Why Do We Explore Space | USAF Animated Educational Film | 1957
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This short video – originally titled as "Why Space" – is an animated educational film produced by the U.S. Air Force (USAF). It was released in 1957 and used as a training material for Air Force personnel. It was probably narrated by Marvin Miller (of Robbie the Robot fame).
The film traces history of man's efforts to explore outer space. It explains the most important discoveries made by astronomers such as Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton and others. It discusses overall significance of the space challenge and its present and future effect on man. At the end of the film, it shows construction of a conceptual 1950s style space station.
The film was made at the beginning of the Space Race, a competition between the two rival superpowers, the United States of America (USA) and the Soviet Union (USSR), for dominance in spaceflight capability. The narrator notes: "Space is the new defense frontier". He also notes that "Space is a place to preserve peace through understanding. But true understanding of space will come only if peace is protected. Scientific, technical and strategic preeminence in space must be reserved for the forces of freedom".
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND / CONTEXT
The Space Race was a competition between the United States of America (USA) and the Soviet Union (USSR) to explore space using artificial satellites and manned spacecraft. It can be seen as a part of the larger arms race, as developments in space research could easily be transferred to military research. Both countries started work on developing reconnaissance satellites well before the height of the Space Race. The Vostok spacecraft used by the USSR to put Yuri Gagarin into space, for example, was developed from the Zenit spy satellites used by the Soviet military.
However, the military benefits of the Space Race were not the only driving force behind the American and Soviet attempts to explore space. The populations of both countries took a great interest in their respective space programs and it was a useful way for both superpowers to demonstrate their superiority. Nikita Khruschev, the Premier of the Soviet Union, used the country's early success in the Space Race to claim that the "economy, science, culture and the creative genius of people in all areas of life develop better and faster under communism." The American President John F. Kennedy, on the other hand, is quoted as saying "Everything we do ought to... be tied in to getting on to the Moon ahead of the Russians... we hope to beat the USSR to demonstrate that instead of being behind by a couple of years, by God, we passed them. "
In America the space program was headed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, who were given control of all non-military activity in Space. The team at NASA included Dr. Wernher von Braun, the German scientist responsible for the development of the V2 rocket in 1944. He was later moved to the United States by the U.S. Army to study the future potential of rockets and masterminded the development of the Saturn V Moon Rocket.
Chronology:
The Space Race began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year, by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4, 1957, orbiting of Sputnik 1, and later beat the US to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961. The "race" peaked with the July 20, 1969, US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. The USSR tried but failed crewed lunar missions, and eventually canceled them and concentrated on Earth orbital space stations.
A period of détente followed with the April 1972 agreement on a co-operative Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, resulting in the July 1975 rendezvous in Earth orbit of a US astronaut crew with a Soviet cosmonaut crew. The end of the Space Race is harder to pinpoint than its beginning, but it was over by the December 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, after which true spaceflight cooperation between the US and Russia began.
Legacy:
The Space Race has left a legacy of Earth communications and weather satellites, and continuing human space presence on the International Space Station. It has also sparked increases in spending on education and research and development, which led to beneficial spin-off technologies.
For more information about the Space Race, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race
Why Do We Explore Space | USAF Animated Educational Film | 1957
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