Race into space

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Soviet "ASAT satellite" , around 1960s
“Man-Made Threats”. Graphic from the US Department of Defense 2000/2001 shows possible threats from space weapons .

The space race is the name given to the technical development of space travel staged in a competitive manner between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s .

In the Cold War , the political and ideological contradictions of the two competing systems, combined with the arms race, found a further arena: space . The term “space race” was coined for this by the mass media .

Largely unnoticed by the public, this staged "race" began in 1955 with the announcement by US President Eisenhower that he would launch orbiting satellites into space, followed by a letter of intent from the Soviet Union. According to different opinions, it ended with the first US moon landing in 1969, with the joint Apollo-Soyuz project in 1975 or with the end of the Cold War. However, the term is still used in the media to date to various processes, including those outside of this period. Since the end of the 2010s there has been talk of a new "race to the moon" between different states.

Motifs

Put simply, this "race" was driven by two motivations:

  • Propagandist motives: Both parties wanted to prove their own technical superiority in order to demonstrate the superiority of their own social system .
  • Military motives: Even the aggregate 4 - rocket had in World War II proved their effectiveness. It was a bad investment from a military point of view, as it was imprecise and its production was very expensive. Due to its high speed, however, it could not be intercepted. With Sputnik it was proven that it is possible to transport an object from one's own hinterland over that of the enemy, and this also around the globe. The space programs were therefore closely linked to the military aspects of the Cold War from the outset.

background

The rocket know-how in both camps - East and West - was largely recruited from rocket experts who had worked on the military rocket program on the German side in Peenemünde during World War II . At the end of the war, these experts, the rocket objects and the documents fell to both camps as spoils of war, so to speak. As part of Operation Overcast and subsequent programs, Wernher von Braun - main organizer of the American Apollo moon travel program in the 1960s  - and some of his employees ( Hans Fichtner , Walter Häussermann and Oscar Holderer ) were brought to the USA. The Soviet Union undertook similar efforts with the Ossawakim action . The unit 4 formed the basis on both sides for the further development of rockets that could actually carry a payload into space.

Wernher von Braun was a skilled marketing strategist and achieved a collaboration with Walt Disney . In March 1955, the short film Man in Space was broadcast for the first time. In it, von Braun explains, among other things, the general functioning of rockets and what influences space travelers should be able to withstand. With 42 million viewers, the film is the second most successful show of all time on US television. The television production drew two sequels in which he also had a say.

Although the world public had long assumed that the two superpowers were in a race - or rather: competition - into space, it was only Kennedy's speech on May 25, 1961 that provided official confirmation.

In the first few years the Soviet Union dominated in space, later the USA could at least keep up technologically. With the manned landing on the moon, they were even able to win the race in the public eye. Generally speaking, the “space race” can be interpreted as the last major utopian project of the faith in science and the optimism of progress in historical modernism.

Procedure and aspects

Sputnik 1 and "Sputnik shock"

The “race” of the superpowers towards the cosmos began in mid-1955. It was heralded by US President Eisenhower's announcement that, as part of the “ International Geophysical Year ” - which was planned for 1957/58 - small artificial satellites orbiting the earth , as he said, to send into space for scientific purposes. The next day the big opponent followed suit with an identical declaration of intent. Little attention was paid to this in the West. On this side of the Iron Curtain, the Soviet Union was disparagingly viewed as hopelessly backward - especially in the technical sector.

The Soviet Sputnik 1 satellite was the first in orbit on October 4, 1957. The event, together with two failed test runs of the Vanguard project on the US side, allegedly led to a shock in the western world and fueled the competition for first successes in space travel. The Americans then started a number of new projects, which resulted in the launch of Explorer 1 and the founding of DARPA and NASA .

Contrary to today's opinion in the media, however, before this event there was no excessive hectic to achieve initial successes in space travel. The Americans took their time, for example in preparing for the launch of the Vanguard satellite, which was also due to launch that fall. With regard to Western Europe, there is no such thing as a sudden shock. Some technical details about the satellite could already be found in the press for those interested.

The public in West Germany in particular was not shocked by the satellite, as the Soviet Army had been in the middle of Germany for twelve years. It was generally considered to be a less singular, spectacular and far less significant major event, even though it was popularized some time later. Space enjoyed cross-class popularity in the early 1950s and the level of knowledge about it was low among the population. For example, it was expected that huge burning mirrors would be installed in near-earth orbit, as well as permanent colonization of the moon and Mars in the near future. There was widespread hope of regular contact with extraterrestrial life forms. Such “cosmic visions” have been propagated by increasingly internationally networked semi-professional space enthusiasts since the 1920s. The widespread optimism for progress was subdued, especially in the FRG, and publicly expressed doubts about it were commonplace. The first human-hand satellite was able to mark at least a turning point here, and the belief, widespread in the western world, that the political superiority of a model of society can be seen in its technical successes, was reinforced. In the German press, among other things, a collective loss of innocence was predicted in connection with the new technical developments. The historians John Krige and Joachim Radkau : At that time politicians considered space to be militarily insignificant. They only began to take an interest in him commercially in the 1990s, primarily in the telecommunications sector.

In the GDR, the satellite and its first success were presented positively and quickly made it popular. The fact was also heavily used for propaganda purposes and interest in space travel topics increased in general.

The US press and politics quickly became outcry. Of an "ultimate weapon", of a "missile gap", comparable to the alleged so-called bomber gap between the USA and its adversary, of an "education gap" and comparisons with " Pearl Harbor 1941 " was spoken there very directly. In this way, the arms spiral was further promoted and propagandistically supported.

