1
00:00:06,655 --> 00:00:09,547
On October 4, 1957,

2
00:00:09,547 --> 00:00:12,439
the world watched in awe and fear

3
00:00:12,439 --> 00:00:15,133
as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik,

4
00:00:15,133 --> 00:00:17,442
the world's first man-made satellite,

5
00:00:17,442 --> 00:00:18,743
into space.

6
00:00:19,434 --> 00:00:20,982
This little metal ball,

7
00:00:20,982 --> 00:00:23,072
smaller than two feet in diameter,

8
00:00:23,072 --> 00:00:24,865
launched a space race

9
00:00:24,865 --> 00:00:27,190
between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.

10
00:00:27,190 --> 00:00:29,214
that would last for eighteen years

11
00:00:29,214 --> 00:00:31,906
and change the world as we know it.

12
00:00:31,906 --> 00:00:34,045
Sputnik was actually not the first piece

13
00:00:34,045 --> 00:00:36,225
of human technology to enter space.

14
00:00:36,225 --> 00:00:38,967
That superlative goes to the V-2 rocket

15
00:00:38,967 --> 00:00:41,012
used by Germany in missile attacks

16
00:00:41,012 --> 00:00:43,357
against Allied cities as a last-ditch effort

17
00:00:43,366 --> 00:00:45,752
in the final years of World War II.

18
00:00:45,752 --> 00:00:47,238
It wasn't very effective,

19
00:00:47,238 --> 00:00:48,943
but, at the end of the war,

20
00:00:48,943 --> 00:00:51,733
both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had captured

21
00:00:51,733 --> 00:00:54,730
the technology and the scientists that had developed it

22
00:00:54,730 --> 00:00:57,577
and began using them for their own projects.

23
00:00:57,577 --> 00:00:59,510
And by August 1957,

24
00:00:59,510 --> 00:01:01,253
the Soviet's successfully tested

25
00:01:01,253 --> 00:01:05,670
the first intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7,

26
00:01:05,670 --> 00:01:06,665
the same rocket that would be used

27
00:01:06,665 --> 00:01:09,101
to launch Sputnik two months later.

28
00:01:09,101 --> 00:01:10,659
So, the scary thing about Sputnik

29
00:01:10,659 --> 00:01:12,562
was not the orbiting ball itself,

30
00:01:12,562 --> 00:01:14,511
but the fact that the same technology

31
00:01:14,511 --> 00:01:18,063
could be used to launch a nuclear warhead at any city.

32
00:01:18,063 --> 00:01:20,116
Not wanting to fall too far behind,

33
00:01:20,116 --> 00:01:22,160
President Eisenhower ordered the Navy

34
00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:23,687
to speed up its own project

35
00:01:23,687 --> 00:01:26,724
and launch a satellite as soon as possible.

36
00:01:26,724 --> 00:01:29,730
So, on December 6, 1957,

37
00:01:29,730 --> 00:01:31,480
excited people across the nation

38
00:01:31,480 --> 00:01:33,721
tuned in to watch the live broadcast

39
00:01:33,721 --> 00:01:37,351
as the Vanguard TV3 satellite took off

40
00:01:37,351 --> 00:01:40,260
and crashed to the ground two seconds later.

41
00:01:40,260 --> 00:01:42,568
The Vanguard failure was a huge embarassment

42
00:01:42,568 --> 00:01:44,209
for the United States.

43
00:01:44,209 --> 00:01:45,526
Newspapers printed headlines like,

44
00:01:45,526 --> 00:01:47,830
"Flopnik" and "Kaputnik."

45
00:01:47,830 --> 00:01:50,989
And a Soviet delegate at the U.N. mockingly suggested

46
00:01:50,989 --> 00:01:53,068
that the U.S. should receive foreign aid

47
00:01:53,068 --> 00:01:55,143
for developing nations.

48
00:01:56,404 --> 00:01:58,258
Fortunately, the Army had been working

49
00:01:58,258 --> 00:02:01,015
on their own parallel project, The Explorer,

50
00:02:01,015 --> 00:02:05,483
which was successfully launched in January 1958,

51
00:02:05,483 --> 00:02:07,547
but the U.S. had barely managed to catch up

52
00:02:07,547 --> 00:02:09,438
before they were surpassed again

53
00:02:09,438 --> 00:02:12,362
as Yuri Gargarin became the first man in space

54
00:02:12,362 --> 00:02:15,575
in April 1961.

55
00:02:15,575 --> 00:02:16,729
Almost a year passed

56
00:02:16,729 --> 00:02:18,677
and several more Soviet astronauts

57
00:02:18,677 --> 00:02:19,824
completed their missions

58
00:02:19,824 --> 00:02:21,742
before Project Mercury succeeded

59
00:02:21,742 --> 00:02:24,100
in making John Glenn the first American

60
00:02:24,100 --> 00:02:27,699
in orbit in February 1962.

