The Space Race The United States and the Soviet Union were in a heated competition It became known as the space race Each country wanted to prove it had better technology Rockets could lift spacecraft into orbit PERSPECTIVES HUMAN COMPUTERS Many black women worked as human computers at NASA They made calculations for space flights Then NASA purchased machine computers Women computers including Annie Easley learned how to program them They made important calculations for the Apollo program Easley said of the work Maybe we put time into something that we figured it won’t work But that was not a waste It was research The achievement made a statement about a country’s military because the same rockets could carry bombs Space technology was also military technology The space race had begun in October 1957 The Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite It was called Sputnik The spacecraft was
only the size of a beach ball But launching it was an impressive feat The United States worked hard to catch up It created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA in 1958 By 1961 the Soviet Union was still ahead Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space on April 12 US astronaut Alan Shepard flew weeks later His flight lasted just 15 minutes This was all the space experience NASA had when Kennedy made his bold challenge Shepard’s flight showed astronauts CIVIL RIGHTS President Kennedy’s vice president was Lyndon B Johnson who saw a connection between the space program and civil rights Many NASA facilities were in the South In the 1960s segregation and discrimination were severe in this part of the country Johnson felt this was partly because the region was so poor Johnson believed that going to the moon would create many skilled high paying jobs He hoped that improving the economy would help advance civil rights too
could survive in space Next came the Gemini program Astronauts practiced steps needed for the moon landing program Apollo Apollo Each Apollo moon landing had the same basic plan Three astronauts would climb into a cone-shaped ship This was the command module Attached to it was the service module The service module supplied air water and electricity It also had a large rocket engine The key to the mission was the lunar module This spiderlike craft had four legs It had two rocket engines One slowed the ship for landing The other lifted the astronauts off the moon Together the three modules were called the Apollo spacecraft A massive Saturn V rocket boosted the Apollo spacecraft toward the moon The trip took three days In the moon’s orbit the astronauts split up Two went into the lunar module One stayed behind in the command module The pair in the lunar module landed
STEPS IN A LUNAR MISSION There are many steps to a successful lunar mission Look at these steps carefully What would happen if one of them was left out 12 1 13 2 Outbound 1 Spacecraft launches 2 Spacecraft leaves Earth’s orbit 3 Spacecraft slows down and enters Lunar orbit 4 Command module CM and Lunar module LM separate 5 CM orbits moon 6 LM descends 7 LM lands 3 9 4 5 10 8 7 6 11 Inbound 8 LM launches 9 CM and LM connect 10 Astronauts enter CM LM is left behind 11 CM leaves Lunar orbit 12 CM reenters Earth’s orbit 13 CM lands
