AVB
Jesus of Cool, I'm bad, I'm nationwide
For America, the 1960s begin on an anxious note. Many in the U.S. feared the nation was lagging dangerously behind the Soviet Union in development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In reality, secret photos from American spy satellites were about to confirm what high-flying aircraft had already shown: the so-called missile gap was not real.
But the Eisenhower administration could not reveal this knowledge to the public, and in 1960 John Kennedy won the presidency over Eisenhower's vice president, Richard Nixon, partly on the strength of his stance on the missile gap. When it came to space exploration, no one could be sure how much Kennedy would improve on his predecessor's lukewarm attitude. Within months after entering office, however, Kennedy had no choice but to focus on human spaceflight.
On April 12, 1961, the Soviets launched a 27-year-old fighter pilot named Yuri Gagarin on the world's first piloted space mission. In his spacecraft Vostok ("east"), launched atop a converted R 7 missile, Gagarin made a single orbit of the Earth, returning 108 minutes after liftoff. The Soviets did not reveal that the Vostok had suffered a malfunction prior to reentry that almost killed Gagarin. When the cosmonaut returned unharmed and exhilarated by his flight, the Soviet Union had scored another key space victory.
For the young American president, Gagarin's flight came as a serious blow. In Kennedy's mind, competition with the Soviets in space had become vital to U.S. international prestige. On May 5, a former Navy test-pilot named Alan Shepard -- judged by many to be the best pilot among the Original Seven astronauts -- became the first American in space. Inside his tiny Mercury spacecraft, which he named Freedom 7, Shepard rode a Redstone booster on a 15-minute suborbital flight. The nation reacted to Shepard's feat with wild enthusiasm, and Kennedy took notice.
Kennedy had already been thinking about how to pull ahead of the Soviets in space. He'd asked his advisors to come up with a project that would give the U.S. a clear victory. Less than three weeks after Shepard's flight, speaking before a joint session of Congress, Kennedy made an announcement that would have seemed unthinkable just years before: "I believe 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 the Earth."
But the Eisenhower administration could not reveal this knowledge to the public, and in 1960 John Kennedy won the presidency over Eisenhower's vice president, Richard Nixon, partly on the strength of his stance on the missile gap. When it came to space exploration, no one could be sure how much Kennedy would improve on his predecessor's lukewarm attitude. Within months after entering office, however, Kennedy had no choice but to focus on human spaceflight.
On April 12, 1961, the Soviets launched a 27-year-old fighter pilot named Yuri Gagarin on the world's first piloted space mission. In his spacecraft Vostok ("east"), launched atop a converted R 7 missile, Gagarin made a single orbit of the Earth, returning 108 minutes after liftoff. The Soviets did not reveal that the Vostok had suffered a malfunction prior to reentry that almost killed Gagarin. When the cosmonaut returned unharmed and exhilarated by his flight, the Soviet Union had scored another key space victory.
For the young American president, Gagarin's flight came as a serious blow. In Kennedy's mind, competition with the Soviets in space had become vital to U.S. international prestige. On May 5, a former Navy test-pilot named Alan Shepard -- judged by many to be the best pilot among the Original Seven astronauts -- became the first American in space. Inside his tiny Mercury spacecraft, which he named Freedom 7, Shepard rode a Redstone booster on a 15-minute suborbital flight. The nation reacted to Shepard's feat with wild enthusiasm, and Kennedy took notice.
Kennedy had already been thinking about how to pull ahead of the Soviets in space. He'd asked his advisors to come up with a project that would give the U.S. a clear victory. Less than three weeks after Shepard's flight, speaking before a joint session of Congress, Kennedy made an announcement that would have seemed unthinkable just years before: "I believe 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 the Earth."
