Cold War In Space: The Race To The Moon | Cold War Tech Race | Timeline

[Music] foreign for centuries human beings looked Skyward for inspiration when astronomers first gazed towards the stars planets and moon Our World opened up reach the highest peak and you've gone to the deepest depth what's next what's next is space the High Frontier it is during the Cold War that Earth's atmosphere is breached and we enter the Uncharted domain of space even though cosmonautics is often presented as a search for knowledge and scientific exploration of the world in reality the defining factor that promoted the development of this technology was the competition between two political regimes the technological advances we saw in the Space Race only happened because of competition between the U.S and the Soviet Union no other reason the Cold War raced to space a launching pad for Humanity the future of technology and space exploration the Cold War a decades-long struggle between two superpowers and former allies the United States of America and the Soviet Union but beyond the ideological divide of capitalism and communism was a battle of Another Kind one for technological Supremacy Science and Technology were critical for how they were going to thrive and grow and bring prosperity and justice for their people experimentation with nuclear power condition of weapons technology exploitation of science capabilities the entire space program you could argue was a creature of the Cold War a race for scientific Supremacy that lifts Humanity beyond Earth's atmosphere drags the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation launches Decades of research into scientific and Engineering Marvels that continue to define the modern world the space programs of the United States and the Soviet Union in the late 50s on through the 60s was one of intense competition for the hearts and minds of the rest of the world the competition involved defining goals that could be reached first I mean it was a race to do things first and in order to do them first you need a particular technical capabilities there was a race competition demonstration domination of one over the other and of course those Investments that were made into cosmonautics at the time to find the development of space exploration to the present time the Cold War race to space might launch in the 1950s but it is ignited during the second world war through the development of nuclear weapons and missile technology technology only advances when there's a reason for its Advance we have cars we have trains we have phones we have computers for a reason they affect our everyday life giant space Rockets not so much there has to be a specific reason for that to happen so really the only reason that we saw enormous Rockets being developed in the 50s and 60s was one that they could carry nuclear missiles the other reason was space exploration during the war German scientists and Engineers developed the V2 rocket a long-range guided ballistic missile the world's first [Music] as the war nears its end the Soviet Union and the United States both looked to exploit this technology and those who made it in their own weapons programs well the role of the German scientists after World War II was very different in the United States and in the Soviet Union if we're talking about the Soviet Union that it's more about the technological Heritage that is the factories the production facilities the Technologies of the rocket engine that the Soviet Union managed to bring over they played a part in the development of the Soviet cosmonautics but our cosmonautics moved away from the German Heritage pretty quickly and started to work on their own you know at the end of the war the Soviet zone grabbed as many scientists as they could German scientists the British and the Americans grabbed as many scientists as possible to at the top of the U.S list is Verna Von Braun Germany's leading rocket scientist an instrumental figure in the development of the V2 rocket history hit is an award-winning streaming platform built by history fans for history fans our goal is to bring you award-winning documentaries that cover the events and figures that have shaped our world all in one place travel with us to the fascinating world of prehistoric Scotland or uncover the lives of the people who called Pompeii home we also aim to bring you the stories and legends that shaped our world through our award-winning podcast Network sign up now for a free trial and timeline fans get 50 of their first three months just be sure to use the code timeline at checkout in World War II the German scientists were the experts in rocket technology they actually created the first rocket capable of reaching space wasn't powerful enough to stay in space but it could reach high enough to be in Space the sad thing is it was built as a Nazi war weapon created through slave labor for really bad reasons killing civilian populations in the West after the war it got used by both countries the U.S and the Soviet Union to create space rockets and nuclear missile carriers May 2nd 1945. Werner Von Braun surrenders to the United States Army he is recruited as part of Operation Paperclip and later sent to the United States with other German scientists during the early post-war period there's an example of their patchwork they made it this old war horse V2 out of tenement to Germany the V2 whack Corporal combination was America's first two-stage missile it also marked for the first time the blending in action of American and German rocket brains a combination that was destined despite many setbacks to have its rendezvous with history [Music] in the early years of the Cold War the first challenge is not to launch a human into space it's to launch a man-made object a satellite October 4th 1957. the Soviets gained an important Victory with the launch of Sputnik pressure mounts within