President Eisenhower knew from spy flights that his own nuclear potential, including ICBMs, still far exceeded that of the Soviet Union. Although the USSR now apparently had missiles with intercontinental range at its disposal, it still had an additional advantage, the superior long-range bomber fleet of the US Air Force . Massive pressure from the media and politics finally forced Eisenhower to plan billions in spending on armaments and education. He later said himself that two thirds of the extra spending was only necessary to reassure the public. As representative opinion polls by Gallup suggest, there was no evidence of a shock in the population at the time. Only half of those questioned in surveys had even heard of satellite technology before the Sputnik launch. The majority therefore assumed that this earth satellite would be used for peaceful and meaningful purposes. Despite these calm reactions from the population, the impression of a “Sputnik shock” later shaped public opinion . This is explained by the fact that research institutes and schools tried to get funding worth billions by putting pressure on the president. This is how the military saw it, too, and benefited from the armament hysteria that had sparked . The low level of knowledge about space travel among the general public was one reason why it was initially a pure panic of the elite.

In the middle of the Cold War, the much-touted “Golden Age of Space Travel” with Sputnik was provisionally at the end and not at the beginning, as has often been shown. The age of space travel had long since begun, and many illusions were now disappearing. The immediately subsequent normalization and instrumentalization of space travel, also in political and institutional terms, was given a massive boost with Sputnik.

The history professor Asif Azam Siddiqi describes the Sputnik requirements as follows:

“The fact that this achievement was provided by the USSR, a country totally devastated by war only sixteen years ago, makes this achievement even more impressive. In contrast to the United States, the Soviet Union began from a position of enormous disadvantage. The industrial infrastructure had been destroyed and its technological capabilities outdated at best. (...) and it had lost about 25 million of its citizens. "

Initially, the Russians had not exploited Sputnik's success on a large scale in their own country. They were extremely astonished by the strong reaction, especially in the West. Khrushchev recognized a possible double benefit from the great space travel publicity: on the one hand to demonstrate the superiority of the socialist system through achievements in space , but also on the other hand to show that he had a powerful launcher in his arsenal with which he could use a nuclear weapon as a payload at the most distant Could shoot points on earth. The head of state knew next to nothing about space and rockets initially only interested him if they could be equipped with nuclear warheads in the form of military weapons. The later great media impact of the first success caught the Soviet propaganda machine unprepared and demonstrated how wrongly it had assessed its own image in the Western perception. In a New York Times interview, Khrushchev explained his reaction to the successful satellite launch with provocatively cool words: “No, I did not see it. [...] I congratulated the entire engineering team on this outstanding success and went to sleep. "

Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler , then chief commentator of the GDR radio , expressed his triumph over the propaganda coup quite openly. Just one year after the bloody popular uprising in Hungary , he linked the space success with military threat potential:

“It's not a bluff, it's not propaganda: there really is this artificial moon - and it's a Soviet one. The new findings and achievements show what man can do, that reaching for the stars is not a utopia. At the same time, however, we see that this knowledge and the level of knowledge and ability in the socialist camp are also suitable for cooling down the aggressiveness of the hotspurs and ensuring peaceful development in the countries of socialism. "

In the West, one could only speculate about the scientists behind the Sputnik missions. In analogy to the USA, it was initially assumed that the Soviets employed deported German rocket engineers from Hitler's armaments factories at the head of their space program. This was a mistake. While the United States made use of Wernher von Braun and his team, who had worked with him and during the war in the Peenemünde Army Research Center, for their later programs, the top man on the other side was a Russian engineer who had worked in Stalin's Gulag in 1940, in strictest secrecy had been released: Sergei Pavlovich Korolev . In 1945 he was summoned to the Soviet headquarters in Berlin with the rank of colonel in the Red Army and was given the task of studying the German missile program and locating the staff of the missile engineer Wernher von Braun who remained in Germany. With German construction plans and missile designers abducted as part of the Ossawakim campaign , including Helmut Gröttrup , Werner Albring and Kurt Magnus , he returned to the Soviet Union in 1946, where he later had a significant impact on Soviet space travel with his ideas and leadership style . There, unlike in the USA, a lot of German knowledge in rocket technology was skimmed off without delay and used in the decisive steps for space travel.

Siddiqi, who also worked as a historian for NASA and is a member of a panel that advises the US Congress on space issues, highlights opposing reactions to the lack of enthusiasm on the political level. From a political point of view, there was usually a feeling of menace and humiliation in the West, but: “It was an exciting, inspiring time, especially for the younger generations - man has ventured into space. Suddenly interest in astronomy exploded, books, films and space-related toys were more popular than ever before. "

At the time of the downright space euphoria of the 1960s, philosophical reflection asked less about scientific or technical achievements, but more about their effects on one's own living environment.

Animals and plants in space

The first mammal was brought into space with a V2 rocket in June 1949: the rhesus monkey Albert II. With Sputnik 2 , the Soviet Union brought the dog Laika into space in November 1957 , the first living being to enter orbit around the earth. Sputnik 5 launched on August 19, 1960 and carried two dogs into space: Strelka and Belka . Other passengers were 40 mice, 2 rats and plants. After 18 orbits the earth at a height of just over 300 kilometers and an orbit in 90 minutes, both dogs landed safely back on earth. This was the first successful use of the soft landing technique and a fundamental step forward. This also proved that living beings could survive in orbit and also physically cope with re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. As early as 1947, the USA had carried fruit flies with a V2 to an altitude of 109 kilometers, which is already considered to be reaching space.

"Peaceful Use" or "Focus of the Arms Race"?

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US President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a speech a month later to the UN :

“The emergence of this new world poses a vital question: will space be preserved for peaceful use and discovered for the benefit of all humanity? Or will space become another focal point of the arms race, an area of ​​dangerous and useless competition? The choice is urgent. And it is up to us to choose. "

On July 29, 1958, he had already signed the " National Aeronautics and Space Act " , a former five-star general and the highest officer in his country . With this law, the establishment of the US space agency NASA was started, which started its work only a good two months later. The condition that Parliament, which had passed the bill before the President's signature, set it in advance was: “Congress hereby declares that it is the policy of the United States that ventures in space be for peaceful purposes for the benefit of should be devoted to all of humanity. ”This was surprising and forward-looking, because up until then almost all advances in US missile technology had been financed with funds from the armed forces. The hope that a civil organization could unleash completely different innovative forces and enthusiasm than military hierarchies is obvious.

