The origins of the conquest of space, 1945-1969
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The "sharing of knowledge"

Following the Second World War, there was a significant transfer of technology: the victors – Americans, Russians, French and, to a lesser extent, British – took over the heritage of Peenemünde.

All the major programmes, civilian and military, launched in the field of astronautics during the "Cold War" period used the technical bases laid by von Braun and his team between 1936 and 1945.

Indeed, all the military ballistic missiles and all the space launchers of the 1950s and 1960s are direct descendants of the V2.

Wernher von Braun (in the centre) during the Apollo programme (in the 1960s)

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The two great powers "arm-wrestle"

A Saturn V rocket lifts off (1969). Nasa photo

During the whole of the "Cold War", the military strategy of the two great empires confronting each other – American and Russian – was based on a diabolical duo: the atom bomb and the ballistic missile.

From 1955 onwards, the territory of the two great powers became permanently vulnerable: the flight time of an intercontinental ballistic missile was around 30 minutes; furthermore, the submarines, constantly moving round, carried sea-land missiles with nuclear warheads.

The balance of terror

The Cuban missile crisis, in 1962, was the most dangerous moment for the whole of humanity.

Paradoxically, however, it ushered in a new period in the relationship between the American bloc and the Soviet bloc:

"peaceful coexistence", based on the new principle of the "mutually assured destruction deterrent", i.e. on a "balance of terror".

The struggle between the two great powers gradually moved onto peaceful ground, where propaganda endeavoured to establish the superiority of an ideological system by vaunting its technological successes: the conquest of space.

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The race for achievement

Until 1965, the Soviet Union was always one step ahead of the United States: it sent the first artificial satellite (Sputnik) into orbit in 1957, then the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin (1961).

Man on the Moon (1969). Nasa photo

NASA, however, backed by the formidable research capabilities of American high-tech industry, methodically carried on preparing programmes for a manned flight to the Moon (Mercury, Gemini), in order to fulfil the challenge launched by President Kennedy to the Russians and to his own people, in 1961.

The Apollo programme benefited from the extraordinary expansion in third industrial revolution technologies (electronics, computers, telecommunications).

It was the team of Wernher von Braun – who became a naturalised American in 1955 despite his previous membership of the Nazi party – which designed the gigantic Saturn V rocket responsible for putting the spaceship into orbit before its trip to the Moon.

On 21st July 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on lunar soil. That remains one of the 20th century’s most important dates.

L'appel du cosmos Alain Dupas, Gallimard, 1999 Hommes et robots dans l'espace Alain Dupas, Gallimard, 1999