Harrison Kass
Why did the United States establish its Space Force in 2019?
To answer that question, one must first understand the historical context of America’s role in space exploration over the past 80 years. Let us back up to the 1950s—and the true beginning of the Space Age.
The concept of sending artificial objects, and potentially humans, into space was well-understood by the turn of the 20th century. Early engineers such as Robert Goddard designed successively more powerful rockets. Before these rockets were used for breaching the atmosphere, they were put to much deadlier use during the Second World War—particularly under Nazi Germany, whose scientists developed the V-2 rocket and used it to rain terror upon Allied cities. After the war, these scientists and their rocket technology were vigorously poached by both the United States and the Soviet Union, and both sides incorporated them into their own space programs.
The Soviet Union’s launching of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 marked a searing moment in the public’s consciousness and the beginning of a new military age. Launching the Space Race between the Americans and the Soviets, Sputnik inspired the great powers to assert themselves in the heavens—which many assumed would be the last frontier of warfare, and the most consequential.
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