In the second half of the 1950s, the nuclear powers of the time - the USA and Great Britain with the Soviet Union - competed to be able to target atomic bombs with newer techniques than with classic bombers, and they further developed ballistic missile technology. The USSR, however, had to rely on much larger missiles from the start. At the end of the 1950s, it had no allies within a radius of less than 6,000 kilometers from the USA to station these weapons - in addition, the Soviet atomic bombs were significantly larger and heavier than those of the USA. Therefore, the Soviets had to plan and create larger from the start. They now had the advantage when it came to sending the first artificial satellite into a rather distant orbit. Sputnik 1 was already twice as heavy as the first US satellite Explorer 1, with Sputnik 3 even 1.3 t were brought into earth orbit, which indicated the high performance of the R-7 launcher.

Under the leadership of Lyndon B. Johnson - then majority leader in the US Senate - the law for a "civil" space agency was therefore created. Put simply, Congress brought together the civil but smaller National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) with the US Army's missile program and several working groups from the Naval Research Laboratory . Seen in this way, NASA could not fulfill its claim to be a purely civilian institution. Military thinking remained clearly dominant. A great many employees came from military research groups. The future astronauts for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs were - with one exception - former Air Force or Navy pilots.

In addition, parallel to the establishment of the much larger NASA, a second, purely military space program was established. It was given the innocuous name of the Advanced Research Project Agency . Since then, it has been coordinating all of the country's secret space programs, especially spy satellite projects. It is now called Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency .

After all, the end of many US ICBMs was civil: The decommissioned missiles were often converted for satellite launch. For safety reasons, the manufacturers kept building rockets for manned space flights. It was not until the Saturn rocket of the Apollo program that the use of predominantly military technology for civil US space travel ended. The space shuttles were largely civil developments. To this day, Russia uses further developments of the R-7 rocket for its manned space flights, which already shot the Sputnik into the sky and came from the military.

Space travel and propaganda

Since the space programs of both sides during the Cold War were shaped by ideological propaganda, they each established their own terms for their space travelers , "cosmonaut" and "astronaut". For fear of loss of prestige in this propaganda battle , the very first living being that was purposefully put into orbit around the earth was concealed and lied to. In fact, the bitch Laika had already died of overheating after about five to seven hours of flight time, among other things because of the defective thermal insulation. This was withheld from the public.

Nuclear explosions on the moon?

Cover sheet of the report A Study of Lunar Research Flights - Vol. I

In Project A119 , also known as A Study of Lunar Research Flights (German A study of lunar research flights ), the late '50s was commissioned by the United States Air Force developed a secret plan, a nuclear bomb to detonate on the moon. The aim was to use such a detonation to demonstrate that the United States was technically and militarily superior to the Soviet Union and the rest of the world in space. There were hopes that such a demonstration of power, visible to all, could raise the morale of their own people again after the "Sputnik shock". The project was never carried out, mainly because those responsible for a manned moon landing believed that it would have a stronger propaganda effect on the American public. The existence of the project remained completely unexplored until the mid-1990s when author Keay Davidson discovered it while doing research for his biography on Carl Sagan . The government has not yet officially confirmed participation in the study.

In early 1957, Edward Teller (known as the "father of the hydrogen bomb ") proposed the detonation of several bombs on and above the surface of the moon in order to be able to analyze the effects of such explosions with the reduced gravity there . At the end of 1969, the scientist Gary Latham involved in the Apollo program requested the detonation of a tiny atomic bomb on the moon in order to obtain data on its geological composition. The project was discarded, however, because American astronomers planned to measure the natural background radiation of the moon at a later date .

At that time there were only a few press rumors about an almost simultaneous comparable Soviet program, but these ebbed away. It was not until 1999 that the retired rocket designer Boris Yevsejewitsch Tschertok admitted that there had been a Soviet project for an atom bomb on the moon in 1958. The plans had been abandoned because it was unclear whether an atomic explosion would have been easily perceptible on earth due to the thin lunar atmosphere; in addition, the technical challenges were enormous. In October 2017, Matthias Uhl , a historian at the German Historical Institute in Moscow , published documents from the Russian State Archives about the Soviet project for the first time.

From "Space Race" to "Race to the Moon"

The first success of Yuri Alexejewitsch Gagarin , who became the first person in space on April 12, 1961, raised many questions with the newly elected US President John F. Kennedy. On April 20, 1961 he sent - already politically embarrassed by the failed attempt at invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs - to his Vice Lyndon B. Johnson the note:

"Do we have a chance of defeating the Soviets by building a laboratory in space or by flying around the moon or by a rocket to land on the moon that takes a person back and forth?"

Johnson, who is also head of the National Aeronautics and Space Council , answered yes to these questions. The president then publicly announced in a special session of Congress on May 25th that he would have Americans land on the moon before the end of the decade. Johnson, in turn, was advised by Wernher von Braun, among others. He led a working group of rocket engineers. In von Braun's report of April 29, there is the assessment that the Soviet Union can hardly be beaten in terms of time when building a near-earth space station. However, there is a realistic chance of sending a three-person team of astronauts to the moon before the competitors, and in a “race for the first moon landing” the chances of a “victory” are very good. On May 8, 1961, Johnson presented the results of the investigation to his president. The report was signed by James Webb (NASA chief administrator) and Robert McNamara (US Secretary of Defense). They recommended that “ before the end of the decade ” undertake a manned mission to the moon, because America urgently needs projects to improve national prestige, and also literally: “ Our capabilities are an important element in the international competition between the Soviet system and the ours ”. For both of them, exploring the moon and the planets near the Earth was " part of the battle on the flowing fronts of the Cold War ".

