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The Space Race: Difference between revisions
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The immediate goal of both sides was not space exploration, but rather the development of better ICBM technology as a means of delivering nuclear weapons to each other's shores. Military demands were put ahead of any dreams anyone yet had about Moon-shots. For almost a decade, no serious attempt was made for any peaceful use of space vehicles as both sides focused on improving rockets for use as weapons platforms. But by the mid 1950s, it was apparent that the technology needed to put a warhead into space could also be repurposed to put up a man-made satellite, and this would be a PR-bonanza to whichever side in the emerging [[Cold War]] could accomplish it first.
The [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower]] Administration announced the U.S. desire to launch such a satellite on July 29th of 1955, with the Soviet Union following 4 days later. The Space Race was on.
'''The Race to Low Earth Orbit'''
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'''The Race to the Moon'''
In 1961 President [[John F. Kennedy]] had announced his vision of a US lunar landing by the end of the decade (1969). Since then, the Moon had been the ultimate goal in the Space Race. Now with the success of Mercury behind them, the US got serious in making this a reality. It was soon realized that there would be a lot of complex tasks involved when it came to landing men on the Moon; there were questions of orbital docking and navigation, flights with multiple crew, extravehicular activities (EVAs, otherwise known as "spacewalks," etc.) and so embarked on the Gemini program to explore these areas. Gemini involved a larger, two-man capsule (although it was very small and uncomfortable for the astronauts) put into orbit on top of a Titan booster. There were 10 manned Gemini missions in 1965 and 1966, gaining valuable experience. This ultimately would lead to the Apollo program, with the sole intent of putting men on the Moon. Apollo would also require a new three-man capsule, a Lunar-landing craft and construction of the largest rocket ever built to launch them, the famous Saturn V.
The Soviets didn't rest on their laurels either. Once the Vostok series was done, they modified the capsule into a two-crew version, the Voskhod series. They also performed the first spacewalk, again, ahead of the Americans. Around this time the Soviets also managed to get the first unmanned probe to actually land on the moon (Luna 9 in 1966). Later, they landed a spacecraft with a remote-controlled moon rover and also launched three successful sample-and-return missions. Despite these successes, their actual manned Moon program was beset by various problems virtually from the start.
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For example, after the successful Venus series, Soviet scientists felt that they now had an experience advantage and embarked on an ambitious program of studying the Martian satellite Phobos, creating a complex and sophisticated series of ''Phobos'' spacecraft.
Unfortunately, all three of them <ref>The later and also failed ''Mars-96'' probe was based on a repurposed ''Phobos'' hardware.</ref> failed for various reasons. ''Phobos-1'' turned off its attitude engines and lost the ability to point its solar panels to the Sun, quickly depleting its batteries, because of the error in the command upload [[Idiot Programming
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