Question

look at the picture and explain arms and space race​

Answer 1

The Cold War and the early space race

Matthew Godwin, Department of Science & Technology Studies, University College London Churchill called it 'the balance of terror' – the central characteristic of the Cold War, which became more widely known as Mutually Assured Destruction. This concept reflected the fact that the two superpowers could not engage each other militarily without the inevitable escalation to a nuclear exchange which would have led to the annihilation of both sides. As a consequence the Cold War had to be played out in other ways. An obvious example of this is the sponsorship of different sides in regional conflicts, notably in the third world, i.e. in the periphery, a position that put third world countries in an important strategic position. However, in this article I intend to look at another form of periphery, namely space, and in particular at recent new studies of the early space race. The space race during the Cold War provided another means through which the superpowers could compete without direct military conflict. In this sense space constituted another form of periphery, with scientists and technocrats assuming the position of importance.

The main events in the early space race are seemingly well established. The Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, into orbit in October 1957. This was quickly followed by Sputnik II (famously containing a canine passenger), and was then dramatically surpassed by the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961. The USA, in contrast, failed to respond effectively, and it took several attempts and several months before launching its own satellite, Explorer I, in January 1958. Much has been made of the Sputnik 'shock' in the USA, and rightly so. But as Bulkeley has so effectively illustrated, this has led to an oversight in the historiography which has omitted the much earlier American interest in space and satellites. As a result most people have heard of Sputnik, but few are familiar with the pre-history to Sputnik and commonly assume that the Americans were simply caught unprepared and as a result were outwitted by the Soviets.