斯特朗 Chapter 5 The Space Race

The United States’ space program began in the late 1950s. Only a little more than fifty years earlier, in 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright flew the very first airplane in Kitty Hawk 1, North Carolina.

Yet by mid-century, air travel was common. After the end of World War II, new planes were developed. They had jet engines. They flew at faster and faster speeds, reaching higher and higher altitudes. Rockets were developed that could travel far into space.

In 1955, the White House announced plans to go beyond high-speed air travel. Scientists were working to launch a satellite (an unmanned craft) into space, where it would orbit Earth.

Then, on October 4, 1957, news flashed around the world. Soviet 2 scientists had launched a satellite called Sputnik I. It was only the size of a beach ball and weighed less than two hundred pounds. It traveled around Earth in a little less than a hundred minutes.

The space age was born.

The space race started that same day. The goal was the moon. Would it be the United States or the Soviet Union?

After World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the two great superpowers. They were also enemies. The Soviet Union was a Communist nation. The United States—a democracy—feared that the Soviets 3 would force other countries to become Communist, too.

This period became known as the Cold War. There were no battles between armies. Instead, each side built up huge storehouses of atomic bombs. The question was whether either nation would drop an atomic bomb and start World War III.

The launch of Sputnik I showed that Soviet technology was the most advanced in the world.

The Soviet space program was very secretive; it did not let any failures become public. Nevertheless, the Soviets had done something amazing. They’d also done it first.

Meanwhile, NASA (National Aeronautics 4 and Space Administration) failed again and again at launching a spacecraft into orbit. (One rocket got only four inches off the ground!)

Only a month after Sputnik I came the much bigger Sputnik II with a dog named Laika as its passenger.

Then, in April 1961, the Soviets jumped even further ahead in the space race. They put a man into space. His name was Yury A. Gagarin. Overnight he became world famous.

Only three weeks later, NASA sent an American test pilot named Alan Shepard soaring into space aboard a Mercury spacecraft. The flight lasted almost fifteen minutes. And Shepard piloted the vehicle himself, something Gagarin had not done.

In the United States, Shepard was given a hero’s welcome upon his safe return. But in the history books, he would always remain the second human being in space. Not the first.

John F. Kennedy was president at the dawn of the space race. He took office in January of 1961. He was determined 5 to see the United States pull ahead of the Soviets.

The president prodded 6 Congress to pour billions of dollars into NASA, which was based in Houston. (Spacecraft, however, were launched from Cape 7 Canaveral, Florida, because the area’s mild weather meant launches could take place any time of year.)

A team of seven men was picked as the very first group of astronauts.

In a famous speech before Congress, President Kennedy said, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to Earth.”

By the end of the decade? That meant an American astronaut had to reach the moon before 1970. To many people, that seemed an impossible dream. But the challenge had been issued. NASA would do all it could to make the dream a reality.