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On October 4, 1957,
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the world watched in awe and fear
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as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik,
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the world's first man-made satellite,
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into space.
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This little metal ball,
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smaller than two feet in diameter,
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launched a space race
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between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.
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that would last for eighteen years
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and change the world as we know it.
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Sputnik was actually not the first piece
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of human technology to enter space.
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That superlative goes to the V-2 rocket
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used by Germany in missile attacks
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against Allied cities as a last-ditch effort
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in the final years of World War II.
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It wasn't very effective,
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but, at the end of the war,
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both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had captured
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the technology and the scientists that had developed it
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and began using them for their own projects.
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And by August 1957,
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the Soviet's successfully tested
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the first intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7,
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the same rocket that would be used
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to launch Sputnik two months later.
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So, the scary thing about Sputnik
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was not the orbiting ball itself,
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but the fact that the same technology
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could be used to launch a nuclear warhead at any city.
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Not wanting to fall too far behind,
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President Eisenhower ordered the Navy
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to speed up its own project
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and launch a satellite as soon as possible.
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So, on December 6, 1957,
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excited people across the nation
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tuned in to watch the live broadcast
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as the Vanguard TV3 satellite took off
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and crashed to the ground two seconds later.
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The Vanguard failure was a huge embarassment
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for the United States.
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Newspapers printed headlines like,
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"Flopnik" and "Kaputnik."
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And a Soviet delegate at the U.N. mockingly suggested
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that the U.S. should receive foreign aid
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for developing nations.
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Fortunately, the Army had been working
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on their own parallel project, The Explorer,
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which was successfully launched in January 1958,
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but the U.S. had barely managed to catch up
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before they were surpassed again
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as Yuri Gargarin became the first man in space
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in April 1961.
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Almost a year passed
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and several more Soviet astronauts
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completed their missions
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before Project Mercury succeeded
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in making John Glenn the first American
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in orbit in February 1962.
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By this time, President Kennedy had realized
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that simply catching up
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to each Soviet advance a few months later
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wasn't going to cut it.
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The U.S. had to do something first,
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and in May 1961, a month after Gargarin's flight,
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he announced the goal
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of putting a man on the moon
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by the end of the 1960s.
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They succeeded in this through the Apollo program
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with Neil Armstrong taking his famous step
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on July 20, 1969.
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With both countries' next turning their attention
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to orbital space stations,
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there's no telling how much longer
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the space race could have gone on.
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But because of improving relations
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negotiated by Soviet Premier Leonid Breshnev
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and U.S. President Nixon,
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the U.S.S.R. and U.S. moved toward cooperation
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rather than competition.
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The successful joint mission,
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known as Apollo-Soyuz,
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in which an American Apollo spacecraft
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docked with a Soviet Soyuz craft
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and the two crews met,
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shook hands,
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and exchanged gifts,
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marked the end of the space race in 1975.
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So, in the end, what was the point
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of this whole space race?
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Was it just a massive waste of time?
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Two major superpowers trying to outdo each other
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by pursuing symbolic projects
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that were both dangerous and expensive,
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using resources that could have been
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better spent elsewhere?
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Well, sure, sort of,
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but the biggest benefits of the space program
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had nothing to do with one country beating another.
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During the space race,
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funding for research and education, in general,
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increased dramatically,
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leading to many advances
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that may not have otherwise been made.
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Many NASA technologies developed for space
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are now widely used in civilian life,
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from memory foam in mattresses
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to freeze-dried food,
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to LEDs in cancer treatment.
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And, of course, the satellites that we rely on
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for our GPS and mobile phone signals
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would not have been there
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without the space program.
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All of which goes to show
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that the rewards of scientific research and advancement
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are often far more vast
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than even the people pursuing them can imagine.