With the idea that whoever controls the space exploration controls the technological race as well, many countries tried to discover more ways to accomplish tasks of sending people to the outer space.
The most common misconception however, is that most people also believe that once you get to the moon, you can merely sent an missile down to destroy other nations. Science, in present day tells us otherwise, and in fact it is more effective to send a missile down from an airplane in the sky than from a shuttle in the moon.
The competition was mostly between the United States and the Soviet Union. Once the Soviets released the Sputnik 1, in October 4, 1957, Americans felt fear and threat. Given the first artificial satellite launched to orbit the earth, Soviets were impressed by their accomplishments. Americans believe that it will come easy to the Soviets to overtake the country once they make the launch successful because it will enable them to get a hold of more advance and dangerous weapons.
A month later, USSR launched their second satellite, Sputnik 2. This satellite contained the first living organism to ever travel outer space. A dog named Laika, was used to test if the shuttle conditions were appropriate and sufficient to support a man on space. When Laika came back with no psychological damages, they were confident enough to send a man in space.
As the US launched its first successful satellite, the Explorer 1, the government gave way to more studies done in the space exploration field. The Eisenhower administration passed the National Defense Educational Act. This act allowed the government to spend more $1 billion for a wide range of reforms. Such including new school construction, fellowships and loans to encourage promising students to seek higher education, new efforts in vocational education to meet critical manpower shortages in the defense industry, and a host of other programs (1959).
On the other hand, Pres. Kennedy (1962) decided to start a program developing the space race. The goal of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was to send the first man to walk the moon. However, they were not able to send a man outer space until four months after the launching of Sputnik 1.
On July 20, 1969, US achieved their goal, and astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first steps in the moon. With this accomplishment, universities started to expand their space programs. These space programs spent a huge federal funding for research, and development which also gave rise to new industries and new technologies for the country.
Once again, the United States accomplishing this task of sending a man on space opened more opportunities to explore the world beyond the planet. The space race was a good way of proving the country's self worth and allowed for development of better technologies for the future.
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