the United States to respond with all available resources there were lots of of contending ideas of what the United States should do Eisenhower established the president's science advisory committee to help him Define the program and ask them what should we do in space of all people Richard Nixon and Eisenhower's vice president was a leading advocate for a separate military and civilian program in Eisenhower's accepted that and that's where NASA came from is a separate civilian space agency so there was a an intense period of of both Technical and organizational development in the year following Sputnik before sending human beings into space scientists experiment on other non-human life forms in these days of heightened animal rights awareness we forget how different the 50s and 60s were and I think it's natural at that time for the scientists to think before we risk a human on a launch pad let's send an animal first even if that means the animal is not going to come back not really something we could imagine doing today November 3rd 1957. Sputnik 2 is launched from the baikonur cosmodrome like Sputnik one it features radio transmitters and Telemetry equipment but unlike its predecessor it also houses the first animal sent into Earth's orbit a dog named Leica so it was the beginning of Life Sciences in space at that point the Soviet Union hadn't figured out how to provide life support to get a living organism like a dog back to Earth and and so the the poor animal died rather quickly obviously if you start sending dogs it's only a matter of time before you start sending other living creatures and eventually humans when America looked at doing the same thing it decided to send chimpanzees which have a lot in common with humans maybe more than dogs in some ways they intended to bring the chimpanzees back not all of the primates that were sent on space flights did survive some weren't capable of even surviving the Primitive life support systems they had on the pad before the rocket launched the scientific purpose is to gauge how space travel affects living organisms the experiments allow scientists to develop technology that will one day support human life in space it only took a few moments to extract Sam the spaceman they found him alive all right so apparently nonetheless for his far-flung Adventure at the end of the 1950s both Nations have shown they can reach space now they set their sights upon a Target Earth's moon April 12 1961. the Soviets launched vostok won and become the first nation in history to launch a manned spacecraft into orbit from the Soviet baikonur cosmodrome the vostok 3ka Space Capsule is launched by a modified R7 rocket the earliest astronauts were well aware that they were sitting in a little tiny capsule on top of fundamentally a converted intercontinental ballistic missile I mean these are the same rockets that were poised to set off a nuclear war all of these Rockets were designed to carry nuclear missiles that meant they had rockets capable of carrying really heavy things when it comes to putting somebody in space having a rocket that can carry a lot heavier all of a sudden puts you at a huge advantage the vostok 3ka Space Capsule is two and a half meters in diameter spherically shaped and weighs slightly less than two and a half thousand kilograms inside the capsule is Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin the first man in space the vostok spacecraft sends Gagarin on a 108 minute orbit around Earth over which he has little control ing at almost 27 and a half thousand kilometers per hour gagarin's re-entry is also controlled by a computer program the Space Capsule receives and transmits radio commands before maneuvering back into the Earth's atmosphere lever in case of emergency he would switch to manual control to turn the craft around using the brake engine this started with gagara and it continues to be this way in our country Rockets were built by rocket engineers and for the rocket engineering it's important that the rocket Works regardless of what it's transporting so the human control was perceived as a backup at first as a useful component and then as a backup means of manual control if Auto control can't handle it when Soviet leaders release information about this historic first in the Space Race they do not include one particular piece of information related to The Landing because he had a steeper ballistic descent trajectory and the speed of entering the dense atmospheric layers was higher the deceleration had a higher impact on the Cosmonaut the last stage of descent had quite an original solution the craft landed separately and the Cosmonaut was separated from the craft by the ejection seat so the Russians had another big secret to keep which was the international rules for the first person to fly in space were very specific you had to take off and land in the same vehicle that was a huge secret they kept that secret for about a decade because it broke all those rules at the end of the day it didn't really matter a human went into space and came back the symbolic Victory the Soviets Claim by launching the first satellite and the first man into space puts additional pressure on the United States to respond Kennedy decided the United States had to respond and wrote a memo to his advisor saying identify a space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win and those requirements drove the technology to find a winning program which was going to the moon so project Mercury was basically let's get a person up there and see what happens whether they can function whether they can survive whether they can do anything do any tasks so it was basically a very rudimentary very preliminary look at the ability of humans to be in space and operate in space May 5th 1961 just one month after gagarin's orbit American astronaut Alan Shepard becomes the second man yet the first