In the same year, when designing the Apollo program, Kennedy optimistically predicted: "No space project will make more of an impression on all of humanity and be more important for the long-term conquest of space".

The President's open acceptance of the Soviet challenge was received largely positively by the press and viewed as an appropriate response. Unlike other newspapers, The Washington Star did not just foresee the adventures of a sporting competition for first space success, but also “sweat, work and tears of a medium-sized war” and a task of greater complexity than the Manhattan Project .

Kennedy saw the space program in a meeting with NASA executives and representatives of the Bureau of the Budget (BOB) only about two months after his Rice speech without emotion as a mere political instrument: “The Soviet Union started this as a test of the systems. That's why we're doing it. ”When asked to support space ventures beyond Apollo, he replied,“ We ​​shouldn't be spending that kind of money because I'm not interested in space. ”

Also the term "Wettlauf zum Mond" (English "Moon Race") was a term invented by the mass media - in a slightly modified form. In the aftermath of the USA's first successful moon landing, the Soviet leadership repeatedly emphasized that they had never planned a manned landing on Earth's satellite and that the American efforts were, as it were, only shadow boxing. Material released after the “Cold War” and statements by those responsible for the Soviet space program at the time of Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev only prove this for the first few years after Kennedy's announcement of a manned cargo.

At his first summit meeting with Khrushchev in June 1961, Kennedy proposed twice that a joint American-Soviet manned lunar expedition should be undertaken. He did not respond, which was probably at least partly due to the fact that the Soviet Union had been surprised by the announcement of a US landing project. The Soviet leadership had been so convinced of its lead in space technology that it had never seriously considered competing with the US in this area. Only after more than three years of internal political debate did the USSR announce - and then only hesitantly - its own manned moon landing program. Until then, the influential and quarreling heads of the Soviet development bureaus had fought tenaciously for responsibilities and resources for such ventures. The arguments delayed the development of a coordinated action plan and work on it later. One of the development offices was headed by Sergei Koroljow , the "Russian Wernher von Braun ". His activity was so secret that during his lifetime only the “chief developer” was mentioned; only after his death was his name ever publicly mentioned.

While before the “space race” there were, so to speak, the “runners” on both sides visually (e.g. Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard), for the mass media, in principle, only US actors were now accessible to the media. The US secret services were also constantly puzzling over possible actors, objectives and the technical possibilities of the USSR.

Kennedy had mixed feelings about the idea of ​​a competition in space. In his inaugural address, he had already suggested that the USSR “explore space together”. Shortly after he was sworn in, he asked NASA and the US State Department to develop plans for increased American-Soviet cooperation in space travel. On the day Kennedy was presented with the plans that had been worked out, Gagarin was already circling the earth. He then decided that the US should strive for space dominance, even if his real goal was different. In his speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 20, 1963 - two months before his assassination - he once again asked the question in the room: "Why should the first human flight to the moon be the result of a competition between nations?"

Media and heroization

Valentina Tereschkowa at the GDR-Hungary soccer game. Walter Ulbricht Stadium , 1963.

Medial communication was a prerequisite for the public's perception of this internal and external competition. Without the media, this competition in space on earth would not have been possible. Every Soviet or American moon mission provoked a wealth of media reactions. The media did not limit itself to a role as passive observer, because the astronauts and cosmonauts involved were stylized as the new “heroes” of the “Cold War”. Due to the difficulty of estimating all the organic loads that an astronaut would be exposed to during a mission, great importance was attached to physical fitness and performance when selecting the candidates. The test flights and training programs made the biggest headlines in the media. Above all, the first astronauts were considered the top people among jet pilots in the public eye. They were presented as smart loners, endowed with unshakable courage and an almost superhuman physique, as something like superheroes and at the same time presented in the media as popular family fathers. On closer inspection, the space travel activities were almost entirely teamwork. Space research was also communicated very early on using the language of sports reports and staged as a sporting competition. Another example is the title of the successful Sputnik mission in 1957 as "Compensation" in a West German magazine. It was obvious that with the improvements in missile technology, the military possibilities increased. Just as it was now possible to shoot rockets precisely in orbit, it was now also possible to hit the most remote corners of the earth.

The hero cult continues to this day. US President Barack Obama , for example, honored the first man on the moon, who died during his tenure, the most famous of all astronauts Neil Armstrong , in an obituary as "one of the greatest American heroes - not only in his time, but for all time". His rival for president at the time, Mitt Romney, described Armstrong as a "true hero."

A comparable heroic staging was carried out in the Soviet Union. In 1959, the Soviet Union began a secret selection process to search for ideal cosmonauts from among three thousand fighter pilots. In March 1960, the training of the 12 candidates who had been screened out began - without them knowing what exactly was planned for them. The time pressure exerted on researchers by prestigious politicians on both sides of the competing military titans in the production of ever new cosmic sensations, such as Gagarin's successful flight, led to near-disasters - but also to many victims. The science journalist and long-time NASA employee Harro Zimmer:

“The flight of Yuri Gagarin was afflicted with considerable problems on the return, the supply part did not separate cleanly from the landing unit, that would have been a great disaster when re-entering the earth's atmosphere, and this whole system began to rotate, so Gagarin would have Didn't have a great chance if the automatic hadn't disconnected at the last moment. The cosmonauts in the spaceships of the Vostok series were hardly able - that was also intended - to maneuver independently, in the end they were, strictly speaking, only attentive fellow travelers. "(...)" If you look at the balance sheet of the first few years , it is found that the ratio of successful and unsuccessful launches was extremely small, so that in the USSR, for example, more rockets exploded on the ramp or in the first flight phase than their cargo had ever reached orbit. "

Ten months after Gagarin, the United States sent an astronaut, John Glenn, into space for the first time. In June 1963, the Soviets achieved another first success with the first female cosmonaut, Valentina Tereschkowa , who also lasted just under 3 days in orbit. After her successful return, she was passed around throughout the Eastern Bloc as a symbol of equal rights for women under socialism . The Soviet woman Tereshkova had done her propaganda duty. Until 1980, flights into the cosmos were again reserved for male cosmonauts on the part of the USSR.

