Can you hear it?
That's the starter pistol that set off the space race between the United States and the
Soviet Union—60 years ago.
In a two person race, there’s a winner and a loser.
All these years later, people (in America at least) know the U.S. won the space race.
I mean, we landed on the moon.
But, if you think about it, did did the U.S. really win the race?
Let’s go back to when it all began, on October 4, 1957.
The U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik-1, the first artificial satellite into space.
(Archive news radio:)
"Today a new moon is in the sky, a 23 inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a Russian
rocket..."
That beeping sound you heard?
That’s Sputnik-1.
But the space race started two years before Sputnik launched.
(Archive news footage:)
"We've been assigned the mission of launching a scientific Earth satellite."
That’s when the U.S. announced it would go into orbit first.
Their plan?
To launch 10 satellites into space between 1957 and 1958…
The thing is, Soviet scientists had also been working for years on a rocket capable of reaching
space, and a satellite to go with it.
All the U.S. announcement did was intensify their work and free up more money for the
U.S.S.R.’s build of a shining satellite for the world to behold.
The shocking success of Sputnik ignited a firestorm of interest in space all over the
world.
People peered through binoculars in backyards, or tuned in to ham radios to witness Sputnik
passing overhead.
Meanwhile…
America, bereft with its second place status, panicked...
(Archive news footage:)
"America's prestige had never been lower."
... and started pushing students towards science, technology, engineering, and math, hoping
to catch up.
They even founded NASA.
Scientific competition got heated at the height of the Cold War.
Cut to January 1958, the U.S. launched a satellite, Explorer-1, four months after Sputnik.
(Archive news footage:)
"You can send this off to the Secretary—that our satellite is definitely on orbit.
(Pardon this interruption, Popular Science presents, 'A Brief Note.')
The U.S.S.R. launched Laika, the first living animal to head into orbit.
Yuri Gagarin beat John Glenn into space by 10 months
Valentina Tershkova beat Sally Ride into space by nearly 20 years.
That’s a lot of notable firsts for not winning the space race...
So, who won in the end?
Team U.S.A. or the C.C.C.P.?
It would be over a decade after Sputnik’s launch before American space plans overtook
Soviet efforts and landed on the moon, something that no other country has successfully repeated.
Competition continued on space stations and spaceflights for years after the moon landing,
until the Apollo-Soyuz mission, when two spacecrafts—one Soviet and one American—docked in space,
opening a new era of cooperation.
The space race pushed both countries to innovate, challenge their technical limits, and push
the boundaries of what was possible.
That’s why the winner of the space race wasn’t the U.S. or the Soviets.
It was all of us.
Without it, we wouldn’t have weather satellites, telecommunications, GPS, or even be able to
contemplate visiting not only our moon, but other worlds.
The competition drove us to be better humans.
And it all started with...
(Archive news footage:)
"Dwarfed by the giant carrier rocket and the gantry, the Explorer-1 satellite is carefully
fitted into place, like a glittering jewel in a metallic setting."