What is "space race"

n. The competition between nations in the field of space exploration.

The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for supremacy in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that occurred following World War II, enabled by captured German rocket technology and personnel. The technological superiority required for such supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of ideological superiority. The Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, unmanned space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon.

The competition began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year, by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4, 1957 orbiting of Sputnik 1, and later beat the US to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961. The race peaked with the July 20, 1969 US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. The USSR tried but failed manned lunar missions, and eventually cancelled them and concentrated on Earth orbital space stations.

A period of détente followed with the April 1972 agreement on a co-operative Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, resulting in the July 1975 rendezvous in Earth orbit of a US astronaut crew with a Soviet cosmonaut crew. The end of the Space Race is harder to pinpoint than its beginning, but it was over by the December, 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, after which true spaceflight cooperation between the US and Russia began.

The Space Race has left a legacy of Earth communications and weather satellites, and continuing human space presence on the International Space Station. It has also sparked increases in spending on education and research and development, which led to beneficial spin-off technologies.

The Space Race was a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to explore outer space.

Space race may also refer to:

• " Space Race", the two-part third season finale of Archer
• Space competition, an offer of a prize for the first competitor who demonstrates a space vehicle
• Asian space race, a competition between Asian countries to achieve technological advancements in space
• Space Race (video game), a 1973 arcade game by Atari
• Looney Tunes: Space Race, a 2000 video game featuring the Looney Tunes
• Yogi's Space Race, a 1978 animated series by Hanna-Barbera Productions
• Space Race (TV series), a BBC docu-drama series first shown on BBC2
• "Space Race" (Stargate SG-1), an episode of the show Stargate SG-1
• Space Race (album), a 1980 album by New Zealand rock band Mi-Sex
• "Space Race" (instrumental), a song by Billy Preston

For the children's space TV show, see Space Racers.

Space Race is a BBC docudrama series first shown in Britain on BBC2 between September and October 2005, chronicling the major events and characters in the American/Soviet space race up to the first landing of a man on the moon. It focuses on Sergei Korolev, the Soviet chief rocket designer, and Wernher von Braun, his American counterpart. The series was a joint effort between British, German, American and Russian production teams.

Space Race is the second arcade game created by Atari (the first was Pong). It was released in July, 1973. The two players each control a rocket ship; the object of the game is to make it from the bottom of the screen to the top, while avoiding obstacles such as asteroids. Score is kept electronically and the background consists of a simple starfield.

Space Race is an album by New Zealand New Wave music group Mi-Sex, released in June 1980. It reached number one on the New Zealand albums chart, and spawned several singles, including the top 5 hit " People".

Recorded at Music Farm, John L Sayers - Engineer - mixed at EMI 301.

"Space Race" is an instrumental track by Billy Preston, released as a single in 1973. The single -- a sequel to his 1972 hit, " Outa-Space" -- hit number one on the R&B chart for one week and number four on the Pop Singles chart. It also became a gold record. The instrumental proved popular enough that the musical variety show American Bandstand used it as the song for its mid-broadcast break from the mid-1970s until the show completed its run in 1989. The song can be heard in a party scene in the 1979 film When a Stranger Calls (1979 film).

"Space Race" is the two-part season finale of the third season of the animated comedy series Archer. It consists of the twelfth and thirteenth episodes of the season, which were initially broadcast in the United States on FX on March 15 and March 22, 2012, respectively. In the installment, Commander Anthony Drake ( Bryan Cranston) urges the field agents of ISIS to travel onto the spacecraft Horizon to aid in ceasing any attacks. After entering and defeating the resistant "mutineers", the field agents are eventually kidnapped by Drake and his aggregation, whose real objective is to colonize and populate the humans on Mars.

"Space Race", which was written and directed by series creator Adam Reed, is a parody of the 1979 spy film Moonraker, the eleventh film of the James Bond cinema franchise. Additionally, the episode is instilled with multiple references to science fiction cinema, including the popular films Aliens, The Right Stuff, and Star Wars Episode IV, as well as political events such as the Cold War's space exploration competition between the Soviet Union and the United States. Cranston guest starred in the program, alongside actor Dave Willis, who reprised his role as recurring antagonist Barry Dylan.

"Space Race: Part I" received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, who praised the episode's humor and character developments. Although it acquired positive critiques from commentators, the humor and general execution of "Space Race: Part II" was deemed inferior to its predecessor. "Space Race: Part I" garnered 1.157 million viewers during its initial airing, while "Space Race: Part II" attained 1.33 million viewers upon airing, consequently becoming the most viewed episode of Archer third season.