Trieste also helped to consolidate many advances in submersible design and to inspire
other designers. As noted above, many advances
came together to create Trieste. Her success encouraged others to design and build other vessels to explore the ocean. Jacques Piccard went
on to invent the mesoscaph (in which “meso”
means “middle”), a vessel for exploring intermediate ocean depths; the United States built the
FLIP (floating instrument platform) to study
near-surface oceanography and marine biology.
In addition to these vessels, Alvin, Deepstar, and
the navy’s deep submergence rescue vehicle (designed to rescue crews from sunken submarines)
were designed using lessons from Trieste. Some
features of modern deep-diving nuclear submarines are the result of work that went into Trieste’s design as well.
In addition to the engineering and scientific
advances represented by the Trieste, she and other
deep-sea exploratory vessels excited the public’s
interest in oceanography, an interest that has carried on for several decades. The interest shown
for most of the last half of the twentieth century
was probably due mainly to the efforts of Jacques
Cousteau, but the bizarre nature of deep-sea life
has been sufficiently interesting to capture public
attention in and of itself. In fact, deep-sea exploration often provokes newspaper headlines, stories in the nightly news, or feature articles in popular magazines. In addition to scientific discoveries, events such as the recovery of gold from the
sunken ship Central America, the live broadcast
from the wreck of the Titanic, and other events
routinely command large television audiences. As
with so many other oceanographic exploits, the
technology that makes such deep submergence
possible is a direct outgrowth of lessons learned
while designing, building, and operating Trieste,
including her dive into the Challenger Deep.
Finally, in a related vein, deep-sea exploration became important to the United States in
the late 1950s and early 1960s as compensation
of a sort for the Soviet Union’s successes in
space. The U.S.S.R. launched the first satellite
and the first manned spaceflight as well as conducted the first spacewalk, all of which dealt
temporary blows to the idea of the United States
as a leading technological power and innovator.
Moreover, while trying to catch the Soviet Union
in space, the United States suffered a number of
embarrassing rocket failures. At times, the only
consolation for the United States seemed to be
the American mastery of deep-sea technology
and exploration.
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In spite of the Trieste’s success and that of
other manned and unmanned deep-sea exploration vessels, the bottom of the sea remains
largely a mystery to science. The release of data
from military satellites has been a tremendous
boon to mapping the seafloor but provides no
information about the organisms that exist there
and how they live. Research on these communities of organisms is providing important information that will likely lead to a better understanding of the origins of life on earth and how
that early life existed. These questions are of
widespread scientific and popular interest, especially given the strides taken in the late 1990s in
the search for life on other planets. In addition,
rich deposits of metal nodules—mostly manganese and related metals—exist on the ocean’s
abyssal plains but, in spite of their economic potential, currently remain untouched. For these
reasons, the Trieste’s 1960 dive to a depth of
nearly seven miles ranks as a high accomplishment as well as sets the stage for even more dramatic achievements to come.
P. ANDREW KARAM
Further Reading
Piccard, Jacques. “Man’s Deepest Dive.” National Geographic (May 1960).
The Space Race and the Cold War
Overview
At the end of World War II, the United States and
the Soviet Union began a decades-long battle for
political, military, and technological superiority. In
the absence of any real fighting, space exploration
provided a focus for the competition between the
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two superpowers. From the 1950s to the 1970s
the United States and the Soviet Union raced to
conquer space, but when tensions eased between
the two nations in the 1970s, the urgency of winning the race declined and the race ended with the
superpowers cooperating on several projects.
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Background
The United States and the Soviet Union emerged
from World War II as adversaries in the Cold
War—an open rivalry in which the two nations
vied for political power and standing in the
world without ever fighting an actual battle. Instead, they fought with propaganda and scientific and technological achievements.
Much of the technology that led to space exploration had military beginnings. World War I
and World War II resulted in the development of
government scientific research facilities charged
with designing military airplanes. World War II
had provided the motivation for rocket development in the United States, the Soviet Union,
Great Britain, France, and other countries. But
the Germans were by far the most advanced
rocket designers: their V-2, a liquid-propellantfueled rocket, was the ancestor of the rockets that
would eventually reach space. Recognizing this,
the United States brought several V-2s back for
research after the war, and launched “Operation
Paperclip,” an effort to recruit as many top German scientists as possible to the United States to
continue their research.