American to enter space aboard Freedom seven they were three weeks away from sending their first person into space you think about all the epochs of human history that people thought about space fairers and the actual divide was three weeks between the two superpowers but first is first and second to Second lasting about 15 minutes Shepherd's sub-orbital space journey projects him to an altitude approximately 200 kilometers above the Earth where he reaches speeds of 8260 kilometers per hour his project Mercury spacecraft is powered by Redstone Rockets ballistic missiles that have now launched American satellites animals and man into space May 25th 1961. newly elected President John F Kennedy announces that America will send a man to the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this day decade is out of Landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth when it came to Science and Technology one of the biggest differences between the Eisenhower Administration and the Kennedy administration is that Eisenhower wanted to fund science and technology for specific defense outcome he wanted useful objects whereas canopy was much more interested in The Prestige of science he was much more interested in a hearts and Minds approach to Science and Technology pretty much the only reason that both superpowers were doing the space race was for headlines and propaganda they were fighting a war on the front pages of countries around the world who were choosing which superpower to go with in terms of which philosophical communism or capitalism which superpower they were going to back for the Soviet Union cosmonautics was very important not just from the technical or scientific standpoint but as a means of propaganda so it was important not so much what technology Americans had but to see when they are planning to achieve what and the goal was to do it faster and earlier and this sense of Rush characterized Soviet cosmonautics July 1st 1961. the Army ballistic missile agency is formally transferred to NASA creating the Marshall space flight center Von Braun is appointed the center's first director allowing him to oversee and influence advances in rocket technology including the development of a Super Booster launch vehicle June 16 1963. the Soviets launched vostok 6 and claim another first on board is the first female to enter space Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova orbiting the Earth 48 times over 71 hours Tereshkova spent more time in space than a combined duration of American astronauts up to that point in time [Music] so the Soviet Union had female rights as one of the important subjects at the time and partially there was some real efforts to make that happen but partially it was a means of propaganda but really to take the decision to have a woman in space to entrust her with this opportunity was worthless in the Soviet Union it was made possible a lot earlier than in the USA when NASA comes looking for his first astronauts it doesn't put a gender requirement on the application form but the only people who have the experience and qualifications to fly advanced jet testing which is what NASA needed for its Pilots were men women were not excluded from gender by NASA they were excluded by the society that wasn't allowing them to fly particularly in the military it started a conversation that lasted for a long time it took a long time for things to change it was really the mid-1970s and early 1980s that we first saw women going through the military test piloting schools first as engineers then as Pilots that allowed them to obtain the same qualification level that the men had ever outdoing each other the race to space is fever pitched and the Soviet Union continued to achieve a number of space firsts March 18th 1965 Soviet Cosmonaut Alexi leonov exits the two crude spacecraft vashcon 2 via an inflatable airlock to make the first Venture into open space possible it was necessary to develop at least three separate Technical Systems first of all the spacesuit that would allow a person to survive in open space an airlock was needed to perform the procedure and you also needed to prepare the spacecraft for it the closest analogy is you've ever seen a bounce house at a children's party at a big inflatable castle things that kids jumping up and down on it that's kind of what they designed as an airlock they put it snug against the side of the spacecraft launched it into space when they were in space they inflated this thing so now you have a two hatch process you can climb into a inflatable tunnel in the middle close one hatch open the other one to open space come in and out it was pretty risky but they were able to do that this is the first time humans have ever been outside in space Galaxy get ready to enter on orders from the ship's Commander pillayov leono pulls in on the lifeline and approaches the airlock when Alexi layanov the first spacewalker finds himself outside in space in 1965 he immediately runs into issues nobody knew it was going to happen [Music] he got back to the hatch of the spacecraft only to find his space suit was too inflated he couldn't actually get back in the space suit used for space wars is a separate system it's basically a separate human body-shaped spacecraft that is mobile so it's really a very complex system so he had to do something quite dangerous he had to reach down to his chest and and start operating a valve to bleed the air out of his own space suit now if you've ever heard about what divers go through when they get the bends and they're coming back from scuba diving you know there's a great danger of bleeding the pressure out of something like that you can cause yourself nitrogen bubbles in your bloodstream and it can kill you that was the risk he was going to take he gradually bled the air out of his spacesuit down below the level that was safe but it got his spacesuit