Space was the core of competition between Superpowers already in the last century, during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union competed for the dominance even of that domain in order to achieve superior spaceflight capability and show their strength and technological superiority to the rival. That period of great technological progress and hard competition was known as the “Space Race” and began in 1955 when the USSR declared they would have launched a satellite in response to the US announcement of its plans to launch into space its first artificial satellite.
Even though the USSR succeeded in sending the first man – Jurij Gagarin – into space, the space race of the XX century was won by the United States. In fact, America reached the moon in July 1969 with the first men who landed on it. But then, due to the high costs and the end of the Cold War, no one comes back to the moon again. Space missions changed goals, decreased risks, and focused on new aspects of science and exploration.
In the XXI century other nations joined space exploration; many rovers, satellites, and probes have been sent into space or on other planets, and international cooperation became very important to reduce costs and propose better solutions to common challenges. The main examples of such collaborative behavior are the Shuttle-Mir Program (1993-1998) and the International Space Station. […]
Per scaricare il paper Registrati o effettua il Login (la registrazione è gratuita)
