The Space Race: Sputnik, ICBMs
- In 1957 the Soviets launch the first Earth-orbiting satellite named Sputnik
- About the size of a basketball and only made beeps
- People feared that atomic weapons would soon be delivered without airplanes
- This gave the USSR an upper hand and they began to demand concessions
ICBMs and Delivery Systems
- (ICBM) Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile
- MIRVs (Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles)
- Nuclear submarines
- M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction)
- Pre-emptive Strike
- SAC (Strategic Air Command) planes flying 24 hours a day
Summary
After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle pitted the world's two great powers–the democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union–against each other. Beginning in the late 1950s, space would become another dramatic arena for this competition, as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower and–by extension–its political-economic system. The Soviets won the space race.