The space race was the competition of space exploration between the United States and the Soviet Union. This reason intensified the cold war tentions because the Soviet union was the first to launch the first earth artificial satelite, putnik. It was a shock for the US experts and citizens who had hoped that their country would be the first one to accomplish that scientific advance first.
it was December of 1957 when the US first artificial satellite, named Vanguard, exploded on the launch pad. Finally, on January 31, 1958, the United States succeeded in launching its first satellite, the Explorer. The Explorer was still slighter than Sputnik, but its launch sent it deeper into space. The Soviets responded with yet another launch, and the space race continued.
From that moment it was all a competition to see who had better space and weapons programs. In the lates 1950s, the Soviet Union was by far the most superior in terms of technology.
To sum up, the launch of Sputnik fueled both the space race and the arms race, as well as to increasing Cold War tensions, as each country worked to prepare new methods of attacking the other.
