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The Space Race & Arms Race
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- 1. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt Which countries competed in the Space and Arms Race? US & Cuba Japan & Vietnam USSR & US North & South Korea
- 2. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt Which country launched the first satellite (Sputnik)? USSR Cuba Japan US
- 3. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt What was the first satellite in space? Explorer Sputnik Fat Man Little Boy
- 4. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt What does N.A.S.A stand for? National Aeronautics and Space Administration North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nuclear Arms Society Alliance
- 5. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt N.A.S.A was developed for... Competitive race against Soviets Economical race against Soviets Radiological race against soviets
- 6. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt Which of the following could (if launched) lead to the destruction of the world? Atomic Bombs Cannons Missiles None of the above
- 7. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt What was the Space Race? The US and the USSR competed economically The US and the USSR competed by building nuclear weapons The US and the USSR competed for supremacy for spaceflight capability The race for supremacy in space by the USSR and Germany
- 8. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt From what years did the Space and Arms race last? 1948 - 2000 1950 - 1991 1939 - 1945 1929 - 1939
- 9. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt What were the military alliances during the Arms and Space Race? USSR Warsaw Pact US: NATO USSR: SEATO US: United Nations USSR: United Nations US: START 1 None of the above
- 10. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt Sputnik was launched by... USSR US China Britain
- 11. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt What was the Space Race? A race to get into space between the US and the USSR A competitive race between China and the US during the Cold War. A competitive race between the US and the Britain during the Cold War
- 12. Multiple Choice Edit 30 seconds 1 pt Which of the following was a direct result of the 1957 launch of Sputnik? The US began a period of technology sharing with the USSR The US Gov't founded a federal agency dedicated to space exploration The USSR was unable to collect images of the US from space The USSR collapsed because of economic competition
- 13. Multiple Choice Edit 30 seconds 1 pt Which country had the first man in space? USA USSR (Soviet Union) China Germany
- 14. Multiple Choice Edit 30 seconds 1 pt Technologies that were created for space exploration were eventually incorporated into everyday life raising our standard of living. True False
- 15. Multiple Choice Edit 20 seconds 1 pt When did America land on the moon? May 28,1968 July 21,1968 July 20,1969 July 20, 1976
- 16. Multiple Choice Edit 30 seconds 1 pt Why was America worried about Russia's launch of Sputnik? They thought they can launch nuclear missiles if they can launch something into space. They thought people would want to leave earth and go somewhere else. Everyone would want to become russian The world was gonna get bombed by russia.
- 17. Multiple Choice Edit 30 seconds 1 pt The space race began when the the United States launched the first satellite. TRUE FALSE
- 18. Multiple Choice Edit 30 seconds 1 pt Nuclear weapons were used a deterrent of war. TRUE FALSE
- 19. Multiple Choice Edit 30 seconds 1 pt The launch Sputnik led to increased U.S. spending in technology and education in math and science. TRUE FALSE
- 20. Multiple Choice Edit 30 seconds 1 pt An "arms race" can be described as ... a race between countries to defeat another country in war a race between nations to acquire the most powerful weapons a race between states to build up their own militias a race between nations to see who can have the largest military
- 21. Multiple Choice Edit 30 seconds 1 pt After WWII the US and USSR arose as the world's only two... Superpowers Allies Communist Nations Democratic Nations
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The Space Race
By: History.com Editors
Updated: February 21, 2020 | Original: February 22, 2010
After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle pitted the world’s two great powers—the democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union—against each other. Beginning in the late 1950s, space became another dramatic arena for this competition, as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower and–by extension–its political-economic system.
Causes of the Space Race
By the mid-1950s, the U.S.-Soviet Cold War had worked its way into the fabric of everyday life in both countries, fueled by the arms race and the growing threat of nuclear weapons, wide-ranging espionage and counter-espionage between the two countries, war in Korea and a clash of words and ideas carried out in the media. These tensions would continue throughout the space race, exacerbated by such events as the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the outbreak of war in Southeast Asia.
Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War competition. On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik (Russian for “traveler”), the world’s first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into the Earth’s orbit. Sputnik’s launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans. In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets. In addition, this demonstration of the overwhelming power of the R-7 missile–seemingly capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into U.S. air space–made gathering intelligence about Soviet military activities particularly urgent.
Did you know? After Apollo 11 landed on the moon's surface in July 1969, six more Apollo missions followed by the end of 1972. Arguably the most famous was Apollo 13, whose crew managed to survive an explosion of the oxygen tank in their spacecraft's service module on the way to the moon.
NASA Is Created
In 1958, the United States launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun . That same year, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a public order creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA ), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration.
Eisenhower also created two national security-oriented space programs that would operate simultaneously with NASA’s program. The first, spearheaded by the U.S. Air Force, dedicated itself to exploiting the military potential of space. The second, led by the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ), the Air Force and a new organization called the National Reconnaissance Office (the existence of which was kept classified until the early 1990s) was code-named Corona; it would use orbiting satellites to gather intelligence on the Soviet Union and its allies.
Space Race Heats Up: Men (And Chimps) Orbit Earth
In 1959, the Soviet space program took another step forward with the launch of Luna 2, the first space probe to hit the moon. In April 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit Earth , traveling in the capsule-like spacecraft Vostok 1. For the U.S. effort to send a man into space, dubbed Project Mercury, NASA engineers designed a smaller, cone-shaped capsule far lighter than Vostok; they tested the craft with chimpanzees and held a final test flight in March 1961 before the Soviets were able to pull ahead with Gagarin’s launch. On May 5, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space (though not in orbit).
