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The Cold War: The Space Race

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After the conclusion of World War II, tensions arose between the USSR and the US between 1947-1991. During World War II, the two powerful nations were unalike in most ways–geologically, ideologically, and economically– but were unified with their goal to defeat their common enemies. But, after World War II, both superpowers strove to prove superiority over the other. One important distinction between the two were their support of different governmental systems, which created a large amount of tension because the US, filled with anticommunist sentiments, wanted to contain the spread of communism while spreading the ideals of democracy. Amongst this conflict of ideals, the issues extended to military power competition, consisting of an arms …show more content…

Furthermore, one long-term impact of the Space Race is the improvement of foreign relations as joint efforts between the nations achieved far more with cooperation rather than competition. The Cold War was between two superpowers, both of which tried to compete with each other relying on their own nation’s resources, but in doing so they proved that both sides were capable of great feats. Therefore, when the war ended with a period of detente, the two nations teamed up in 1975 to launch the Apollo-Soyuz project, the first joint US- Soviet space mission. NASA astronauts in an Apollo Command and Service Module met Russian cosmonauts in a Soyuz capsule, but most notably a jointly designed docking module fulfilled the main mission, evidently showing that two different nations with different space-craft had the potential to both dock in orbit. Moreover, the mission itself allowed both sides to alter misconstrued perceptions of the others. US astronaut Vance Brand, who was on the crew said in an interview, “ we thought they were pretty aggressive people and… they probably thought we were monsters, so we very quickly broke through that, because when you deal with people that are in the same line of work as you are, and you’re around them for a short time, why, you discover that, well they’re human beings”(Brand). Significantly, his words suggest a possibility, which has now become a reality with collaboration on the International Space Station as one example. The ISS is a

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