On July 20, 1969, the first human stepped foot on the moon thus ending the race between Russia and the United States. On the other hand, some have wondered if the moon race ever existed. Was it just a one-sided campaign by the United States with the Kennedy administration at the head? Was it a true race resulting from the Cold War to land the first man on the moon? Whatever the answers to these questions, the United States has clearly benefited from the moon landing. There were several factors and setbacks that lead to the momentous moon landing in 1969 by the Americans.
Moments after John F. Kennedy was sworn in as president of the United States, he presented a speech that moved most of America. Even today, those that hear a re-play of his inauguration speech feel the same excitement that filled the air on that day in 1961. President Kennedy was an eloquent speaker who appealed to the younger generation of the United States. He wanted to develop a program that would send Americans to the moon first. Walton's book quotes Kennedy, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth."
Contrary to President Kennedy's strong opinions, President Eisenhower did not see the necessity to explore space or even land on the moon in order to surpass the Russians. According to Giglio's book on the Kennedy administration, he wrote that Eisenhower "soon labeled a lunar space race as nothing more than an extravagant stunt." Despite his personal feelings, Eisenhower did establish NASA in July 1958 shortly before the Kennedy administration came to Washington.
The Kennedy administration began to push the race to the moon as a result of two main factors. First, the Soviet Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight that encircled the earth. This took place on April 12, 1961. In his book, Giglio wrote this "accomplishment Khrushchev eagerly exploited as another Communist triumph over a decaying capitalistic system." President Kennedy did not want the world to view the United States as a country lagging behind Communist Russia. This event alerted NASA officials that Russia had the capability to achieve a lunar landing also. If the United States had not prepared at this moment, the Russians might have again had on opportunity to come out ahead.
The other factor that helped initiate the race to the moon was the belief of a missile gap between the United States and Russia. Logsdon wrote that the Soviets had an "advantage in space rocketry" that "underlined fears in the U.S. that a missile gap existed...an issue that Kennedy belabored in the 1960 presidential campaign." Again, the communists seemed to be advancing more that the United States. This lead to a fear of what could happen if the United States did not take the lead in the world. The two great powers were in a struggle to prove which one was the superior. This struggle was not only between technologies, but also between democracy and communism. Giglio reasoned, "There would have been no race to the moon without the cold war; the space program became as much a part of that conflict as Cuba, Berlin, and Laos."
On April 20, 1961, President Kennedy began questioning his staff about the space program. He wanted a plan that would give America a win in space and return pride to its citizens. President Kennedy put Vice President Lyndon Johnson as the head of the space program. According to Logsdon, Kennedy asked Johnson, "Is there any...space program that promises dramatic results in which we could win?" Johnson then had a meeting with Wernher von Braun, a German rocket scientist who helped with the United States space program. Johnson responded to Kennedy's question that a lunar landing seemed the most probable campaign to give the United States a win in space. On May 25, Kennedy submitted the lunar landing program to Congress. Hence the race to the moon was well on its way.
The United States seemed to be gaining ground in early 1962 toward the goal to reach the moon. Astronaut John Glenn took his first flight around the moon in February on board a spacecraft called Friendship. The United States was on a course that propelled them toward the moon. NASA officials had the common objective of achieving a lunar landing, and each person was working toward reaching that goal. Nevertheless, Russian officials claimed that there was no such thing as a space race with them and the United States. They also denied that there was even a Soviet plan or desire to reach the moon. Despite these denials, the United States pressed on in what would be a rocky future.
On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was in Dallas because of the space program. Kauffman noted that "when Congress seemed intent on slashing NASA's budget in late 1963, Kennedy again took to the road, partly to call attention to the program by touring Cape Canaveral and other southern facilities." The death of President Kennedy was a complete shock that rippled across the country. President Lyndon Johnson however carried on with the plans for a lunar landing.
Another blow to NASA's Apollo project occurred on January 27, 1967. During a routine countdown, a fire ignited on the launch pad. Three men, Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee were killed. NASA officials conducted an investigation. According to Bergaust, "even as NASA's own investigators were sifting the evidence, alarming undercurrents were being heard from the public, even from technicians themselves: talk of incompetence, carelessness, shoddy practices--of near criminal proportions." Despite these suspicions, NASA investigators repaired the problems that had produced the fire.
