Race to the space

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin became the first human in space. Since in this period of time the United States and the Soviet Union were big rivals in nearly every aspect of life, the Americans were crushed when they found out that they lost this “challenge”. Kennedy saw the success of the Soviet Union as a challenge to make it better. In less than a month, the Americans had duplicated the Soviet’s feat.

 In the same year, a satellite called “Telstar” sent live television pictures across the Atlantic from the States to Europe.

Meanwhile the NASA (America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration) constructed a new launch facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and a control center in Houston, Texas. Everybody remembers the famous line from the Apollo 11, which was in trouble in space and sent a help request with the words “Houston, we have a problem”.

Seven Years later, on July 1969 America celebrated a big success in space history: Neil Armstrong was the first person ever to walk on the moon.

There are live television pictures of the first steps on the moon. Some people believe, that this mission wasn’t real and that this was filmed in a studio. These conspiracy theories are mostly quiet now but in the early ‘70’s, a lot of people believed in them. 

Neil Armstrong on the moon, 1969