"Sportizing" the space programs

Kennedy's 1962 speech ( Rice Stadium ) on his space program
NASA Photo: Congressman George Paul Miller ( seated on exercise bike) visits Marshall Space Flight Center Director Wernher von Braun. Miller served as Science / Space Committee Chair from 1961–73. All manned moon landings occurred during this period.

In the 1960s, politics and the media glorified the struggle for cosmic superiority and general enthusiasm for the location and its actors. In doing so, they created a kind of circus atmosphere around NASA. On the one hand, the educated elite of the United States disliked this aura, on the other hand, it appealed to the mass audience. The specialist author and critic Carl Dreher stated with disappointment that the American taxpayer had discovered a kind of new popular sport in manned space travel . Vocabulary frequently used in the astronaut portrayal was, both by proponents and opponents of the simultaneous armament in space, which must be taken seriously, space Olympics and space spectacles. This refers to a sometimes sporty and entertaining component in the reception and, similar to the term “arms race”, enabled a trivializing and playful examination of the space front that emerged during the “Cold War”. "Moon Race" was another sports connotation among a plethora of other similar ones in the media.

The German-British journalist, publicist and writer Sebastian Haffner compared the emotions in Russia after Gagarin's space flight with those in Germany after winning a soccer World Cup and at the same time emphasized the “sporty” character of the “race into space”: “Reason enough to be happy in Russia - the joy that was felt in Germany when the German national team won the 1954 World Cup. But this sporting success says nothing about the superiority of the Russian (or German) government and economic system, nor about the historical value of the manned space shot (or football). ”The metaphor of a sporting race enabled a completely different vocabulary to be developed As if the competition in space had been reported as a politico-military conflict. This made a softer, peaceful choice of words possible, which was important for the media presentation. The whole “race into space” was a prestige duel in the Cold War, in which great importance was attached to a peaceful image. Both sides always emphasized the peaceful nature of their space exploration. The choice of language was one of the reasons for the popularity of space travel in the 1960s, alongside the stylizable protagonists of the “race into space”, the “heroes”. This choice of language made it possible to address a broader audience, making a highly political topic “readable” for the broad masses, or rather prepared it.

The use of glossing over language is a common phenomenon in the political sector . After the Soviet Union, with Yuri Gagarin, put the first human into space, the alleged “space race” was, strictly speaking, finally decided. After a series of initial successes by the Soviet Union, however, a "race to the moon" was proclaimed, which the United States "won".

These major projects were not something like sporting events, as the euphemistic terms "race" implied. But when the Soviet Union first took part in the Summer Olympics in 1952 , sport and its major events were already given a propaganda function in the "Cold War". At this point it was not a race of people, but rather a flying of rockets with enormous technical effort. The sporting competition of the political systems at the Olympics and the setting up of ever new sporting world records on earth was followed by a previously unknown technology battle in space, in which the - admittedly also sporting - performance of those involved was overemphasized. It was very much about the mastery of technology and not of your own body. While no technical aids are generally required for physical exercise of running , an exorbitant technical and financial effort is made in manned space travel. Rather, as a space traveler, in contrast to a sporting competition, people are increasingly indirectly exposed to physical strain, up to and including excessive strain. Thus, the expansion of the "Cold War" into space was ascribed a sporting dimension that only existed very indirectly. This approach was adopted in the press, as shown, for example, the distribution of points - in tabular form, comparable to a medal table at the Olympics - for space travel successes; according to the respective political system.

As a diversionary maneuver to expand the arms race into space, it was a good option with a description as “race” / “race” into space or to the moon. The bitterly led high-tech competition for first successes in space and later especially on the way to the moon, was probably the most important "replacement war" in the time of the "Cold War" because of its unique symbolism. In the English-speaking world, there was the name "Space Race", which suggested that it was a racing event. A photo of stepping on the moon, which Armstrong took, is still considered the epitome of the American victory in the "Space Race" and quickly became one of the media icons of the 20th century. This "space race" can primarily be seen as a conflict over the predominance of ideologies, images or image interpretations that shape or should shape the collective imaginary worlds - so always as a "picture race" (war of images) or a "clash of." Icons ”(meeting of symbols), can be seen.

The role of staging

In order to be able to “win” the “Space Race”, which had basically already been lost by the USA, this was staged on a large scale in the following “Moon Race”.

The Russian Lunik 2 space probe was the first human-hand object on the moon in 1959. However, it received much less media coverage than the American and manned moon landing ten years later.

The historian Frank Bösch explains that there are unexpected and staged events in the media world. The first manned moon landing is one of the staged, in the sense that the events were meticulously planned from the start. Since NASA passed on extensive information to journalists long before the flight, articles were written before the landing and were only supplemented with the actual flight duration, for example. The doctoral candidate at the chair for journalism at the University of Giessen, Paul Berten , on the subject of the first manned moon landing:

“Apollo 11 went so perfectly, so seamlessly and was also described that way and, what you have to add, it was all known beforehand. So, so to speak, there was nothing surprising, nothing new. In the end, you had already seen all the images in simulations. ” (Sic!)

