The Nuclear Roots of the Space Race

Abstract

The creation of the first intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) by the United States Air Force and the military of the Soviet Union in the 1950s was an important prerequisite to the military and civilian space programs that soon followed. ICBMs quickly became used both as weapons and for the more peaceful purpose of launching spacecraft into earth orbit and beyond, a fact which affects how they are seen by scholars and the public. While the genesis of the Space Race of the Cold War era has traditionally been tied to spaceflight pioneers and their supporters, a re-examination of the history of ICBMs shows that military factors relating to nuclear weapons weighed more heavily in humanity’s first reach into outer space than previously acknowledged. This finding is one of many since the end of the Cold War that have overturned narratives about the roots of space exploration that originated with promoters of spaceflight.