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Taking a Running Leap
Since the beginning of human life, we have looked skyward and wondered what existed beyond our earth. It was not until the twentieth century, though, that man would first fly and journey into space.
On December 17, 1903, two brothers from Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright, took the first steps that would lead us on our journey to the moon. It was on that date that Orville Wright flew the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
The Wright brothers would not be the last Ohioans to make contributions to air and space exploration. From flight testing at Wright Patterson Air Force Base to research and development at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Lewis Research Center, from John Glenn to Neil Armstrong, Ohio industries and individuals have led the way into space.
Author H.G. Wells (1866- 1946) looked to the moon in his 1901 book, The First Men in the Moon, a prophetic description of both man and space flight in the future.
The Space Race
Landing a human on the moon became a priority after World War II. During the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union struggled for supremacy, matching democracy against communism, in what was known as the Cold War. It was in the setting that they each raced to control even the heavens.
Childhood dreams of traveling through space with Buck Rogers met reality on October 4, 1957. On that day the Soviet Union launched a comet-shaped, unmanned satellite, Sputnik I. Orbiting the earth every 98 minutes, it sent out a high-pitch transmitter-signal beep. The New York Times headline that day read:
SOVIET FIRES EARTH SATELLITE INTO SPACE;
IT IS CIRCLING THE GLOBE AT 18,000 M.P.H.;
SPHERE TRACKED IN 4 CROSSINGS OVER U.S.
A month later, the Soviets sent another satellite, Sputnik II, into orbit — this time with a dog named Laika, the first living being sent into space. The United States was humbled by the Soviet's progress. However, just four months later, the U.S. countered with a smaller, but better-built, satellite of its own, Explorer I. Nevertheless, it was the space flight of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin that truly inspired the world. With that event, the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States shifted into high gear.
As the race accelerated, the Soviet Union once more took the lead by launching the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, into space in June 1963.
The true goal was set, when President John Kennedy issued this challenge:
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. . . will be more exciting, or more impressive to mankind, or more important. ..and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish....
The starter's gun had been fired, and it would he the United States who would reach the finish line first. In July 1969, the world watched as the Apollo 11 crew of Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin landed on the moon and grabbed the prize.
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