Despite these two events, NASA administrators finally reached the goal they had set nearly a decade earlier. On July 20, 1969, American Neil Armstrong was the first man to literally step foot on the moon. It was a historic achievement by the United States. Logsdon noted that "the lunar landing constituted a persuasive demonstration of national will and technological capability for the United States."
The United States landing on the moon ended the lunar race with the Soviets. In 1989, a Soviet newspaper detailed Russia's involvement in a plan to land on the moon. Indeed, there was a moon race between the two great powers. The defeat was described by Logsdon, "the dissipation of the Soviet Union's lead in space during the 1960's tarnished the image of socialist competence and diminished soviet standing in world affairs." The United States regained the lead and citizens swelled with pride at the momentous occasion. Recently, Vice President Al Gore and NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin made agreements with Russian officials to join together in space exploration for future cooperation instead of competition.
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Assignment: Assign the following activities to students accordingly.
Planet Measurements:
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Assignment: Allow students to evaluate the "planets" sizes. Labeling each "planet" is needful. Optional requirement is to ask them to put the planets in order.
Evaluation: This activity could be set up as a individual work station that the students go to in their free time. Following are several example questions that they could answer as they evaluate the "planets:"
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Assignment: Ask students to stand in a large circle. Make sure they are arms-length apart. The teacher reads the following story, and the students complete the physical activities they hear.
Look up, up above and into the blue, have you ever wondered what it's like on the moon?
To look at the planets and the stars way up high, raise your arms up, up into the sky.
To ride in an airplane would be okay, but to ride in a space shuttle, oh what a day!
Get ready to go, sit down in your seat, but first you must bend and touch your two feet.
Now that we're ready, it's time for lift-off, but wait just a minute, there's one thing we forgot.
Stand up once again, and stretch your arms well, by making lots of circles, you're doing really swell.
Now we're ready, it's not time to rest, jump three times because lift-off's a success.
To see Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune we go, the moon, the earth, and don't forget Pluto.
Now high in the sky, the earth looks like a balloon, our first stop to make is at guess what? The moon!
What's that you say? Are you very thirsty? There's no water here so we better hurry.
On to Jupiter, it's very hot here, let's hop up and down, hey look, Saturn is near.
Three more hops and now we're on Saturn, don't stop now, we could make a pattern.
Okay, okay, I guess that's enough, we're in outer space, can you believe all this stuff?
Begin marching in place, we must go again, to see the smallest planet that's at the very end.
Pluto is it's name and it's far from the sun, stop marching now because it's time to run.
Lift your hands up and into the sky, try to catch a comet, there's a bunch flying by.
Stop running now and sit in your seat, exploring the planets has been really neat.
Take a deep breath and let it out slow, we forgot five planets, oh no, oh no!
That's okay, we can take another trip, one day when we're bored and when we need a good lift.
Let's go back to Earth now, clap three times in all, home again, home again, that's it, that's all.
Evaluation: It would be best to do this activity outside or in the gymnasium. Doing this activity in the classroom setting might disturb neighboring classes.
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Assignment: Begin discussing our galaxy, the Milky Way. This activity will help the students understand it better. The teacher gives each child one spoon and one plastic cup. Pour a small amount of the cold coffee in each plastic cup. Add a small amount of cream to each child's coffee while they stir it. The coffee represents dark space, and the cream represents our galaxy.
Evaluation: This activity would make a good introduction to studying galaxies. Ask the students to find the similarities between the coffee and cream and our galaxy. For example, why does this look like our galaxy?
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Evaluation: After this art and science activity, hang the pictures on a bullentin board in the classroom.
Allen, David. Sky: All About Planets, Stars, Galaxies, Eclipses and More. Toronto: Greey de Pencier, 1993.
Bergaust, Erik. Murder on Pad 34. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1968.
Couper, Heather and Nigel Henbest. "How the Universe Works." Reader's Digest. New York: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1994. Giglio, James N. The Presidency of John F. Kennedy. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1991.
Kauffman, James L. Selling Outer Space: Kennedy, the Media, and Funding for Project Apollo, 1961-1963. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1994.
Logsdon, John M., and Alain Dupas. "Was the Race to the Moon Real?" Scientific American 270 (June 1994): 36-44.
Walton, Richard J. Cold War and Counterrevolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1972.
