Background+History

"If our national self-respect is on such a shaky basis that it cannot survive one more Russian triumph in space, we are in a bad way indeed".
(Carl Dreher, science editor of //Nation// Magazine)

The Ultimate goal of the U.S. space program was to compete with that of the U.S.S.R. (Soviet Union) which had launched Sputnik. Not wanting to feel inferior the United States entered a "Space Race with The Soviet Union so as to not appear inferior when it came to technology during the cold war. Some disliked the idea of the United States using money to fund space programs merely to compete with the Soviet Union and others believed that expanding the United States' space program was crucial to its standing in the world. Because of this competition, The U.S. quickly developed space programs and missions, such as Apollo 8 and Apollo 13.