deflated enough he was able to get back inside the hatch and close that hatch satellites frequently travel within a low earth orbit of 2 000 kilometers or less manned spacecraft such as vostok 2 and freedom 7. operate in low earth orbit and suborbital space less than 200 kilometers above Earth the average distance to the moon from the earth is 382 500 kilometers to get there and back safely the Soviets and Americans must be inventive we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard when Kennedy said on May the 25th 1961 I believe we should go to the Moon we really didn't know how we were going to do that when you watch those old 1950s science fiction movies that was kind of how America imagined going to the Moon take a huge big rocket with big Landing legs landed in one piece on the moon and then everybody climbs down a big ladder explores the surface climbs back up the ladder comes back in one piece to Earth and then Von Braun and his team said it's really too big a jump from where we are now so let's find things we can do with slightly smaller Rockets which is to Rendezvous around the Moon lunar orbit Rendezvous and have specialized spacecraft one spacecraft to go from Earth to lunar orbit and a second spacecraft only to go from lunar orbit down to the surface and back a lunar orbit Rendezvous is considered the concept exhibiting the best chance of taking a human to the moon and returning them to the Earth a main spacecraft is launched and remains in lunar orbit it is the Command Module attached to it is a second auxiliary service module containing fuel cells and propulsion systems a third lunar lander or Excursion module is used to descend to the surface of the Moon after detaching from the main spacecraft [Music] after re-docking the service module Powers the main spacecraft back to Earth the Lander module is left to drift into the void of space or crash down to the surface of the Moon but it gave people kind of the Willies because it meant that the mission success depended on the ability to dock to Rendezvous and dock in orbit around the moon and if you somehow missed the people in the lunar lander the two astronauts weren't going to come back November 9 1967. Apollo 4 is launched by the Saturn V the Saturn V was a product of Von Braun and his team it was a very scaled up version of the V2 rocket the choice of the lunar orbit Rendezvous mode meant that the spacecraft could be light enough to be launched by one big rocket Saturn V with five engines since first stage these F1 engines clustered at the bottom stage of the three-stage launch vehicle are capable of generating 3.4 million kilograms of thrust and the most powerful engines ever created each engine has a turbo pump moving more than 160 000 liters of propellant per minute feeding rp1 a type of kerosene and liquid oxygen into a combustion chamber through 6 300 holes each the size of a drinking straw here the fuel and liquid oxygen mix and are exposed at just the right moment to an ignition Source the upper stage is launched using liquid hydrogen capable of propelling heavy payloads including three-person Crews into space low Apollo 4 is an unmanned test flight it guides the direction that NASA will take to the Moon both the Soviet Union and the United States suffer setbacks rocket failures and the deaths of astronauts and cosmonauts but the pace of the race barely falted and the Soviet Union begins to realize they are falling behind they hope their new lunar program approved in 1964. we'll put them back in front part of this program is a launch system similar in conception to the Saturn V and they understood that they needed to catch up and for some time they tried to develop this super heavy rocket and won the spacecrafts were tested including those that meant to land on the moon they didn't manage to make it fly it was launched four times and four times it exploded and unfortunately at that time the phrase we are shooting with cities was very relevant since every launch of an N1 rocket was tens of unbuilt high-rises in terms of cost further testing of Apollo's spacecraft continues with Apollo 5 in January of 1968 September 14 1968 the Soviets Launch zombies it is the second spacecraft to travel to the Moon and circle it but the first spacecraft to do this and returns safely to Earth the U.S believed the Soviets are closer to achieving the first manned lunar orbit than many thought possible NASA has to act the Apollo program ratchets up they launched their first crude flight Apollo 7. on October 11 1968. while Apollo 7 remains within Earth's orbit Apollo 8 does not December 21st 1968. Apollo 8 takes astronauts Frank Borman James Lovell and William Anders beyond Earth's low orbit for three days these astronauts orbit the Moon they are the first human beings to do so the first that America achieved with the Apollo eight-manned flight was a propaganda victory over the Soviet Union but in the first six months of 1969 the race accelerates again Soviet an American spacecraft testing intensifies however the Soviet space program begins to suffer a series of technical setbacks each one puts them at greater distance from the lunar surface between January and June of 1969 half a dozen Soviet spacecraft either fail or fail to Launch but the Soviets do achieve another remarkable first that lays the foundation for the future evolution of manned space stations January 1969. soyuz 4 and 5 are launched as one person in One spacecraft and three in the other they're in space at the same time and then they dock in space and they don't have a hatch in the middle that's capable of somebody just floating through from one to the other what has to happen is somebody has to spacewalk so they have two people come out of the three-person spacecraft and spacewalk over to the other one and this is the first time in history and it's still a very rare thing that people come back home in a