83.6kg metal sphere makes the US 'wake up': Beep beep scares White House officials

Cold War tensions between the US and the Soviet Union prompted a technological sprint into space - culminating in the historic 1969 Moon landing.

Tensions were high at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the morning of April 12, 1961, as the Soviet Union prepared to send the first man into space.

Of the 16 previous attempts to launch the Soviet Vostok rocket into orbit, half of them failed.

Two of the space program's top engineers are said to have been sedated on April 12 of that year as they waited for the plane to take off at the Kazakhstan launch pad. But Yuri Gagarin remained calm in the compartment of the Orient spacecraft on top of the rocket.

After months of rigorous physical and technical training, the 27-year-old cosmonaut was selected for the historic flight. Smart, hard-working and popular with his teammates, these are the outstanding characteristics of Yuri Gagarin that doctors of the Soviet Air Force identified; and he was also noted by Asif Siddiqi - a Bangladeshi-American space historian - that "Gagarin understood life better than many of his peers".

At 9:07 a.m. on April 12, 1961, Gagarin shouted "Poyekhali!" - means "Let's go!" in Russian - when the rocket takes off.

He recounted his experience to those on the ground when the rocket accelerated to a terrifying speed of 27,358 km/h that pushed him back to his seat. "I see the Earth. Everything is wonderful and beautiful."

Moments later, the Soviet cosmonaut became the first person in human history to fly in space, and 89 minutes after launch, Yuri Gagarin was the first to orbit the planet.

It was an extremely important "golden moment" in the space race between the US and the Soviet Union - the key to the Americans who later put humans on the Moon for the first time in the late 1960s. .

However, that's not where the story of human flight into space really begins: That trajectory had been charted years earlier by another Soviet success.

Fear of America: The Race Begins

Despite being allies during the Second World War, the US and the Soviet Union grew increasingly suspicious of each other when the war ended in 1945. The US has just demonstrated its ability to destroy entire cities by dropping atomic bombs. Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force the surrender of Japan. Thus sparked the Cold War, where the US and the Soviet Union vie for world domination.

To demonstrate their superior technological capabilities, both countries began building massive nuclear arsenals and missiles capable of hitting targets around the world. In the mid-1950s, both countries announced plans to use these rockets to propel artificial satellites into space. While the United States was scheduled to launch Project Vanguard in 1958, the Soviet Union was quietly determined to defeat the United States.

On October 4, 1957, the world was surprised when the Soviet Union announced that it had launched a natural satellite called Sputnik 1, Russian for "companion" into Earth's orbit to the surprise of the Earth. industry of America. Although the Sputnik 1 satellite was no larger than a beach ball and its technical capabilities were limited, the event was enough to frighten Americans when they heard a "beep, beep, beep" radio signal when it flies overhead.

Sputnik 1 - The first artificial satellite in history, built by the Soviet Union. Sputnik 1 weighs nearly 84 kg, has a diameter of 58 cm, two pairs of antennas are 2.4-2.9 meters long.

President Dwight Eisenhower at the time had concerns of his own. White House officials worried about whether the world would view the Soviet Union as the more advanced superpower. They wrote in a report that the launch of the first artificial satellite in the history of Sputnik 1 would "create enduring myths, legends and superstitions of a kind that are particularly difficult to erase or modify, which the Soviet Union had to can exploit many advantages for themselves".

Obviously, that tiny, 58-centimeter-diameter, 83.6-kilogram Soviet metal sphere made of aluminum could make America wobble with fear. Fear that the Soviet space position would make American power in the eyes of the world disappear.

Not wanting to make space concessions to the Soviet Union, the United States established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in July 1958 and began to seriously pursue space flight.

Yuri Gagarin & Alan Shepard

Human space travel was not a novel concept in the 1950s. The United States had launched rockets that sent animals - including fruit flies and Rhesus monkeys - into suborbital space since the late 1940s, during the late 1940s. when the Soviet Union started launching dogs in 1951.

Just a few weeks after launching Sputnik 1 in 1957, the Soviet Union sent a dog named Laika into orbit. Laika died within hours of the flight from heat and stress.

The launch of animals into space is a prerequisite mission, because the real goal is to send humans into space.

In 1958, NASA launched Project Mercury with three specific goals: Put an American in orbit around the Earth, to investigate the human body's ability to withstand space flight; and bring both the spacecraft and the astronauts home safely. The ultimate goal: Get all of this done before the Soviets.

However, once again the Soviet Union proved to be the leader. Yuri Gagarin's historic flight took place ONE MONTH BEFORE American astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space on May 5, 1961. Despite the 15-minute suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7's Freedom 7 spacecraft. Alan Shepard was a milestone - watched by millions of television viewers - it was overshadowed by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's circumnavigation of the Earth.

Two legendary Soviet and American cosmonauts: Yuri Gagarin (left, Soviet Union) and Alan Shepard (USA).

Weeks after Alan Shepard's flight, President John F. Kennedy stood before a joint session of the US Congress, admitting that the United States had not given space exploration the right value. He announced his intention to make space exploration his top goal and presented an unprecedented challenge: America must put a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s!

