flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
What is the difference between a космонавт and a Russian astronaut? There is none, beyond the cold war "need" for us and the Russians to use different words.
I think Wait But Why kinda nailed why we "needed" to use different words:
Wait but Why said:WWII advanced the possibility of human space travel, but it was in late 1957, when the Soviets launched the first man-made object into orbit, the adorable Sputnik 1, that space travel became the defining quest of the world’s great powers.
At the time, the Cold War was in full throttle, and the US and Soviets had their measuring sticks out for an internationally-televised penis-measuring contest. With the successful launch of Sputnik, the Soviet penis bolted out by a few centimeters, horrifying the Americans.
To the Soviets, putting a satellite into space before the US was proof that Soviet technology was superior to American technology, which in turn was put forward as proof, for all the world to see, that communism was a system superior to capitalism.
Eight months later, NASA was born.
The Space Race had begun, and NASA’s first order of business would be to get a man into space, and then a man into full orbit, preferably both before the Soviets. The US was not to be shown up again.
In 1959, NASA launched Project Mercury to carry out the mission. They were on the verge of success when in April of 1961, the Soviets launched Yuri Gagarin into a full orbit around the Earth, making the first human in space and in orbit a Soviet.
It was time for drastic measures. John F. Kennedy’s advisors told him that the Soviets had too big a lead for the US to beat them at any near-term achievements—but that the prospect of a manned moonlanding was far enough in the future that the US had a fighting chance to get there first. So Kennedy gave his famous “we choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hahhd” speech, and directed an outrageous amount of funding at the mission ($20 billion, or $205 billion in today’s dollars).
The result was Project Apollo. Apollo’s mission was to land an American on the moon—and to do it first. The Soviets answered with Soyuz, their own moon program, and the race was on.
As the early phases of Apollo started coming together, Project Mercury finally hit its stride. Just a month after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, American astronaut Alan Shepard became the second man in space, completing a little arc that didn’t put him in full orbit but allowed him to give space a high-five at the top of the arc. A few months later, in February of 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.
The next seven years saw 22 US and Soviet manned launches as the superpowers honed their skills and technology. By late 1968, the furiously-sprinting US had more total launches under their belt (17) than the Soviets (10), and together, the two nations had mastered what we call Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
But LEO hadn’t really excited anyone since the early ’60s. Both powers had their sights firmly set on the moon. The Apollo program was making quick leaps, and in December of 1968, the US became the first nation to soar outside of LEO. Apollo 8 made it all the way to the moon’s orbit and circled around 10 times before returning home safely. The crew, which included James Lovell (who a few months later played the role of Tom Hanks on the Apollo 13 mission), shattered the human altitude record and became the first people to see the moon up close, the first to see the “dark” side of the moon, and the first to see the Earth as a whole planet, snapping this iconic photo:4
Upon return, the crew became America’s most celebrated heroes—which I hope they enjoyed for eight months. Three Apollo missions later, in July of 1969, Apollo 11 made Americans Neil Armstrong3 and Buzz Aldrin the first humans on the moon, and Armstrong took this famous photo of Aldrin looking all puffy:5
It’s hard to fully emphasize what a big deal this was. Ever since life on Earth began 3.6 billion years ago, no earthly creature had set foot on any celestial body other than the Earth. Suddenly, there are Armstrong and Aldrin, bouncing around another sphere, looking up in the sky where the moon is supposed to be and seeing the Earth instead. Insane.
How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars — Wait But Why
One of life’s great leaps may be just around the corner.
