Autonomy and Responsibility of the United States During the Space Race :: Essays Papers

Autonomy and Responsibility of the United States During the Space Race At the end of World War Two there emerged two world superpowers. The United States and the U.S.S.R had entirely different ideologies. The Soviet Union attempted to expand their ideologies westward and southward. Only the United States had the power to put a stop to Soviet expansion. The American industries and armed forces were at their highest peak, but they made no attempt to block Soviet expansion. They were trying to install a sense of world peace by removing their troops from Europe and increase support for autonomy and democracy throughout the world. The Soviets saw their expansion as automatic compensation for their loses in the war. As communism grew into France and Italy, Americans saw the growth as a threat to undermine capitalism and democracy. It was not long before the hostility between the former allies was apparent. Soon the western democracies and the Soviet Union were verbalizing and acting upon their differences. These differences helped establish the "iron curtain" around the eastern block. Any plan the United States devised to offer compensation to the Soviet Union with conditions of letting the other eastern countries establish their own governments was rejected. Under the Marshall Plan Western Europe flourished, and the gap between west and east grew larger with the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union growing. Fear of the spread of communism was increasing. There was competition between the two superpowers to spread their ideologies. One favored autonomy and democracy while the other favored totalitarian rule. The competition between the two was so intense that they competed in many areas of domination.1 One area of extreme competition between the two powerful nations was the race to control outer space. The extreme concern and race to control the beyond was started in October 4, 1957 by the Soviets. The Soviet's Sputnik was the first successful man-made satellite. Not to be outdone the United States sent their first unmanned satellite into orbit on January 31, 1958 called Explorer I. Over the next few years the United States and the Soviet Union put many satellites into orbit, some even contained animal passengers. The race to control the skies in outer space grew once again. There was suddenly a large desire to beat the Russians in space. The Americans felt behind in their quest to win t he space race.2 Eisenhower immediately stepped up his space policy.