What is there beyond the earth? Is there a whole new race of living beings out there? Well, these are a few of the thundering questions on the minds of scientists whose curiosity urged them to build one of the world’s first man-made objects that were sent to space! Opening up a window of opportunities ,a space of abundant resources and our only choice for environmental restoration. A whole new world still waiting to be explored. It all hit the human race with the end of World War 2. The allies and the Soviet Union formed themselves locked in antagonizing. As they poured over the Nazi war machinery , they found incredible advancement in rocketry and aerospace engineering.
With these findings the Soveit Union triggered the space race by the launch of the first man-made space probe “Sputnik 1” in 1947.For many decades to follow the stale continued as both sides struggled to make advances in space technology and space exploration. The uniqueness of this race is that there is no defined finish line to end exploration, there are infinitely more phenomena, extraterrestrial life and objects in the universe that will never stop the curiosity of humans .Although there has been various technologies ,machinery and revolutionary minds put together formed the team to find out what's their outside our atmosphere the race has become a whole new field of development not only technologically but a wholesome step forward for mankind.
We first started off with space probes .Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite to be launched. It was a metal ball with 4 radio aerials sticking out of it. Being powered by zinc batteries the objective of this satellite was to test the method of placing an artificial satellite into Earth orbit; provide information on the density of the atmosphere by calculating its lifetime in orbit; test radio and optical methods of orbital tracking, determine the effects of radio wave propagation through the atmosphere; and, check principles of pressurization used on the satellites. It was launched on R-7 military rocket and consisted of two radios transmitters fitted under the inner shell and a thermometer to monitor the temperature.
Then we moved on to sending astronauts to space . Within 20yrs in 1961 ,Vostok 1 lifted Yuri Gagarin into space making him the first human to travel into space. His orbit was 1hr and 48mins in what was a dangerous mission. In two years the first woman cosmonaut Valantina Tereshkova was launched on a solo mission aboard Vostok 6. She spent more than 70hrs orbiting the earth.
We then started the research of our closest celestial object, the moon . It was during the Gemini missions the first extravehicular activity was performed creating a major milestone in space advancements. The first space walk was on march 18, 1965 when Ed White went out into space for 10 long minutes. Upon the Apollo 11 ,Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins flew into the lunar orbit. After intense research and observation of the lunar surface humans were assigned the mission. On 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first to set foot on the lunar surface. “That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” Neil Armstrong said as he stepped out of the space shuttle.
As described above it was not more of a race but a series of milestones and revolutionary events which quenched the human’s thirst for exploration and curiosity. It was not only the two countries constantly developing in space technology but in 1965 France also launched its first satellite Fr-2 on the rocket Diamant A from Hammaguir, Algeria. Then Japan launched its satellite involving the wester world in space technology. They launched Ohsumi in 1970 via tank L-15-5 rocket from the Kogoshina space centre. Following them China and United Kingdom launched their satellites .Even our then developing country India launched Aryabhatta with collaboration of USSR .This way many countries entered the space age.
The space age did start with a war, but it has not stayed that way. Now all the countries are collaborating in space activities through the International space station, a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA, and CSA. The ownership and use of the space station is established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements.
The space race did not only start a new era of discoveries ,inventions ,technological enhancements and learnings of our place in this abundant universe but it has taught all of mankind that only in peace and collaboration can we move and constantly strive for a developed world.
-Bharathi Senthilkumar
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