Transcript Arms Race

Arms Race
America & The Bomb
• During WWII, America had developed the
world’s first Atomic Bomb and used it in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
In 1949
• Truman announced that the USSR had
also developed and tested an atomic
weapon
• Americans were incredibly fearful of the
new Soviet threat
Truman’s Response
• 1950 - Truman approved development of a
hydrogen bomb (thermonuclear)
• 1st one was 500 times bigger than the
bomb dropped on Hiroshima
Testing
• Silhouetted
figures of
workers in
foreground
watching
thermonuclear
detonation
during Pacific
tests on Jan.
1, 1958.
Nuclear Fears
• Truman organized Federal Civil Defense
Administration
– Goal: Teach people how to survive a nuclear
attack
– Many people argued that what it produced was
actually propaganda
“Duck and Cover”
• https://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=IKqXu5jw60
“Duck and Cover”
Post-viewing
• What was the primary reason for making
the “Duck and Cover” video?
• What seems like a likely secondary reason
for making the video?
100,000 Fallout shelters
built in the 1950s
MAD: Soviets vs. U.S.
• During the Cold War, America and the
Soviet Union came to rely on a theory
called Mutually Assured Destruction
(M.A.D.)
• If each country could destroy the other,
neither would use their nuclear weapons b/c
they would fear destruction
• Nuclear policy today still depends on this
idea
1 Megaton Bomb
• 1.5 mile • All life and buildings pulverized
• 3 miles • Lung hemorrhage, 3rd degree burns
• 4 miles • Brick and frame houses destroyed,
ear drum rupture
• 5 miles • Spontaneous ignition of clothing and
combustibles, firestorms (50% dead)
rd degree burns of exposed skin,
•
3
• 6 miles
multiple trauma and lacerations
• Exposed people 2nd degree burns
• 8.5
and all blinded, all windows broken,
miles
Arms & Space
• The arms race also led to the space race
• Both countries wanted:
– To ensure their safety
– To prove their superiority
Space Race
Oct 1957
Sound of Sputnik
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMFvr1VwSSo
• -3:10
• Cold War CNN Sputnik 22-27
Sputnik
• Soviet Union launched Sputnik
• 1st artificial satellite to orbit earth
• Americans worried that the same rocket used to
launch Sputnik could carry a hydrogen bomb
• May 1960- Soviet Union used a guided
missile to shoot down an American U-2
spy plane over Soviet territory
Significance of Sputnik
• Soviets have technological superiority
– Winning the space race
• Soviets have nuclear delivery superiority
– ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile)
• Psychological fear to Americans
– We need to catch up!
Effects
• Led to creation of
NASA (National
Aeronautics and Space
Administration)
• Education: National
Defense Education Act
– Gave $ to schools to
improve math, science
and foreign language
education
Space Race Highlights
• Sputnik – Oct, 1957 (Soviet)
First
satellites • Explorer – Jan, 1958 (US)
First Men • Yuri Gagarin – Apr, 1961 (Soviet)
in orbit • Alan Shepard– May, 1961 (US)
First Man • Aldrin & Armstrong – 1969 (US)
on Moon
Space Race Timeline
• You will examine a series of short articles
about the space race and create your own
Space Race Timeline
• Pick 5 events that you think are the most
important- create a timeline in using these
events. Make sure to include why this
event is significant
M.A.D.: Read the current events article &
answer these Qs
• 1. What is the “Last Resort Letter?”
• 2. During the Cold War, how would this have been
used? How might it be used today?
• 3. What is the “unresolved paradox of nuclear
deterrence?”
• 4. What is the argument for using nuclear power in
the situation described in this article? What is the
argument against?
• 5. What would you do if you had to write this letter?
What is your justification?
Moon Speech, May 25, 1961
Moon Speech, May 25, 1961
• Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on
around the world between freedom and tyranny, the
dramatic achievements in space which occurred in
recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did
the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the
minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a
determination of which road they should take. Since
early in my term, our efforts in space have been under
review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is
Chairman of the National Space Council, we have
examined where we are strong and where we are not,
where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is
time to take longer strides-time for a great new American
enterprise-time for this nation to take a clearly leading
role in space achievement, which in many ways may
hold the key to our future on earth.
Moon Speech, May 25, 1961
• I believe we possess all the resources and
talents necessary. But the facts of the
matter are that we have never made the
national decisions or marshaled the
national resources required for such
leadership. We have never specified longrange goals on an urgent time schedule,
or managed our resources and our time so
as to insure their fulfillment.
Moon Speech, May 25, 1961
• Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets with
their large rocket engines, which gives them many
months of lead-time, and recognizing the likelihood that
they will exploit this lead for some time to come in still
more impressive successes, we nevertheless are
required to make new efforts on our own. For while we
cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can
guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make
us last. We take an additional risk by making it in full
view of the world, but as shown by the feat of astronaut
Shepard, this very risk enhances our stature when we
are successful. But this is not merely a race. Space is
open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning
is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into
space because whatever mankind must undertake, free
men must fully share.
Moon Speech, May 25, 1961
• I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond
the increases I have earlier requested for space
activities, to provide the funds which are needed
to meet the following national goals:
• First, I believe that 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. No single space project
in this period will be more impressive to
mankind, or more important for the long-range
exploration of space; and none will be so difficult
or expensive to accomplish.
Questions
1. How long after Alan Shepard’s flight into
space did Kennedy give his moon
speech?
2. Why was going to the moon so important
to Kennedy?
3. Do you think Kennedy’s proposal to land
a man on the moon before the end of the
decade was farfetched? Why or why
not?
Alan Shepard
• First American in space
– May 5, 1961
• Kennedy’s moon speech
– May 25, 1961
Early NASA missions
• Mercury
– Goal: Put a man in space and
orbit.
• Gemini
– Goal: Develop techniques for
space travel (basis for Apollo)
• Apollo
– Goal: Land a man on the moon.
The Kennedy Tapes.
Before and after becoming president, Kennedy
had made use of a recording device called a
Dictaphone, mostly for dictating letters or notes. In
the summer of 1962 he asked Secret Service Agent
Robert Bouck to conceal recording devices in the
Cabinet Room, the Oval Office, and a study/library
in the Mansion…
The West Wing machines were connected by
wire to two microphones in the Cabinet Room and
two in the Oval Office. Those in the Cabinet Room
were on the outside wall, placed in two spots
covered by drapes where once there had been wall
fixtures. They were activated by a switch at the
President’s place at the Cabinet table, easily
mistaken for a buzzer press.
Are they credible evidence?
The most plausible explanation for
Kennedy’s making secret tape recordings
is that he wanted material to be used later
in writing a memoir. Since he seems
neither to have had transcripts made nor
to have listened to any of the tapes, it is
unlikely that he wanted them for current
business. He had himself written histories
and was by most accounts prone to
asking historians’ questions…
Those who have spent much time with
the tapes and those who have compared
the tapes to their own experience working
with Kennedy find no evidence that he
taped only self-flattering moments. He
often made statements or discussed
ideas that would have greatly damaged
him had they become public.
The
Kennedy
Tapes.
Wednesday, November 21, 1962
Cabinet Room, The White House
• http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/clip/1962-11-21-fly-me-to-moon
Questions
• Why was the moon landing important to
Kennedy?
• What surprised you about listening to this
high level meeting?
July 20, 1969