different spacecraft than they launched from but they prove that this can be done and it was a step on the way to the moon for the Soviets following the manned lunar orbit by Apollo 8 a low earth orbit is undertaken by the crew of Apollo 9. in March of 1969 this flight two months after the Sawyer's docking is designed to test the lunar module while operating as a self-sufficient spacecraft or when maneuvering for docking on the fourth day of a 10-day Mission lunar module pilot Russell schweikart climbs out from the Apollo 9 module and walks in space the objective of his spacewalk is to test the life support system of the NASA spacesuit if it supports life in space it's reasonable to assume it will do the same on the lunar surface the end of the 1960s decade is only months away Kennedy's Declaration of Landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth Echoes through the corridors of NASA May 18 1969 Apollo 10 launches Apollo 10 man's second journey to orbit the Moon was a full-scale rehearsal of all of the activities required to land men on the lunar surface except for the actual Landing he couldn't do lunar orbit Rendezvous until you got to the moon so the first mission to send the whole spacecraft complex to the moon was Apollo 10. in May of 1969 which was basically a dress rehearsal for the lunar Landing this is the first time an Apollo spacecraft orbits the moon with a complete crew without setting foot on the lunar surface Apollo 10 completes its objective and NASA are ready to fulfill the promise of setting Man on the Moon July 16 1969 at 9 32 a.m 20 seconds and counting Apollo 11 lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida [Applause] T-minus 15 seconds guidance is internal 12 11 10 9 ignition sequence stars six five three two one zero looked off we have a lifter 32 minutes past the hour 11. on board Commander Neil Armstrong Command Module pilot Michael Collins and lunar module pilot Edwin Buzz Aldrin [Music] former German rocket scientist Verna Von Braun and his colleagues watch on the V2 ballistic missiles that Hitler had Unleashed in World War II the antecedents of the Saturn V Rockets now take men to the Moon man sets off on his first journey to a specific destination in space to a Target in Tranquility a quarter of a Million Miles Away four days after launch on July 20th 1969 an estimated 650 million people watch as the lunar module touches down on the surface of the Moon [Applause] Tranquility we copy on the ground we got a bunch of guys about to turn blue we're breathing again thanks a lot the Soviets claimed so many firsts throughout the 1960s but now the United States has done it Neil Armstrong steps down from the lunar module onto the moon's surface and says man on diabetes soon after Edwin Buzz Aldrin follows him Michael Collins watch is on from The Command Module July 24th 1969. astronauts Armstrong Aldrin and Collins are retrieved from their re-entry capsule after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean just months before the decade expires we hope and think that those people shared our belief [Music] that this is the beginning of a new era the beginning of an era when man understands the universe around him in the beginning of the era when man understands himself 50 plus years after Apollo 11 were still debating its significance in terms of Kennedy's intention of signifying U.S technical leadership U.S political will I think was a total success days after Neil Armstrong steps onto the surface of the Moon a small bunch of flowers and a knot are placed on President Kennedy's gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery on the note is written Mr President the eagle has landed the 1960s are over the moon landing is a technological and ideological victory for the United States but it took years to achieve and cost billions the budget for the Mercury Gemini Apollo programs peaked at four percent of the federal budget in 1975 Richard Nixon made the decision that NASA should now be just a normal agency so he removed it from the special status and made it like Health and Human Services the budget dropped to about a half a percent of the federal budget and it's been there roughly ever since there was one goal when Americans went to the Moon past achievements of the Soviet Union basically to pass the flight of Gagarin not because there was a practical necessity the only practical necessity was to show that American Science American industry and after all the American way of life is cooler than the Soviets that's it all of these things lined up and I think that's why it hasn't happened again because what are the chances of all those things lining up in history we always have the money we always can make the technology if we want it we can always make a presidential speech about how often do presidential speeches actually come true statistically pretty small everything had to come together and it did and then it evaporated now that the United States successfully answered Kennedy's call to land Man on the Moon it's up to president Richard Nixon to decide what's next for space exploration and his answer was not much he became convinced that there was no value in continued human exploration he did not see it as an element of cold war competition the way John Kennedy had meanwhile the Soviet Union shifts focused after the successful moon landing there were two reorientations in the Soviet program the first one is that the Pilot's program was reoriented towards the long duration of orbital stations so-called dos and this program kept developing up to the fall of the Soviet Union and still exists on the International Space Station its foundation was created at that time after the moon program of the USA or maybe even during the moon program and the second Direction was automated stations exploration the moon with machines as it was called at the time the word robots was not as