Ch.35 The Cold War
The Space Race
- On the night of October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union had just launched a satellite, called Sputnik, into space. Sputnik (a Russian word that means “fellow traveler” or “companion” would circle around the Earth once every hour and a half, beeping constantly and sending radio waves back to Earth. It was the first man-made satellite to ever be launched into space, and the first to orbit (circle) around the Earth.
- A month later, the Soviets launched a second satellite into Orbit. This time the satellite, Sputnik II, had a passenger, a dog named Laika.
- On April 12th, 1961, Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth in a rocket called Vostok 1. His flight lasted 108 minutes.
- On July 16th, 1969, the Apollo 11 spaceship was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida-NASA‘s headquarters. The Apollo 11 mission had one goal: Land on the moon, step out, and then come back.
- Four days later, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin climbed into a smaller vehicle called the Eagle. It was designed to separate from Apollo 11 and land on the moon.
- Americans across the country watched them on television as they descended the ladder, down to the surface of the moon Neil Armstrong was the first astronaut to put his foot on the mooris surface. As he took his first step, he said, ˝That‘s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.˝
Thirteen Days in October
- For thirteen days, the Soviet Union and the United States were at a stand-off over the missiles. Nuclear war seemed inevitable. This was what the whole world had dreaded ever since the first atomic bomb had exploded over Hiroshima. Nuclear weapons were so powerful, and so deadly, that if the United States and the Soviet Union attacked each other, the entire world could be poisoned and destroyed.
- The “Cuban Missile Crisis” was over, but the Cold War still raged on.