Later that May, President John F. Kennedy made the bold, public claim that the U.S. would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. In February 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, and by the end of that year, the foundations of NASA’s lunar landing program–dubbed Project Apollo –were in place.
See Photos of How Astronauts Trained for the Apollo Moon Missions
NASA created simulations that mimicked everything from the moon’s gravity to its landscape.
From Sputnik to Spacewalking: 7 Soviet Space Firsts
On the anniversary of Sputnik's launch, explore seven of the Soviet Union’s firsts in the history of space exploration.
7 Things You May Not Know About John Glenn
Check out seven things you might not know about John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.
Achievements of Apollo
From 1961 to 1964, NASA’s budget was increased almost 500 percent, and the lunar landing program eventually involved some 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 employees of industrial and university contractors. Apollo suffered a setback in January 1967, when three astronauts were killed after their spacecraft caught fire during a launch simulation. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union’s lunar landing program proceeded tentatively, partly due to internal debate over its necessity and to the untimely death (in January 1966) of Sergey Korolyov, chief engineer of the Soviet space program.
December 1968 saw the launch of Apollo 8, the first manned space mission to orbit the moon, from NASA’s massive launch facility on Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral, Florida . On July 16, 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong , Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins set off on the Apollo 11 space mission, the first lunar landing attempt. After landing successfully on July 20, Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon’s surface; he famously called the momen t “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Who Won the Space Race?
By landing on the moon, the United States effectively “won” the space race that had begun with Sputnik’s launch in 1957. For their part, the Soviets made four failed attempts to launch a lunar landing craft between 1969 and 1972, including a spectacular launch-pad explosion in July 1969. From beginning to end, the American public’s attention was captivated by the space race, and the various developments by the Soviet and U.S. space programs were heavily covered in the national media. This frenzy of interest was further encouraged by the new medium of television. Astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American heroes, and earth-bound men and women seemed to enjoy living vicariously through them. Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the power of the communist system.
With the conclusion of the space race, U.S. government interest in lunar missions waned after the early 1970s. In 1975, the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission sent three U.S. astronauts into space aboard an Apollo spacecraft that docked in orbit with a Soviet-made Soyuz vehicle. When the commanders of the two crafts officially greeted each other, their “ handshake in space ” served to symbolize the gradual improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late Cold War era.
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The Arms Race and The Space Race
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1 . Question
The Arms Race was mostly between the USA and which other nation?
2 . Question
US missiles were deployed in which of these nations, close to the USSR?
3 . Question
The Arms race was a race to develop which type of weapons?
- Biological Weapons
4 . Question
The United Kingdom generally used which type of vehicle to carry and deploy nuclear weapons?
5 . Question
Which nation was the first to develop and use a nuclear weapon?
6 . Question
Which of these was a recurring fear of the US government through the 1950s?
- The Bomber Gap
- The Fighter Gap
- The Transport Gap
- The Building Gap
7 . Question
The project to develop nuclear weapons was named after which US city?
8 . Question
Through the early years of the Cold War, which of these nations usually had a larger amount of nuclear weapons and warheads?
9 . Question
On which country was the first nuclear weapon used?
10 . Question
For what did “ICBM” stand?
- Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile
- Inter Country Ballistic Missile
- Inter-Continental Banned Missile
- Inter Country Ballistic Mindset
11 . Question
On which of these Japanese cities was an atomic bomb dropped at the end of World War 2?
12 . Question
13 . question.
At which location did the USA initially test nuclear weapons?
- The Bikini Atoll
- The Marshall Islands
- The Falkland Islands
- The Isle of Mull
14 . Question
Sovet nuclear development had been held back by a lack of which raw material?
15 . Question
In which year was the first Hydrogen bomb tested?
16 . Question
Which of these measurements was used to measure the effectiveness of nuclear weapons?
17 . Question
Which of these was the usual delivery method for nuclear warheads?
18 . Question
For what did “MAD” stand?
- Mutually Assured Destruction
- Mutual Active Detonation
- Massive Actual Detonation
- Mutual Activated Destruction
19 . Question
Which of these did not become a nuclear power during the early Cold War?
- West Germany
20 . Question
Soviet missiles in which of these countries led to a major Cold War crisis?
21 . Question
The Arms Race was mostly between the USSR and which other nation?
22 . Question
Which of these treaties limited the size of superpower nuclear arsenals?
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How does the concept of competition relate to the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War? The two nations wanted to best one another in the development and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, which drove the competition between them.
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The race for supremacy in space by the USSR and Germany. What were the military alliances during the Arms and Space Race? A race to get into space between the US and the USSR. A competitive race between China and the US during the Cold War. A competitive race between the US and the Britain during the Cold War.
By the mid-1950s, the U.S.-Soviet Cold War had worked its way into the fabric of everyday life in both countries, fueled by the arms race and the growing threat of nuclear weapons, wide-ranging...
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This lesson provides helpful information on Space Race and Arms Race in the context of Early Cold War: 1945–1962 to help students study for a college level U.S. History course.
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The Cold War, 1948-1960 - AQA The Arms Race and the Space Race. After 1948 the Cold War entered a new phase. Moving beyond the borders of Europe, it spread to Asia and even into Space!...