popular April 19th 1971 the Soviets launched salute one an unmanned pressurized multi-compartment spacecraft the world's first space station two months later in early June soyuz 11 successfully Ducks was salute 1. the crew remained there for a further 23 days orbiting the Earth 383 times for the Soviets this is another first the longest duration a manned spacecraft has remained in space the 21.4 meter long space station provides the cosmonauts with 100 cubic meters of living and working space again it was a big propaganda thing to finally have a space station in orbit with people working on it live television images were beamed around the world people got to know the crew got to know them quite well because they watched them for weeks up there felt quite attached to them their return to Earth is expected to be a triumphant celebration but then tragedy strikes [Music] during descent the hatch That was supposed to open later and instead of letting the atmospheric air into the craft it let the atmospheric air out it was in the upper levels of the atmosphere and for the human body it was basically a vacuum everything was automatic from that point on nobody on the ground knew that anything was wrong spacecraft came down the parachutes opened it landed in the middle of the Soviet Union and the rescue teams came out and opened the hatch and found three people inside as if they were fast asleep and they were all dead they were the only people to have actually died in space other people have died on the way to or from space but this is the only crew who ever died in space after this rescue spacesuits were introduced which cosmonauts and astronauts are still using today by 1973 NASA's Apollo program has wound down and they are repurposing Apollo technology for use in their space station program Skylab May 14 1973 NASA launched their first space station but it almost ends before it begins 63 seconds after launch as a Saturn V rocket propels the unmanned skylab's 100 tons toward orbit a micro meteoroid Shield designed to protect Skylab from space debris prematurely deploys then tears away from the station failure of The micrometeoroid Shield means Skylab no longer has thermal protection without thermal protection the interior temperature will rise to unbearable levels for the crew and cause damage to instrumentation and Equipment Mission Control notes that skylab's solar arrays essential to providing energy to Skylab do not deploy as pre-programmed on Earth NASA delays the launch of the Skylab crew quickly training them for a revised mission to repair Skylab the Skylab crew launched 10 days later additional Crews launch in the months that follow Soviet and American space stations Pioneer a new frontier in space Exploration Solar and Stellar astronomy they enable research to be conducted in Space over extended periods of time and they are the perfect platform from which to observe Cold War adversaries unknown to the International Community the Soviet Union is running two concurrent space station programs one civilian the salute stations the other project Almas is a military project the for the long duration orbital stations the military component was the priority at least in the beginning even though in the public eye they were called consistently salute to mask their true nature the Almaz stations are given salute designations the first Alma station salute 2 is launched April 3rd 1973. and a piloted military station even in the cosmonautics museum in Moscow there is a huge photo camera probably the biggest photo camera in the world not counting the astronomic telescopes it's a film camera the purpose of which was to spy on Americans and other friendly and not so friendly Nations over which these stations would fly but the Alma's program also brings something new to the space domain June 25th 1974 the Soviets launched salute III also known as Almas II it is equipped with a 23 millimeter anti-aircraft Cannon the Richter R23 there's gas powered rapid fire Cannon can be fired remotely as the module orbits if the Americans Target the Soviet space station the Soviets have the capability to strike back though that never occurs it has alleged the Soviets did test fire this cannon in space at the conclusion of the final Space Station Mission if this is correct it earns the Soviet Union another first the First Nation to fire a weapon in space by the mid-1970s the surface of the Moon has been reached walked upon and driven across the Soviets and Americans have launched hundreds of satellites into Earth's orbit transmitting vast amounts of data about the Earth its atmosphere weather and changing climate across an array of terrestrial communication Networks the Soviets and Americans endure setbacks with Space Station construction experiments prove that humans can function in space for long durations and proxy wars such as the Korean and Vietnam Wars these Cold War enemies remain at a distance but in the closing stages of the Space Race they are provided an opportunity to move closer together Richard Nixon as he considered what to do after Apollo he had what he called a pet idea which is flying non-us people on U.S space missions and so he pushed on NASA to open up its program for non-us participation and then he wanted to find areas of daytime with the Soviet Union to lower the tensions between the two countries and so those two things combine to the idea of using leftover Apollo Hardware to do a joint mission July 15 1975. Sawyer's 19 launches from the baikonur cosmodrome Kazakhstan with cosmonauts Alexi leonov and Valeri kubasov hours later from NASA's Kennedy Space Center an Apollo module lifts off carrying astronauts Tom Stafford Deke Slayton Advanced brand thank you the Apollo Sawyer's mission is the first Cooperative Soviet American space mission where two separate flights Rendezvous in space [Music] orbiting the Earth over two days the soyuz capsule