Bösch emphasizes that the media not only transmit information, they also offer a reading. They often embed what is happening in what is already known, draw parallels to other events or tie in with established consumer ideas. This gives their reporting a specific meaning. The reading, in the western media, of astronauts as "heroes" who conquer space and the moon is linked to the so-called frontier story : "... the frontier story refers to a myth that is actually inherent in the USA, very anchored in American culture, who describes this romanticization of the first pioneers in the wild west. in the end a heroic story with a little twist, in which the hostile environment takes on a very important role. And there is this place to be conquered in the frontier story, this very West that is being tapped by courageous men. " (Sic!)

"Frontierism"

In the 1960 election campaign, Kennedy announced the government program of the New Frontier : Following the example of the American settlers, the aim was to conquer the "New Frontier". His presidency will deal with the unfulfilled hopes and dreams, the unsolved problems of war and peace, the disorganized niches of ignorance and prejudice, and the unanswered questions of poverty and abundance. In addition, the USA, as the most technologically advanced nation on earth, should take up the fight for supremacy in space in the face of the Cold War and Sputnik shock, which is why it is announcing the first manned moon landing.

Among other things, in the more important publications of 1893 and 1932 by the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner , the latter put forward the thesis that the alleged American Exceptionalism is a result of the continuous interaction of civilization and wilderness on the American frontier (in the sense of land border / borderland) be. The constant struggle with a nature that is hostile to humans and civilization has given the USA a position outside of the supposedly customary rules and laws in human history. The basic conditions under which American society developed were so significantly different that they were free from the problems and framework conditions of European societies. Turner has since been associated with the term Frontierism (Frontier thesis) and the term Frontier Society going back to him . He is counted among the most important historians in the USA. The frontier thesis and American exceptionalism are controversial or at least questionable concepts in cultural history today, but generally shaped or influenced American historiography in the 20th century. The concept of a borderland between “civilization” and “wilderness”, supposedly derived from an American experience, was also taken up again in science fiction , where the borderland between inhabited and uninhabited regions of space is presented as a frontier . Space is also widely viewed as a new frontier in real space travel and the sometimes existing urge to colonize “new worlds” .

The manned moon landing

Camera shot: Neil Armstrong at the "Victory in the Space Race". Most of the time, color photos showing Buzz Aldrin have been incorrectly used in the media.

Apollo 11 worked technically and was at least interpreted by Western media as intended by NASA. Armstrong determined the importance of this Apollo mission for historiography when he put his left foot on the earth's satellite: "A small step for a person, a giant leap for mankind."

The factual core, what actually happened, does not play the decisive role for the cultural significance of events. What is important is how the overall event is interpreted. From a global perspective, reporting on Apollo 11 was largely uniform, despite numerous national features. On the one hand, NASA succeeded in staging it to an astonishing degree; on the other hand, the attempts to interpret and assign meaning were globally based on comparable issues. In the absence of natural observers, all reporting media were dependent on NASA. This provided information and the images and also had an extensive monopoly on specialist knowledge. In principle, the print media had more leeway in reporting, especially in the interpretation and classification of events, than the TV media. These media enabled a global media show due to global distribution. Approximately 500 million people saw a person's first steps on the moon live on television, and an even larger number followed the event on the radio and in the daily newspaper. This resulted in national peculiarities in the reporting that suggest that this media event was not the same everywhere.

The first manned moon landing was the first and largest global media event in human history and was generated by television. It was an auspicious simultaneity of one sixth of the world's population who followed the events live. A much-remembered moment of simultaneity was produced, in which the short-lived hope for a very specific world community was inherent. Together with radio, television created a live moment of peace and harmony for consumers, which was only possible to a very limited extent, and also drew people in front of the receivers with hopes for a more peaceful and better world. The promise of simultaneity is generally not just a feature of democracies . Even religions and dictatorships promise from the synchronization of human activities immediacy collective dynamics and harmony. This event was a key cultural event like the Reformation (1517–1648) or the French Revolution (1789). It was based on specific media structures that made all these processes into events - shaped collective perceptions and emotions. The storage in the collective memory in Europe is no less medially and strongly influenced in comparison to these decisive and also much more time-consuming events, although the stepping on the moon by a person was only a comparatively small, but also tangible moment.

The inhabitants of the socialist people's democracies were not given the opportunity to follow the matter directly. The GDR radio commented on the return of the US astronauts with allusions to the Vietnam War , in which the Americans had been involved for years without a declaration of war:

“They have landed, the men with the eagle on their chest and an olive branch in their claws as a sign of peace. And they were warmly welcomed by politicians and generals who otherwise hold napalm bombs in their claws as weapons of war. "

The Israeli communication scientist Elihu Katz , together with the French media researcher Daniel Dayan, describes media events as a new narrative genre and distinguishes between three forms of narrative : contest (e.g. sporting events), coronations (e.g. weddings or funerals) and conquest (translated: Conquest) among other things the first manned moon landing.

Later on, manned spaceflight came under increasing public criticism because of its immense cost. In addition, critics such as the physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman believe that manned space travel has never produced a fundamental scientific breakthrough.

"Race to Mars"

The sporting terminology experienced a continuity in the planned Mars expeditions , which were also proclaimed in the media as races and races to Mars. Even after the end of the “Cold War”, the matter remains a political issue. What began in times of the Cold War as a competition between the two superpowers is now intended to serve the self-confidence of the countries of Europe and others in the ESA - including India , Japan and China , for example .

The American futurologist Alvin Toffler saw great prospects for the future in space and a triumph of engineering in the departure into space; a high point of the industrial age . In his foresight, space travel will be taken over by smaller consortia in the future , which do not necessarily have to consist of governments. This would start a new space race, this time between private companies.