At the end of the war, it appeared that the
United States was the clear technological giant in
the world—they had detonated the first atomic
bomb in 1945 and the first hydrogen bomb in
1952. Despite this advantage and the presence
of German scientists in the United States, the Soviet Union quickly made great advances in rocketry. During the International Geophysical Year
(1957-58) both countries announced plans to
launch satellites into space. But the United
States was still working on a launch vehicle
when the Soviet Union stunned the world by announcing that it had successfully placed a satellite, Sputnik I, in orbit on October 4, 1957.
A month later, on November 3, 1957, the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik II, carrying a dog
named Laika. The United States tried to catch
up, but its first attempt at a launch, on December 6, 1957, failed when the Vanguard rocket
rose four feet and crashed back to the launch
pad. It was instantly called “Flopnik,” or “Kaputnik.” Finally on January 31, 1958, the United
States launched its first satellite, Explorer I. The
space race had officially begun.
Impact
The early Soviet successes in space dealt a blow to
American pride and confidence. Serious attempts
to reach space had been neglected in the United
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States, where military officials preferred to concentrate on weapons development, and where the
Eisenhower administration had been so concerned with keeping the nation’s budget balanced
that it had cut funding to all scientific efforts.
The launch of Sputnik was a wake-up call.
Americans feared that the world would see the
Soviet system as superior, and many questioned
whether the free and open society of 1950s
America was as dominant as they had thought.
The U.S. space program, previously a concern
only among scientists and engineers, was suddenly important to everyday people as well. Military experts, meanwhile, took the satellite
launch as proof that the Soviet Union was probably ahead in ballistic missile development as
well. The feeling was that if the Russians could
get a satellite into space, then they could probably land a warhead on American soil as well.
With this fear spurring them on, U.S. officials scrambled to piece together a space program in an attempt to salvage some national
pride and international prestige. President
Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 to
oversee the space program and to make sure the
United States caught up to the Soviet Union.
The space race continued though the 1950s and
1960s, with the United States and the Soviet
Union competing for each progressive step of
space exploration.
Having lost the initial leg of the race, the
United States aimed to be the first to reach the
moon. But the first attempt to launch, in August
1958, failed when the rocket carrying the Pioneer 0 moon probe exploded on the launch pad.
That same year the launches of Pioneer probes 1,
2, and 3 were also unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the
Soviets were also working on a moon launch. As
in the United States, the first attempt failed
when the Luna 1 probe launched but did not
reach the moon in early 1959. But the Luna program soon got off the ground, and the Soviets
racked up more firsts—the first solar orbit, the
first impact on the moon, and the first photographs of the moon from a lunar orbit (which
allowed the Russians to name many of the
moon’s geological features).
American pride was at a low. The nation
that had emerged from World War II as the most
powerful on earth was being humbled and technologically crippled by its enemy. In the face of
this seeming defeat, the United States decided to
aim for the ultimate prize—a man on the moon.
With that in mind, Project Mercury was begun
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Sputnik 1. (UPI/Corbis-Bettmann. Reproduced by permission.)
in 1958 with the goals of orbiting a manned
spacecraft around the earth, studying man’s ability to function in space, and recovering both
man and spacecraft safely. But once again, the
Soviet Union did it first. On April 12, 1961, Yuri
Gagarin (1934-1968), a Russian cosmonaut, became the first man in space. This time, the United States was not so far behind. On May 5,
1961, Commander Alan Shepard (1923-1998)
of the U.S. Navy became the first American in
space, orbiting earth in the Mercury 7 capsule.
American officials scrambled to find a way to
catch up. President John F. Kennedy met with
advisers who felt that the only way to win the
space race was to get a man to the moon first. So
in a speech given on May 25, 1961, Kennedy rallied the nation around the space program. “If we
are to win the battle that is now going on around
the world between freedom and tyranny,” he
said, “now it is the 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.” Then he issued his famous 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 earth.”
Kennedy’s challenge restored national interest in space. The U.S. space program acceleratS C I E N C E
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ed, and the race to space with the Soviets intensified. On August 6, 1961, the Soviets struck
again. Cosmonaut Gherman Titov (1935- ) and
the Vostok 2 capsule spent more than 25 hours in
space, orbiting the earth 17 times. The next year,
on February 20, 1962, John Glenn (1921- ) became the first American in orbit. For the next
seven years, the United States and the Soviet
Union raced to get to the ultimate prize first.