"No single space project of this period will impress humanity more, or be more important to long-range space exploration; and none will be too difficult or expensive to complete. into," he said. "In a very real sense, it won't be just one man on the Moon — if we make this claim affirmative, it would be an entire nation."

The race of "the eight-pounder, the half-pounder"

Before NASA can venture to the Moon, however, NASA scientists and engineers have much to learn. The space agency promoted Project Mercury, which made astronaut John Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth in February 1962. In May 1963, Gordon Cooper completed orbital flight 22, a journey that took about 34 hours and 20 minutes - making him the first American to spend a full day in space, and the first sleep in space.

However, a month later, the Soviet Union gave the US a "headache": Soviet cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky spent 4 days and 23 hours in space - holding the record for the longest solo flight in space. space - and Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union became the first woman in space.

After Project Mercury, NASA enhanced its spaceflight capabilities with Project Gemini. Considered a bridge to the Moon, the goal of Project Gemini is to rendezvous and dock in lunar orbit, examine atmospheric penetration activities, and determine how space travel affects how human.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union continued to set new miracles. In March 1965, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became a spacewalker. The trip lasts 12 minutes and 9 seconds, at an altitude of 500km; The spacewalk is particularly difficult: Alexei Leonov's spacesuit is too stiff, making his mission back to the spacecraft troublesome. Fortunately, Alexei Leonov handled it intelligently, in time to survive the unprecedented mission in the history of travel.

Ten weeks later, on June 3, 1965, Ed White became the first American to walk in space.

Then the United States began to have the upper hand over the Soviet Union: In December 1965, astronauts aboard Gemini 7 set the record for the most time spent in space during a two-day mission. week. Gemini 8 set a record when two spaceships connected in orbit in 1966 - although a glitch caused the spacecraft to spin out of control, 35-year-old commander Neil Armstrong recovered in narrowly.

After 10 crewed flights over 5 years, Project Gemini ended with the Gemini 12 mission on November 15, 1966 — a mission in which Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin set a record of 5 hours and 30 minutes of discovery. outside the spaceship.

It's finally time for the Americans to go to the Moon.

Historical Footprints on the Moon

In conducting the Gemini missions, NASA began developing spacecraft for the Apollo program. The spacecraft consists of one command/service module that will fly to the Moon and enter orbit, the other a Lunar module that will land on the Moon and then reconnect. with the command module to return to Earth.

Still, the American Apollo program got off to a tragic start.

On January 27, 1967, astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire on the launch pad during a ground test for the mission scheduled for February together. their year. An investigation concluded that the fire originated from a short circuit in the electrical wiring near Gus Grissom's seat, and that the fire spread rapidly due to the high concentration of oxygen and combustible materials in the cabin.

After a lengthy re-evaluation of the spacecraft's design and safety, the first Apollo crew was carried out on October 11, 1968, when Apollo 7 entered Earth's orbit.

The mission was followed by the first flight to the Moon, more than 370,149 km away. Before Apollo 8, the furthest human being from Earth was about 1,367 km. The crew orbited the Moon 10 times between December 24 and December 25, 1968. The three astronauts were the first to see the far side of the Moon with their own eyes and watch as the Earth rose above the Moon's horizon.

The Apollo 9 mission in March 1969 was the first flight to carry a lunar module, testing a spacecraft in Earth orbit. Apollo 10 in May 1969 sent the lunar module to the Moon and descended within 15 km of this natural satellite's surface.

Finally on July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 made history. On their fifth day in space, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin prepare to land a lunar module called Eagle on the lunar surface. They hit the surface at exactly 3:17 p.m. Houston time on July 20 — and a few hours later, at 9:56 p.m., Neil Armstrong became the first man in history to set foot on the Moon.

After that historic moment, the American astronaut had a very famous saying: "This is a small step for man, but a great step for mankind".

Over the next two hours, Armstrong and Aldrin collected rock samples and set up experiments. They left an American flag on the surface of the Moon with a sign that read: "We come for peace for all mankind."

Next Discover

After the historic resounding success of Apollo 11, the United States made five more successful crewed trips to the surface of the Moon in the following years. Astronauts collected samples, performed science experiments, and tested a lunar rover. The program ended in December 1972 with Apollo 17, which saw astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spend more than 3 days on the Moon.

After a successful mission to the Moon, the US and the Soviet Union began to cooperate. In 1975, the nations launched their first joint mission, Apollo-Soyuz, in which American and Soviet spacecraft successfully docked together while in orbit - allowing the crew to Their encounters in space. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US and Russia continued their partnership in space, working together to build the International Space Station (ISS).

Several countries have since made unmanned trips to the Moon, and the US remains the only country to have astronauts set foot on the lunar surface. NASA plans to return astronauts to the Moon by 2025 with its Artemis Program, and other countries such as China also plan to send humans to the Moon in the coming years or decades.

In the future, humans may venture to Mars. Such a journey would require unprecedented technologies.

As the late US President JF Kennedy told the nation in a speech in 1962: "We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon this decade and do other wonderful things, not because it's easy but because it's hard, because that goal will serve to best organize and measure the energy and skills of us Americans, for that challenge we are willing to accept, without delay, and had to win at the last minute."