Stations

Rendezvous of Gemini 6 and 7
Russian and American milestones during the "Space Race"
  • October 1957 - In October the Soviet Union brings the first artificial satellite into space: Sputnik 1 . This was a locked sphere with a radio station that could also be received in the USA. The shock was so great in the western world and especially in the USA that from then on it was referred to as the “ Sputnik shock ”.
  • November 1957 - The Soviet Union brings the first creature into space that humans specifically put into orbit around the earth: the dog Laika . A return was never planned. Laika dies a few hours after take-off, presumably from overheating and stress.
  • February 1958 the USA succeeds in sending an unmanned satellite into space: Explorer 1 . Unlike Sputnik, he is already able to carry out scientific investigations.
  • On April 12, 1961 , the Soviet aviation officer Yuri Gagarin was the first person to venture into space on board the Vostok 1 spacecraft . Only a few weeks later, the first American is in space : Alan Shepard . However, it is only a ballistic and suborbital flight . President Kennedy announced on May 25, 1961 that the United States would send and return a person to the moon before the end of the decade .
  • In 1962 , John Glenn became the first American astronaut to make multiple orbits of the earth with his Mercury spaceship . He stays in space for a total of five hours.
  • In 1966 , the Soviet Union made the first soft unmanned moon landing with the Luna 9 probe . A few weeks later, the Americans also land their unmanned Surveyor 1 probe on the lunar surface.
  • In 1967 the American lunar program suffered a dramatic setback when the three astronauts White, Chaffee and Grissom were killed in a fire on board the Apollo 1 command module during a ground test. A short time later, the Soviet Union also had a victim in the space race: the cosmonaut Vladimir Komarow died when the Soyuz 1 landing capsule fell to the ground after re-entering the atmosphere due to parachute failure at around 150 km / h.
  • On December 24, 1968, humans orbit the moon for the first time with Apollo 8 .
  • In 1969 , the American Neil Armstrong became the first person to step on the earth's satellite - in front of the eyes of more than half a billion television viewers who were there live. The moon landing is basically the first global media event. Armstrong's statement "a small step for man, one giant leap for all mankind" became the catchphrase . Some time later, the Soviet Union discontinued its own manned lunar programs, which took place in the strictest of secrecy . The Soviet Union had two separate programs for manned flight around (see Zond ) and manned landing.

The race into space is usually declared over in the media perception, even if further milestones such as the first space stations ( Saljut ) and exploration of other planets, such as Mars, continue to drive space travel.

Media attention

American space travel received relatively more attention in the western media landscape than the Soviet one, which is mainly due to the strict secrecy on the Soviet side. Unlike the United States, the Soviet Union did not announce mission goals and launch plans in advance. Several films deal with space missions, both real (e.g. Apollo 11 , Apollo 13 ) or Vostok 1 , as well as fictional ( e.g. countdown: start to the moon and return from orbit ). Sayings during the missions both from astronauts (e.g. one small step for a person, one big leap for mankind , Houston, we have a problem ) and cosmonauts (e.g. Gagarin's Pojechali! ) Are world famous.

In the media reception, the race into space is won by the USA by landing on the moon, with which they were the first to transport people to the moon. But as the words space race show, this is at least a simplified and abbreviated view.

literature

Movies and TV series

art

See also

literature

  • Eugen Reichl, Dietmar Röttler: Mondwärts - The race into space. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-613-04196-7 .

Web links

Wikibooks: The Race to the Moon - The Role of Space Travel in the Cold War  - Learning and teaching materials