The Soviets put the first woman, Valentina
Tereshkova (1937- ), in space in 1963, and a
cosmonaut took the first spacewalk in 1965. The
first American spacewalk came just a few
months later, but then the Soviets racked up a
series of other firsts—the first impact on Venus,
the first soft landing on the moon, and the first
orbit of the moon with a safe return.
For all its earlier second-place finishes, the
Unites States managed to cross the finish line
first when it counted. The first man on the moon
was an American, Neil Armstrong (1930- ), and
he walked on the moon before the end of the
1960s, just as Kennedy had promised. But soon
after this victory, in the early 1970s, the United
States’ interest in conquering space waned, as
sociopolitical issues preoccupied the nation’s
interest.
Simultaneously, the Soviet program began
to falter. In 1971 the Soviet Union announced
that it was shifting the focus of its space program
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to long-term living in space; later that year the
Salyut program began, launching a number of
stations that conducted experiments in space
and hosted astronauts from other nations. Not to
be outdone, the United States sent up the space
station Skylab in 1973. But by this time, further
détente between the Unites States and the Soviet
Union cooled any chance of starting a new space
race. The Cold War was coming to an end and
the hostilities of the 1950s were being forgotten.
Some experts consider the official end of the
space race to be 1975, when the Soviet Soyuz
craft docked with the American Apollo 18, the
first-ever international space rendezvous. The
Cold War also ended peacefully, with the United
States and Soviet Union never actually going to
war—except to compete for the patriotism of
their respective people and the international
prestige of conquering space.
GERI CLARK
Further Reading
Burrows, William E. This New Ocean. New York: Random
House, 1999.
Collins, Martin J. Space Race: The U.S.–U.S.S.R. Competition to Reach the Moon. New York: Pomegranate Press,
1999.
Crouch, Tom D. Aiming for the Stars: The Dreamers and
Doers of the Space Age. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1999.
Schefter, James. The Race: The Uncensored Story of How
America Beat Russia to the Moon. New York: Doubleday, 1999.
Women in Space
Overview
In 1903, the historic flight of the Wright brothers ushered in a new era, not just in transportation, but also in lifestyle, adventure, and science.
When American Bessica Raiche made a solo
flight in 1910 using the aircraft she and husband
François built, she opened the skies for future
women aviators. By the time the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was chartered
in the United States in July 1958, women were a
fixture in aeronautical circles—not just in support roles, but as pioneers in astronomics, engineering, and mathematics. In 1963, when Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova (1937- )
left Earth aboard the Vostok 6, she became the
first woman in space, forever changing the destiny of women.
Background
Before the end of the nineteenth century, three
women astronomers had made significant contributions to the science that would eventually
lead mankind into space. The first, Maria
Mitchell (1818-1889), discovered a comet in
1847 and became a professor of astronomy and
director of the Vassar College observatory in
1865. The second, Henrietta Swan Leavitt
(1868-1921), devised a method to measure the
distances of stars from the Earth with stars in
other galaxies. Her photographic measurements,
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key to determining astronomical distances, were
known as the Harvard Standard and were accepted among the world’s astronomers. The
third, Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941), a
physicist, joined the staff of the Harvard College
Observatory in 1897. In her 40-plus years on
staff, Jump Cannon named and catalogued over
300,000 stars, perfected a universal system of
stellar classification, and compiled the largest accumulation of astronomical information ever assembled by a single researcher.
While women astronomers were searching
the far reaches of the galaxy via telescope,
women aviators were exploring the skies closer
to the Earth. Less than a decade after Orville
Wright’s (1871-1948) first successful flight, Harriet Quimby (1884-1912) became the first
American woman to earn a pilot’s license (1911).
In 1912, she was the first woman to fly across
the English Channel. The war effort expanded a
flight school started in 1915 by Katherine
(1891-1977) and Marjorie Stinson, who trained
American and Royal Canadian pilots. In addition to her flight school achievements, Marjorie
Stinson was appointed the first female airmail
pilot in 1918. Another first was accomplished by
Bessie Coleman (1896-1926), who became the
first African-American (male or female) to earn a
pilot’s license (in 1921).
By the 1930s, women aviators had made
their mark as stunt pilots, entertainers, and ad-
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