and Apollo command and service module align 225 kilometers above the Atlantic Ocean twenty years before populations gazed Skyward trying to locate the Soviet satellite Sputnik now across the world millions of people tune into a televised broadcast as the American Apollo module on the Soviet Sawyers meet in space on July 17 1975 at 12 12 pm the soyuz and Apollo Vehicles achieve a hard dock just a few hours after docking at 3 17 pm hatches between soyuz and Apollo are opened Alexa leonov and Tom Stafford greet each other in a profoundly simple and humane way they shake hands I of course with space it became a demonstration of the improving relationship between two opposing superpowers a space handshake as it was then called so use Apollo was a good ending to the moon race the moon program in general it was the finale for the Apollo program and the end of the moon race for both countries though the Cold War continued on Earth for a further decade and a half this one moment symbolized the benefit of scientific engineering and human collaboration the relationship between the Soviets and Americans would ebb and flow throughout the decades eventually they are joined in Space by many nations all sharing a desire to push farther into the space domain and populate it with military and civilian satellites initially launching in 1998 the International Space Station today lists over 15 participating countries involved in ongoing space exploration projects it is a feat of engineering that would not have been possible if not for the Cold War right now we have the International Space Station it was built by shuttles that were created during the time of the Space Race the Russian segment is constructed from modules the technology of which is based on the Soviet space station technology which was also a product of the Space Race and Cold War there's a space station up there that's as big as a football field and it's bolted together by humans Americans and Russians and it comes over once every 90 minutes if you know where to look in the night sky you can see it come over as the brightest star in the sky many nights that is a monument to human imagination and Ingenuity but it's also a monument to cooperation because the countries that started developing that in the 1990s are very different countries than we see now now and we see a lot of tension between current America current Russia and yet that space station keeps going people still keep cooperating in space so that's a beautiful Capstone for the space program it's the one thing that's holding everybody together space is now populated with satellites spacecraft and ongoing projects from numerous countries across a multitude of Industries private space companies such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic continue the race to space exploiting its potential across Industries as diverse as Mining and tourism the legacy of the Space Race lives on and those that were inspired by the achievements of both the Soviet Union and the United States every Soviet kid dreamed of becoming dreamed of becoming a cosmonaut went on to get higher technical education and at the moment the Russian economy is largely based on those engineers and on those Specialists grew up during the time when Gagarin was worshiped when Gagarin was a national hero the main impact of the space program was to motivate people to study Science and Technology it led to the stockpiling of the technical base of this country and many other countries and it pushed areas of Technology like miniaturization if you're trying to understand which part space plays in our lives look at your cell phone your smartphone smartphone the camera you know comes from space because initially all these Technologies were created in order for a small digital camera to be placed on a spacecraft all this was created in the 70s and 80s and ultimately became cameras in our phones the race to space during the Cold War was a launch into the unknown reshaping ideologies and extending our knowledge of Earth and our solar system biggest things that the Space Program have given us are the things that weren't to do with technology were there to do with how we see ourselves when Apollo 8 went out to the Moon they went around The Far Side of the Moon and saw Things That No human eye had ever been able to see but that wasn't what they learned what they learned was as they came around the Moon they saw the Earth rise and they saw the planet that we're on a quarter of a million miles away this little Blue Marble in in the vastness of space so tiny that they could put their thumb out at arm's length and completely cover over everywhere they'd ever been everybody who'd ever lived or died all on that tiny little point of light and they realized how fragile it is where we come from and how much we need to preserve this planet these are things that you don't plan for in an engineering textbook we see our planet in a way that no ancestors ever could imagine like Lessons Learned on Earth the space domain presents ongoing challenges laws governing how space can be explored populated and dominated will influence how future Wars might play out and act as a way to preserve space and our Earth's environment the race to space continues into a domain as Limitless as the imagination that dares to explore it

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 39,932

Keywords: American achievements, American moon missions, Cold War era, Earth, Foot on the moon, Historical documentaries, History, History documentary, Lunar landing footage, Moon landing remembrance, NASA, Outer space, Soviet Union space program, Soviet achievements, Soviet space program, Space history lessons, Space race competition, Spaceflight, Timeline - World History Documentaries, World history, Yuri Gagarin

Id: XfLLfa-OW60

Length: 50min 9sec (3009 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023