I have to write about what significance the space race had to the relationship between the USSR and the US during the cold war. In the period of 1955 and 1972.
Could anyone point me towards points that would be good to write about? Can be both historical and philosophical.
I already have something about the US' sense of vulnerability after the USSR beat them to most of the things, and the Apollo-Soyuz mission, but I'd be interested in if there were more to write about
Write about how delusional both sides were.
For example in 1981 (iirc) the world nearly ended because both US and USSR were absolutely sure theo ther side is about to start a nuclear war and were preparing for a nuclear response, making the oponent even more paranoid.
And later both sides were shocked when realised that someone could consider them as agressors. Both sides believed they were the good guys that were about to be destroyed by agressive bad guys and had to defend themselves.
[QUOTE=MuffinZerg;49163729]Write about how delusional both sides were.
For example in 1981 (iirc) the world nearly ended because both US and USSR were absolutely sure theo ther side is about to start a nuclear war and were preparing for a nuclear response, making the oponent even more paranoid.
[/QUOTE]
I think you mean the Able Archer NATO training operations of 1983?
[QUOTE=MuffinZerg;49163729]Write about how delusional both sides were.
For example in 1981 (iirc) the world nearly ended because both US and USSR were absolutely sure theo ther side is about to start a nuclear war and were preparing for a nuclear response, making the oponent even more paranoid.
And later both sides were shocked when realised that someone could consider them as agressors. Both sides believed they were the good guys that were about to be destroyed by agressive bad guys and had to defend themselves.[/QUOTE]
Well I wouldn't really bad able to use something from 1981,but the whole nuclear weapons thing I could include sine the USSR did want to use the rockets with nuclear warheads
I'm going to use Wikipedia for sources so obv. take with a pinch of salt but the general idea on each page should be about right. Also by no means treat these as the best arguments there are to answer your question, but you might find some of it useful
If you want to talk about the significance the US put on the Space Race, you should use the JFK speech where he says the US will place a man on the moon by the end of the decade (in response to the many 'firsts' the USSR already achieved) and also you may want to refer to the existence of these to show the one-up-manship attitude they had:
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_A119[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Horizon[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunex_Project[/url]
All weird plans which were considered by the U.S military but never put in action
Equally you have things like the Soviet Almaz program where they put space stations in orbit armed with 23mm cannons, in response to the "Manned Orbiting Labatory" project being seen as a threat to Soviet interests
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz#Defense_measures[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Orbiting_Laboratory[/url]
All of this shows that the one-up-manship was pretty important to both superpowers in the space race and also that both had plans to militarise space as part of their rivalry
You'll definitely want to talk about the Outer Space Treaty in 1967 as a counter argument though
[QUOTE=Dr.Critic;49163965]I'm going to use Wikipedia for sources so obv. take with a pinch of salt but the general idea on each page should be about right. Also by no means treat these as the best arguments there are to answer your question, but you might find some of it useful
If you want to talk about the significance the US put on the Space Race, you should use the JFK speech where he says the US will place a man on the moon by the end of the decade (in response to the many 'firsts' the USSR already achieved) and also you may want to refer to the existence of these to show the one-up-manship attitude they had:
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_A119[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Horizon[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunex_Project[/url]
All weird plans which were considered by the U.S military but never put in action
Equally you have things like the Soviet Almaz program where they put space stations in orbit armed with 23mm cannons, in response to the "Manned Orbiting Labatory" project being seen as a threat to Soviet interests
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz#Defense_measures[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Orbiting_Laboratory[/url]
All of this shows that the one-up-manship was pretty important to both superpowers in the space race and also that both had plans to militarise space as part of their rivalry
You'll definitely want to talk about the Outer Space Treaty in 1967 as a counter argument though[/QUOTE]
Seems like something that would be interesting to write about. Thanks
You might also want to talk about how the Space Race was also a sort of arms race between the US and USSR due to the fact that the rocket tech could be easily transferred to ICBMs carrying nuclear warheads.
I'd like to remember hearing some story on vsauce video where the US was ready to nuke the moon off if they couldn't get there first.... Where Michael said that even then if all the nuclear weapons would have gathered together, they couldn't destroy the moon... Times were different back then
The US getting to the moon first was a significant propaganda victory over the USSR
Sources: my ass
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