05/09/2017

Unit 4: Nuclear Arms- & Space race

“A single demand of you, comrades: provide us with atomic weapons in the

shortest possible time … the equilibrium has been destroyed. Provide the bomb.
It will remove a great danger from us.” - Joseph Stalin

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1. Space Race
USA’s use of nuclear weapons to end WW2 prompted
the race for technological advancement.

USA & USSR raced to be the first to conquer space.

Space race: Sputnik

◦ USSR sent the first shuttle into space on 4 October 1957
◦ Sputnik travelled around the earth at 18,000 miles per hour,
circling the globe every 96 minutes.
◦ USSR ‘lead’ 1-0…

The U.S. government reacted to Sputnik by passing the National

Defense Education Act to promote math, science, and technology
education and to fund university research
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A replica of Sputnik 1

2. It’s a dogs world…

3 November 1957: Soviets launch
Sputnik 2, which carried the dog
Laika.
◦ 1st living creature to orbit space and
orbit the earth
◦ Laika died in space

19 Aug 1960: Belka and Strelka

spent a day in space aboard Sputnik
5 before safely returning to Earth
◦ They were the first Earth-born
creatures to go into orbit and return
alive
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3. Space race: First man in space

Soviets send the first man - Yuri

Gagarin - into space on 12 April 1961.

USSR ‘leads’ 2-0

U.S. would have been the first, but instead

they sent a monkey (Ham) on January 31,
1961.
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4. Space race: Apollo program & Moon

landing
May 25,1961: Pres. J.F. Kennedy
announced - want to land man on the
moon before the end of the decade
◦ Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 20,
1969.

On 21 July 1969 Neil Armstrong was the

first man to step foot on the moon.

"That's one small step for man, one giant

leap for mankind.” – Niel Armstrong

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5. Space race: purpose/goals?

Technological advancement

Necessary for National Security

Superiority of ideology
◦ “Capitalism is better than Communism,
because…”
◦ “Communism better than Capitalism, because…”

Symbolic victory
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6. Nuclear arms race

USA and USSR were in competition with each
other to have the best, most powerful weapons in
the world – this was called the Arms Race.
◦ USA & USSR - both sides continually built updated
weapons aimed at one another that provided for the
possibility of massive retaliation sometimes called MAD
(mutually assured destruction)

Soviet Union explodes its first atomic bomb 29

August 1949
◦ Soviet physicist / scientist: Igor Kurchatov

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Nuclear arms race (cont.)

Cold War tensions increased in the USSR when

the USA exploded its first hydrogen bomb – The
Mike test – on 1st November 1952.
◦ It was 700 times more powerful than the Hiroshima
atomic bomb = a force of more than 10 million tons of
TNT
◦ As with atomic bomb, USA enjoyed a short-lived
monopoly
◦ Soviet Union tested a prototype “boosted fusion”
weapon in 1953, and a full-fledged thermonuclear weapon
in 1955.

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Nuclear arms race (cont.)

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM)
◦ 21 August 1957: Soviets launch first ICBM
◦ Builds Cold War tension
◦ By 1959, both the USA & USSR developed rockets called
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could deliver nuclear
warheads to distant targets

Early 1960’s: USA tests Submarine Launched Ballistic

Missile
◦ Completely untraceable
◦ USSR: 1964

1960: USA develops new

The Cold War was expensive. In 1969 the USA and USSR
were spending $50 million per day on nuclear arms.

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5. Ronald Reagan: Star Wars

January 1981: Ronald Reagan (anti-communist) becomes US

president (1981-1989)

Denounced the Soviet Union as an immoral “evil empire”

Announced program to protect against enemy missiles

called Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) named program Star
Wars
◦ proposal to use ground and space-based systems to protect the US
from attack by nuclear ballistic missiles.
It focused on strategic defence rather than doctrine of mutual assured
destruction (MAD).

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6. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

• Both USA and USSR devoted huge resources to develop
weapons it hoped never to use
• Strategic value: in deterring the other side

• Depending on each side to be able to destroy their enemy after

being attacked

• That made the two refrain from attacking each other: certainty of
mutual assured destruction

• To start a war would mean almost certain self-destruction

• MAD kept both sides in a continuous state of alert

• Nuclear war would destroy the entire planet and every living
thing on it = global destruction
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7. Nuclear Arms Control

• Arms control
• Regulating or limiting the growth of nuclear arsenals
• Managing nuclear weapons
• NOT disarmament or elimination of weapons

• It was necessary to prevent a cost escalation that could

bankrupt both superpowers

• “Make love not war”

• During 1950s people started to question and criticize
destructive potential
• 1960s was a new era of protest
• Context? Cold War, Vietnam War, Counterculture, Hippies, etc.
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Arms Control (cont.)

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty:

• 1963: first serious agreement on arms control
• USA, USSR, Britain: ban on testing nuclear weapons in
atmosphere, in outer space or underwater
• Permits underground testing only

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

• 1 July 1968: prohibiting transfer of nuclear technology to
other countries
• Effort to stop any more countries from acquiring nuclear
weapons

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Arms Control (cont.)

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT 1)
• 17 November 1969 in Helsinki: USA & USSR
• 26 May 1972 in Moscow: signed agreement between Nixon and
Brezhnev
• Interim agreement on certain measures with respect to the
limitation of strategic offensive arms; limitations of ABMs (Anti-
Ballistic Missiles)

SALT 2
• Signed in Vienna 18 June 1979 between Carter and Brezhnev
• Both sides accepted a limit to their nuclear arsenals
• Criticism: did nothing to control the growth of weapon stockpiles
on either side

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Arms Control (cont.)

START 1: Strategic Arms Reduction Talks
• Gorbachev and Bush
• Started in May 1982 - signed in July 1991
• This treaty between the US and Soviet Union/Russian Federation
was the first to call for reductions of U.S. and Soviet/Russian
strategic nuclear weapons and served as a framework for future,
more severe reductions.

Feel free to visit: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Treaties/index.shtml for a

whole list of all the arms control treaties. 2-18