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karsten Werth: Replacement War in Space: The US Space Program in Public in the 1960s . Campus Verlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3-593-38039-1 , pp. 169–170 ( preview in Google Book Search).
  2. ↑ Dirk Lirenzen: The new race to the moon. In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur. July 18, 2019, accessed June 10, 2019 .
  3. ↑ "I reach for the stars, but sometimes I also meet London". Wernher von Braun as a pop figure. In: mdr.de. MDR, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Karsten Werth, "Replacement War in Space: The US Space Program in Public in the 1960s" , Campus Verlag, 2006, p. 63.
  5. ↑ Igor J. Polianski & Matthias Schwartz: The trace of Sputnik: cultural-historical expeditions into the cosmic age , Campus Verlag, 2009, p. 11.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h Marcus Heumann: The Sputnik shock. Deutschlandfunk, October 4, 2007, accessed on February 27, 2017 .
  7. ↑ 50th Anniversary of the Space Age ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . NASA website, ( Flash required). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nasa.gov
  8. ↑ Karsten Werth, "Replacement War in Space: The US Space Program in Public in the 1960s" , Campus Verlag, 2006, p. 56.
  9. ↑ Race into space: The Sputnik shock hit America's elite - WELT. In: Welt Online. DIE WELT, accessed on March 1, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Igor J. Polianski, Matthias Schwartz: “The Sputnik's Trace: Cultural and Historical Expeditions into the Cosmic Age”, Campus Verlag, 2009
  11. ↑ Siddiqi, Asif A .: Challenge To Apollo: The Soviet Union and The Space Race, 1945-1974. In: archive.org. NASA, 2000, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  12. ↑ a b David Rennert: October 1957: Sputnik keeps the world in suspense. In: The Standard . September 29, 2016, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Igor J. Polianski, Matthias Schwartz: " The Sputnik's Trace: Cultural and Historical Expeditions into the Cosmic Age ", Campus Verlag, 2009, introduction (beginning)
  14. ↑ Khrushchev, Der Sputnik, p. 7.
  15. ↑ James Harford: Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon . John Wiley & Sons, New York 1997, ISBN 0-471-14853-9
  16. ↑ Rüdiger Zill: The exploration of the back of the moon through pure thinking. Technology philosophy between Sputnik 1 and Apollo 11 , in: Igor J. Polianski, Matthias Schwartz: The trace of the Sputnik. Cultural- historical expeditions into the cosmic age , Frankfurt am Main, Campus, 2009, pp. 332–349
  17. ↑ Space history: The animal heroes of space travel . In: The time . March 25, 2011, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed January 23, 2019]).
  18. ↑ https://www.welt.de/geschichte/article180079726/Gruendung-der-Nasa-1958-Um-das-Rennen-zu-dreh-mussten-sich-die-USA-etwas-einfallen- Lassen.html
  19. ↑ Chris Dubbs: Space Dogs: Pioneers of Space Travel. iUniverse, 2003
  20. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2000/may/14/spaceexploration.theobserver
  21. ↑ US had plans to nuke the moon , cnn.com
  22. ↑ Paolo Ulivi , Lunar Exploration: Human Pioneers and Robotic Surveyors. Springer Science & Business Media, 2004, pp. 19-21.
  23. ↑ https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ZJApAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5-cDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5506,6803546&hl=de , The Sydney Morning Herald , December 21, 1969.
  24. ↑ https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ZQIOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1nsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5751,4416523&hl=de , St. Petersburg Times , January 7, 1970.
  25. ↑ Katja Iken: Secret project "A119": The atomic bomb on the moon. In: spiegel.de. December 5, 2012, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  26. ^ Charles Arthur (July 9, 1999). USSR planned to atom bomb moon. The Independent (accessed October 11, 2017)
    Adam Tanner (July 9, 1999). "Russia wanted nuclear bomb on moon". Independent Online (IOL) / Reuters
  27. ↑ no author details (October 10, 2017). Party mandate: Bomb the moon. Tagesschau .de (accessed on October 11, 2017)
  28. ↑ no author details (October 10, 2017). Party mandate: Bomb the moon. Tagesschau .de (accessed on October 11, 2017)
    Interview with Martin-Hübner from mdr : ... and nobody is looking? MDR time travel , about the documents for the atomic bomb project. Tagesschau .de (accessed on October 11, 2017)
  29. ↑ https://www.spektrum.de/magazin/gab-es-einen-wettlauf-zum-mond/821729
  30. ↑ Amar Ujeyl: The Apollo Program. In: geo.de. Retrieved March 1, 2017 .
  31. ↑ The Washington Star , "Destination: The Moon," May 28, 1961
  32. ↑ Karsten Werth, "Replacement War in Space: The US Space Program in Public in the 1960s", Campus Verlag, 2006, p. 68, September 12, 1962, Kennedy gave his speech in Rice Stadium in which he announced the USA would be himself set the goal of sending a man to the moon by the end of the decade.
  33. ↑ https://www.spektrum.de/magazin/gab-es-einen-wettlauf-zum-mond/821729
  34. ^ Werth, Replacement War in Space, 14.
  35. ^ Werth, Replacement War in Space, pp. 133–135, 172.
  36. ↑ Kölnische Rundschau, November 6, 1957
  37. ↑ Daniel Lingenhöhl: Man on the Moon: Neil Armstrong is dead. In: Spektrum.de. Spectrum of Science, August 26, 2012, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  38. ↑ Werth, Ersatzkrieg, pp. 169–170
  39. ↑ Sebastian Haffner, pioneer or guinea pig? Space can also be discovered without an astronaut. In: Die Welt , April 15, 1961.
  40. ^ Werth, Ersatzkrieg, p. 169
  41. ↑ Werth, Ersatzkrieg, pp. 168–173.
  42. ↑ Bernhard Kral, diploma thesis: "Astronauts and cosmonauts as media heroes of the 1960s in the FRG and the GDR", Vienna, 2011.
  43. ^ "Moscow has won the race with the USA." In: Hamburger Echo , October 5, 1957.
  44. ↑ http://www.scienceblogs.de/astrodicticum-simplex/2014/08/02/usa-fuehrt-im-wettlauf-ins-all/
  45. ↑ Karsten Werth , Replacement War in Space . The US space program in public in the 1960s, (Frankfurt / Main 2006), p. 10.
  46. ^ Sven Grampp, Academic Councilor at the Institute for Theater and Media Studies at FAU: Race to the Stars , Institute for Theater, World Politics, No. 116, 41st year, November 2016, ( PDF ).
  47. ↑ a b c Jakob Epler: What distinguishes historical events: historians examined the anatomy of the extraordinary . In: Deutschlandfunk . September 6, 2012 ( deutschlandfunk.de ).
  48. ↑ Horst Dippel : History of the USA. 8th edition. CH Beck-Verlag, 2007, p. 114.
  49. ^ Matthias Waechter: The Invention of the American West. The history of the Frontier debate. Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1996
  50. ↑ Frederick Jackson Turner: The Significance of the Frontier in American History (essay, 1893) & The Significance of Sections in American History (collection of articles, 1932)
  51. ↑ Michael W. Kidd: Turner: The Frontier In American History. In: virginia.edu. 1996, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  52. ↑ http://www.uni-giessen.de/fbz/dfgk/tme/Kollegiatinnen/Paul%20Berten
  53. ↑ Lorenz Engell, The Moon Program. How television produced the greatest event of all time , in: Friedrich Lenger, Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Media events in modernity , Darmstadt: Wiss BG. 2008, pp. 150–172 (Engell individual article 2008).
  54. ↑ Alexander CT Geppert, Till Kössler, Obsession der Gegenwart: Zeit im 20. Jahrhundert , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, October 28, 2015
  55. ^ Daniel Dayan / Elihu Katz: Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History , Cambridge, Massachusetts a. a., 1992, pp. 9 and 26
  56. ^ Frank Bösch: European media events. December 3, 2010, accessed February 24, 2017 .
  57. ^ Richard P. Feynman: What Do You Care What Other People Think? , WW Norton, 1988, paperback, 2001
  58. ↑ Patrick Illinger: Time for Europe to get out of the silly race to Mars. October 20, 2016. Retrieved December 25, 2016 .
  59. ↑ Gerd Meißner: The end of romanticism. SPIEGEL SPECIAL 3/1995. In: spiegel.de. March 1, 1995, accessed March 1, 2017 .