Who Is Neil Armstrong? by Roberta Edwards

Author:Roberta Edwards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

John F. Kennedy was president at the dawn of the space race. He took office in January of 1961. He was determined to see the United States pull ahead of the Soviets.

The president prodded Congress to pour billions of dollars into NASA, which was based in Houston. (Spacecraft, however, were launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, because the area’s mild weather meant launches could take place any time of year.)

A team of seven men was picked as the very first group of astronauts.

In a famous speech before Congress, President Kennedy said, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to Earth.”

By the end of the decade? That meant an American astronaut had to reach the moon before 1970. To many people, that seemed an impossible dream. But the challenge had been issued. NASA would do all it could to make the dream a reality.

THE U.S.S.R.—ALLY, THEN ENEMY

BY 1943, THE U.S.S.R.—ALSO KNOWN AS RUSSIA OR THE SOVIET UNION—WAS FIGHTING ON THE SAME SIDE AS GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD WAR II.

WHEN THE WAR ENDED IN 1945 WITH GERMANY’S DEFEAT, THE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE U.S.S.R. ENDED, TOO. BOTH COUNTRIES WERE VERY POWERFUL. THE UNITED STATES SAW THAT THE U.S.S.R. HOPED TO GAIN CONTROL OF OTHER COUNTRIES IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD. THAT WOULD MAKE THE U.S.S.R. TOO POWERFUL.

WORLD WAR II WAS OVER, BUT THE “COLD WAR” HAD BEGUN AND LASTED UNTIL THE COLLAPSE OF THE U.S.S.R. IN 1991.

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