61
00:02:31,346 --> 00:02:33,489
By this time, President Kennedy had realized

62
00:02:33,489 --> 00:02:34,743
that simply catching up

63
00:02:34,743 --> 00:02:37,233
to each Soviet advance a few months later

64
00:02:37,233 --> 00:02:38,640
wasn't going to cut it.

65
00:02:38,640 --> 00:02:41,153
The U.S. had to do something first,

66
00:02:41,153 --> 00:02:44,869
and in May 1961, a month after Gargarin's flight,

67
00:02:44,869 --> 00:02:46,184
he announced the goal

68
00:02:46,184 --> 00:02:47,825
of putting a man on the moon

69
00:02:47,825 --> 00:02:50,224
by the end of the 1960s.

70
00:02:50,224 --> 00:02:52,962
They succeeded in this through the Apollo program

71
00:02:52,962 --> 00:02:55,442
with Neil Armstrong taking his famous step

72
00:02:55,442 --> 00:02:58,784
on July 20, 1969.

73
00:02:58,784 --> 00:03:01,040
With both countries' next turning their attention

74
00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:02,851
to orbital space stations,

75
00:03:02,851 --> 00:03:04,489
there's no telling how much longer

76
00:03:04,489 --> 00:03:06,936
the space race could have gone on.

77
00:03:06,936 --> 00:03:08,549
But because of improving relations

78
00:03:08,549 --> 00:03:11,316
negotiated by Soviet Premier Leonid Breshnev

79
00:03:11,316 --> 00:03:13,064
and U.S. President Nixon,

80
00:03:13,064 --> 00:03:16,283
the U.S.S.R. and U.S. moved toward cooperation

81
00:03:16,283 --> 00:03:18,294
rather than competition.

82
00:03:18,294 --> 00:03:19,996
The successful joint mission,

83
00:03:19,996 --> 00:03:21,548
known as Apollo-Soyuz,

84
00:03:21,548 --> 00:03:23,528
in which an American Apollo spacecraft

85
00:03:23,528 --> 00:03:25,865
docked with a Soviet Soyuz craft

86
00:03:25,865 --> 00:03:27,415
and the two crews met,

87
00:03:27,415 --> 00:03:28,065
shook hands,

88
00:03:28,065 --> 00:03:29,285
and exchanged gifts,

89
00:03:29,285 --> 00:03:33,264
marked the end of the space race in 1975.

90
00:03:33,264 --> 00:03:34,892
So, in the end, what was the point

91
00:03:34,892 --> 00:03:36,438
of this whole space race?

92
00:03:36,438 --> 00:03:38,729
Was it just a massive waste of time?

93
00:03:38,729 --> 00:03:41,052
Two major superpowers trying to outdo each other

94
00:03:41,052 --> 00:03:42,880
by pursuing symbolic projects

95
00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:44,889
that were both dangerous and expensive,

96
00:03:44,889 --> 00:03:46,221
using resources that could have been

97
00:03:46,221 --> 00:03:48,047
better spent elsewhere?

98
00:03:48,047 --> 00:03:50,228
Well, sure, sort of,

99
00:03:50,228 --> 00:03:52,041
but the biggest benefits of the space program

100
00:03:52,041 --> 00:03:55,469
had nothing to do with one country beating another.

101
00:03:55,469 --> 00:03:56,699
During the space race,

102
00:03:56,699 --> 00:03:59,348
funding for research and education, in general,

103
00:03:59,348 --> 00:04:00,848
increased dramatically,

104
00:04:00,848 --> 00:04:02,164
leading to many advances

105
00:04:02,164 --> 00:04:04,334
that may not have otherwise been made.

106
00:04:04,334 --> 00:04:06,761
Many NASA technologies developed for space

107
00:04:06,761 --> 00:04:09,334
are now widely used in civilian life,

108
00:04:09,334 --> 00:04:11,080
from memory foam in mattresses

109
00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:12,906
to freeze-dried food,

110
00:04:12,906 --> 00:04:15,445
to LEDs in cancer treatment.

111
00:04:15,445 --> 00:04:17,703
And, of course, the satellites that we rely on

112
00:04:17,703 --> 00:04:19,890
for our GPS and mobile phone signals

113
00:04:19,890 --> 00:04:20,950
would not have been there

114
00:04:20,950 --> 00:04:22,619
without the space program.

115
00:04:22,619 --> 00:04:23,890
All of which goes to show

116
00:04:23,890 --> 00:04:26,567
that the rewards of scientific research and advancement

117
00:04:26,567 --> 00:04:28,007
are often far more vast

118
00:04:28,007 --> 00:04:31,089
than even the people pursuing them can imagine.