Abstract
The Space Race was an informal competition between the United States and the Soviet Union that lasted from 1957 to 1975. It involved the parallel efforts by each of those countries to explore space with artificial satellites, to send humans into space, and to land people on the Moon. Space was a crucial arena for this rivalry. Before a watchful world, each side wanted to demonstrate its superiority through impressive feats in rocketry and spaceflight. Secret satellites kept an eye on the adversary.The success of space race is directly linked to the evolvement of long range missiles, and here USSR scored a really important goal on August 21, 1957 with a successful test of the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM.
The R-7 was 34 m long, 3 m in diameter and weighed 280 metric tons, it was two-stage, powered by rocket motors using liquid oxygen (lox) and kerosene and was capable of delivering its payload around 8,800 km, with an accuracy of around 5,000 m. A single nuclear warhead was carried with a nominal yield of 3 megatons of TNT (Mt of TNT).On 4 October 1957, the USSR successfully launched Sputnik 1 (In Russian Sputnik means satellite), the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, and the Space Race began. Because of its military and economic implications, Sputnik caused fear and stirred political debate in the United States. At the same time, the Sputnik launch was seen in the Soviet Union as an important sign of scientific and engineering capabilities of the nation.
In the Soviet Union the launch of Sputnik and the following program of space exploration were met with great interest from the public. For the country recently recovered from devastating war it was important and encouraging to see the proof of technical prowess in the new era.
