•The main reason was national security.•One of the main causes of the space race was to see

whether U.S. or Russia had better technology than the other country.

• The USSR realized the US had airbases throughout Europe, the Middle East and Alaska. From these US

bombers could hit anywhere inside the USSR. The Soviets, however, could only reach Alaska and a very small portion

of the Pacific Northwest. They felt threatened! Their solution? Design rockets to carry atomic bombs to the US, should that ever be necessary. It took them over 10 years

to build a rocket big enough to do this.

How They CompetedVS

at the end of World War II carried over into the space race. In light of the events with “Project Paperclip,” the Soviets were more determined than ever to be the first to acquire the rocket technologies and show the rest of the world that they were a superpower and a force to be reckoned with. Initially it appeared that the United States would easily be able to pick up where the Germans had left off in terms of rocket science due to the fact that they now had von Braun, many of the German rocket scientists, and much of the V-2 hardware. This was not the case however. The United States sat on this gold mine and did nothing until the Korean War, about eight years later. Many would attribute this loss of valuable time to President Truman. Von Braun continued to say that the Soviets would win the race into space because of our lack of interest and funds to develop the Redstone rocket. The technology could have been finished as early as 1950, but the United States chose to focus their efforts and finances elsewhere. The Soviets were more than ready to take the lead and the United States was going to be caught by surprise at the incredible motivation the Soviets had to win this race. This race was one the United States didn’t even know they were in yet. This was the beginning of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Videos & Images

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkUSceAtCIE