Episode Recording -- "The Battle Fought in Space"

• The basis for the Cold War: Conflicting ideologies between the Soviet Communists and American Democrats, the threat of nuclear warfare, and spies embedded throughout their counterpart’s government programs.

Tanner and Jake dive into the ins and outs of the differing thoughts behind communism and democracy, and the threat communism imposed on American free will, as well as the threat Russians had with nuclear weapons. American society would grow fearful of Russia’s government invading theirs, while also living in daily fear of a Russian nuclear attack.

• Nuclear weapons and missile technological developments led to the discovery and advancement of rocket science and space technology.

The science behind missiles was developed in the late World War II, and the duo discusses how both countries used missile technology to make rockets. Essentially, both sides adapted a German technology, and sent large missiles into space, leading to the creation of rockets and development of rocket science.

• The competition that grew between the United States and Soviet Union led to the Space Race being used as a battleground for the Cold War.

The two look at the back-and-forth of the Space missions between the Soviet Union and the United States, analyzing the reason for them. Both sides attempted to better the other by developing new technology faster, and reaching new milestones before the other did. Putting life in space, putting satellites in orbit, and having man walk on the moon were all examples of this competition that ensued between both countries.

[00:00:11] - Jake

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Student's Podcasting History. And this episode is titled “The Battle Fought in Space: How Cold War Political Conflicts and Differing Ideologies, and Nuclear Missile Development led to the Space Race, which was used as a Cold War battlefront”. I'm your host, Jake Walling. For those who are new, I'm a college student at Sewanee: University of the South, studying finance. But Space Race and Cold War is something I learned from an early age and it's something I've always been passionate about. I actually learned  it in my fourth-grade target class.

[00:00:52] - Tanner

Wow. Wow.

[00:00:54] - Jake

Yeah, fourth-grade target class. That's because my target teacher was studying to become an astronaut. I think she was an ex-astronaut. So, it's something I've always been passionate about. And today, I have a guest named Tanner gray, who is also a senior student at Sewanee: University of the South, studying politics, correct?

[00:01:17] - Tanner

Yes, some have called me the foremost expert on Cold War trends and political ideologies throughout this era. It's not a lot of people. It's only myself who is calling myself that. But It's definitely a trusted title and one that you can respect.

[00:01:33] - Jake

That it is. All right. So pretty much today, we're going to be talking about the Cold War going into the Space Race. Now, so for those who don't know, the Cold War, Large-Scale Period of Political social tension between the US and Soviet Union. It's called the Cold War because of the lack of actual fighting. It was pretty cold.

[00:01:51] - Tanner

Now, that's interesting because in my mind, when I was studying it, I thought it was a war over ice packs originally and thermometers. But it turns out it was much different than that sort of claim.

[00:02:02] - Jake

That it was. The fighting was all because of the buildup of nuclear weapons between both of them. There's a lot of spies, actually, between both. Communist spies in America.

[00:02:12] - Tanner

Really?

[00:02:13] - Jake

We sent CIA spies over there.

[00:02:14] - Tanner

Really?

[00:02:15] – Jake

Pretty cool stuff.

[00:02:16] - Tanner

I wonder how they got that done.

[00:02:17] - Jake

The conflicting political ideologies, their communism versus our democracy. Communism was a big issue back then, and we'll talk about it a little bit later on.

[00:02:26] - Tanner

Well, it's like peanut butter and jelly. Which one's going to spread first?

[00:02:29] - Jake

That's right. That's exactly what it was. And then we'll get into that buildup of nuclear weapons. The missiles were the first thing that came, and how that missile technology is very similar to what rocket technology was and how it adapted into rocket technology. And that became a competition to see who was better. And that's pretty much what the space race was. It was once a military arms race became a battle, see which country could develop better rocket technology at a faster rate, which became a major political forum, as I'm pretty sure you've seen rocket launches, a ton of people. They had a ton of people at these gatherings, and they broadcast it all over the world. We would broadcast it for Russia Sea and vice versa. It became a battleground for the Cold War, who was smarter and better at a faster rate. That led to first satellite orbit around Earth and the moon, led to the first life orbiting Earth. It was actually a dog. Then we sent up a monkey. Then that was the first person to orbit the Earth and moon, which led to the first moon landing.

[00:03:40] - Tanner

People have contested that.

[00:03:41.] - Jake

People have contested that.

[00:03:42] - Tanner

I believe it. Me personally, I believe it. Sound studios weren't good enough back then at the time to really be able to replicate that technology. I believe it.

[00:03:51] - Jake

No, I agree. Neither was... I mean, it was broadcasted on TV. I don't think special effects were as good back then.

[00:03:55] - Tanner

No. There are shadows on the Moon. People just don't know what they're talking about.

[00:03:59] - Jake

Exactly. And then that paved the way for space shuttles and exploring Mars today, Elon Musk, all that good stuff.

[00:04:08] - Tanner

I'd like to buy a home on Mars.

[00:04:10] - Jake

That would be sick. Maybe we can one day.

[00:04:12] - Tanner

Maybe we can. I think the Mars real estate market is something to be looking forward to in the next probably two years.

[00:04:17] - Jake

I sure hope so.

[00:04:19] - Tanner

They're developing it right now.

[00:04:20] - Jake

Yeah, I hope so they are. I mean, Elon is a little bit busy, but-

[00:04:23] - Tanner

He's busy, but he's got guys. He's got his Mars real estate team really going after it.

[00:04:30] - Jake

All right. Well, first we'll get into the space race. How it was a product of the Cold War due to the conflicting ideologies between Soviet communists and American Democrats, the threat of nuclear warfare, and the spies embedded throughout the counterpart’s government programs. So, at the start of the Cold War, the US National Security Council released NSC Report 68. Talks about communism, says, “There's no other value system that is so wholly irreconcilable with ours, so implacable in its purpose to destroy ours, so incapable of turning to its own uses, the most dangerous and divisive trends in our own society”. It's a lot of words, but-

[00:05:11] - Tanner

It's a lot of words, but it's got a lot of meaning.

[00:05:13] - Jake

It got a lot of meaning. It really drives in how the hatred that we had for communism, that our government had for communism.

[00:05:20] - Tanner

Exactly.

[00:05:21] - Jake

People were very, very scared of it in our country and what it would do to our freedom. You can talk a little bit more about that. You're the politics major, but it's so different from our system, the lack of free will that their citizens have and the magnitudes it speaks for the differences between communism and democracy.

[00:05:39] - Tanner

Some have called it the Red Scare. People did not like it. People enjoyed what they had going on in our democracy, in our society that we wanted to pervade throughout the entire world, as opposed to communism, which they truly did believe very strongly in. They messed around and they found out.

[00:06:00] - Jake

That they did. Then that developed the nuclear competition, since that political competition was happening early on in the '50s. Eisenhower would go on to deliver a speech called Atoms for Peace, where he said it was on the threat of nuclear weapons and the good they can do in unifying the nations. In the beginning, he says, “Today, the US stockpile of atomic weapons, which, of course, increases daily, exceeds by many times the total equivalent of all bombs and shells that came from every plane and every gun in every theater of war in the Second World War”.

[00:06:38] - Tanner

With a statement like that, it's not crazy to think that people around the US kept saying, I like Ike.

[00:06:45] - Jake

Yeah.

[00:06:46] - Tanner

I like Ike.

[00:06:47] - Jake

He was there warning people. He was there sitting, telling you-

[00:06:50] - Tanner

He was good.

[00:06:51] - Jake

We have more atomic bombs than anyone in the whole world during the whole Second World War.

[00:06:55] - Tanner

We've got it. Our pockets are deep, and I wouldn't try it. Is short of what he's getting at there.

[00:07:00] - Jake

That's exactly what he was getting at.

[00:07:02] - Tanner

Exactly.

[00:07:03] - Jake

And then he was warning people, and NSC Report 68 says, “With the development of increasingly terrifying weapons of mass destruction, every individual faces the ever-present possibility of annihilation should the conflict ever face total war,” which was that fear of why the Cold War was the Cold War because both countries knew that.

[00:07:21] - Tanner

Exactly.

[00:07:22] - Jake

Both countries didn't want to die.

[00:07:23] - Tanner

Exactly. It's like a poker game that is the highest stakes possible with both sides. Whether they're bluffing or not, they're trying to tell the other that they have a better hand.

[00:07:35] - Jake

That's exactly what it is.

[00:07:36] - Tanner

But if you go all in, then your country could be dust, which makes it a much more high stakes game in poker.

[00:07:41] - Jake

That it does.

[00:07:42] - Tanner

Truly.

[00:07:43] - Jake

During that time, that's when duck and cover was developed. And they would show the duck and cover stuff, movie, theater, schools, TVs. And one thing they would do is; our professor showed us a video of a cartoon turtle, and he was ducking and covering. There was a guy talking over it, and he says, “Sometimes it even saves his life”. And he was talking about ducking and covering, and he was like, The turtle will be running around and just like hide in his shell. Yeah, its pretty geek.

[00:08:10] - Tanner

I like that. I like that.

[00:08:11] - Jake

But they would show that to kids to get a duck and cover. That was the big thing then. In the video, there's people riding their bikes, and they jump off their bike and hit a wall and duck and cover.

[00:08:20] - Tanner

And you hit the deck. You got to hit the deck. It's in a similar vein to Stop, Drop, and Roll, but for much more dire consequences.

[00:08:26] - Jake

Yes, that's exactly what it was. And That led to the fear in the US of the bombs and all that stuff. And all the stuff compiled together is what drove the Cold War into what the Cold War was.

[00:08:38] - Tanner

Exactly.

[00:08:39] - Jake

You know, All the nukes, the lack of trust, the hatred that we had for communism and there for our democracy. It fueled the Cold War and kept it alive for 30 years.

[00:08:47] - Tanner

Exactly. Some would say, debatably still going on to this day in different power positions.

[00:08:55] - Jake

Definitely.

[00:08:56] - Tanner

Definitely.

[00:08:59] - Jake

All right. And then so as part of the Cold War, they had all these nuclear weapons developments that led to the discovery of rocket science and space tech. So we start with missiles at the end of World War II, scientists advancing the technology and building missiles into rockets. In 1954 and '53, Cold War takes a major turn, and they developed the ICBM, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, which is the missile we know today that you can set your target and blow stuff up.

[00:09:43] - Tanner

Well, it's not rocket science because it's missile science, but definitely two similar fields.

[00:09:49] - Jake

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a book called The Bomb in America's MissileAge. It was written by Christopher Gayner. And it said that this Russian scientist, his name was Sergei Korolyov, was the guy who asked to shoot the missile in the space. And no one thought it would work. Everyone thought it was crazy because it's missile tech. It's not rocket science. But sure enough, it went in the space, made it there. So, the Soviet government gives him basically what they said in the book was “green light to use it to launch the first Sputnik on October fourth, 1957”. And Sputnik was the first satellite that ever got put in the space. So, they basically put this satellite on his ICBM The missile launched it into space, survived. And then the missile came back down, but it stayed up there.

[00:10:35] - Tanner

But it stayed.

[00:10:36] - Tanner

It stayed in the orbit.

[00:10:38] - Tanner

A little orbit guy.

[00:10:39] - Jake

A little orbit guy. And that is when JFK, when he gets in the office, after that, they sent a missile up, which at that point, it's rocket science.

[00:10:52] - Tanner

At that point, it does become rocket science.

[00:10:54] - Jake

Yeah. So they send their missile up with a dog on it. And that prompts us to send our own missile up because that's that competition.

[00:11:05] - Tanner

It's that competition.

[00:11:05] - Jake

Which we'll get into a little bit later.

[00:11:06] - Tanner

But did we send a dog?

[00:11:08] - Jake

No, we sent a monkey

[00:11:08] - Tanner

We did not. And that's the American difference.

[00:11:12] – Jake

Yeah. We're going to send a monkey up there.

[00:11:13] - Tanner

That's what you're looking for.

[00:11:14] - Jake

It's a little bit better.

[00:11:15] - Tanner

Because how are you even going to acquire a monkey?

[00:11:17] - Jake

Yeah, exactly.

[00:11:18] - Tanner

It's easy to find a dog.

[00:11:19] - Jake

Find a dog on any street.

[00:11:20] - Tanner

You can find a dog in any street. You can't find a monkey anywhere.

[00:11:23] - Jake

Exactly.

[00:11:23] - Tanner

Pretty much.

[00:11:24] - Jake

That's the difference. And monkeys are closely related to humans.

[00:11:27] - Tanner

That is true. So really, we were just better.

[00:11:29] - Jake

We were just better.

[00:11:30] - Tanner

We were just better and bigger than they were. Speaking of JFK, whatever happened to that guy?

[00:11:36] - Jake

Well, I'll tell you. We started off in the Cold War. He got to be the 35th President of the US. One of his main things was the Space Race. He would go and increase NASA's funding, allowing them to expand and grow. Then what he would do is he would go and 1962, give a speech at Rice. It became the really, really big one that says, “Only last week do we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power. And now, if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight.” And it's like a metaphor saying our technological advancement has gone a lot in the last 10 years. And that would be the speech where he announces that we're going to send a guy to the moon. Shows his vision, shows his passion, his willingness to succeed in the war. He never got to see it, I don't think.

[00:12:34] - Tanner

Really? What happened?

[00:12:35] - Jake

Some say that he was just sniped from afar. But some say it was the CIA taking him out.

[00:12:43] - Tanner

I hadn't heard of this.

[00:12:45] - Jake

You  hadn't heard of it?

[00:12:45] - Tanner

I thought he finished his presidency with his famous quote, “It's not about putting a man on the moon. It's about putting a moon on the man.” So this is news to me, folks. I'm going to need to go relearn my textbooks as your foremost expert on the Cold War.

[00:13:02] - Jake

That's right.

[00:13:03] - Tanner

Can't believe I missed that part.

[00:13:04] - Jake

Yeah.

[00:13:04] - Tanner

Wow.

[00:13:05] - Jake

It's not the biggest part ever.

[00:13:07] - Tanner

Definitely seems important though,

[00:13:08] - Jake

But it's huge, it's important.

[00:13:09] - Tanner

It seems important for sure.

[00:13:11] - Jake

But after that speech, we announced we would land a guy on the Moon. Then our US space programs had already started, but they keep on going. And this is the time the Apollo started. So Mercury was where we sent the first satellite, the monkey. Yeah, the first guy in space, the satellite science. Then we have the Gemini, which is still that orbit science. And then we get to Apollo. So that's when we decide the moon's there. We're going to orbit the moon. The first lunar landing. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin.

[00:13:45] - Tanner

Buzz Aldrin. Neil Armstrong.

[00:13:46] - Jake

Those are the guys that-

[00:13:47] - Tanner

Not Lance Armstrong.

[00:13:48] - Jake

Nope. That's the biker.

[00:13:50] - Tanner

No, that guy biked.

[00:13:51] - Jake

Yeah, he did.

[00:13:52] - Tanner

He never landed on the moon. He just took steroids and lied about it. That's right.

[00:13:56] - Jake

Neil Armstrong was our first guy that went on the moon. That was all made possible by JFK's vision, his funding, and by the missile science that ended up being rocket science. So something that's pretty cool.

[00:14:06] - Jake

So that paved the way for the space race being used as a battleground for the Cold War. It didn't have any battles. It's always pretty stagnant between the two. Not that much talking. Maybe a ghost here.

[00:14:29] - Tanner

A couple empty threats. Maybe some apparitions.

[00:14:31] - Jake

That's right.

[00:14:32] - Tanner

A poltergeist, if you will.

[00:14:33] - Jake

Oh, yeah. But they had that competition element through science instead of battles. Our textbook explains it well, that back and forth. It starts off, America developed the atomic bomb first, which was the Oppenheimer. Great movie.

[00:14:50] - Tanner

Great film.

[00:14:50] - Jake

Great film.

[00:14:51] - Tanner

Great film.

[00:14:51] - Jake

Yeah, but then Russia went and did it their own atomic bomb the next year. So then using the Nazi Rockets tech, or missile or whatever you want to call it from World War II.

[00:15:02] - Tanner

Do not like those Nazis.

[00:15:03] - Jake

No, they're the worst.

[00:15:03] - Tanner

Not at all.

[00:15:04] - Jake

They're the worst. But Soviets and Americans raced to adapt German technology to create the ICBM missiles, missiles we talked about earlier, which is what we know today.

[00:15:] - Tanner

I've heard those things were ballistic.

[00:15:18] - Jake

They're ballistic. Intercontinentally Ballistic.

[00:15:19] - Tanner

Intercontinental.

[00:15:19] - Jake

Yeah. But then Soviets did that one first. America did it after. Then the Soviet sent up a satellite, and then they sent up their dog. We would send up a satellite after theirs, and then we'd send up a monkey after theirs. And after the Soviets put someone in orbit, we would put our own in. But then that's when JFK got fed up. He decided to boost NASA funding, take control of the space race, got the bragging rights. And as said by a historian named Andreas Reikstein, said “both sides knew that this space in the Cold War stood not as the last, but rather the ultimate frontier.” Remained true because there were no battles. It's something that it had to be fought in some way. And it was that competition that we had from space that led to our success in the Cold War. Because after Kennedy funded NASA, it became the NASA we know today. And it propelled us to exceed. After we got someone on the moon, it's just the US just took control.

[00:16:30] - Tanner

I would agree.

[00:16:31] - Jake

And kept going and basically ended up winning the Cold War because of that.

[00:16:33] - Tanner

And I think there's something symbolic about them sending a dog and us a monkey, because they sent a dog and got boned, but we sent a monkey and we went bananas.

[00:16:44] - Jake

Yeah, we did go bananas.

[00:16:46] - Tanner

It's just something to think about.

[00:16:47] - Jake

Definitely something to think about.

[00:16:48] - Tanner

When you're revisiting this text, that's symbolic relationship between the two. Just how it worked out.

[00:16:55] - Jake

Definitely. Definitely. But, yeah.

[00:16:59] - Tanner

Yeah. Sad to hear about JFK, too. I mean, that puts a damper on my mood for sure.

[00:17:04.340] - Jake

That it does. JFK, one of the greatest presidents people say.

[00:17:07] - Tanner

I would like to say that, he was Catholic. First Catholic President. As a fellow Catholic myself, I can appreciate that.

[00:17:14] - Jake

Yeah, no, that's very, very big.

[00:17:21] - Jake

So, we had to start where all the different political conflicts that came after World War II, their communism took away in the East and the West part of the world, where democracy took place. And both countries wanted to be better than the other, inflict their political ideologies on the other. And that's they infiltrated spies and the other one that led to that war aspect, those empty threats you were talking about. And then that is what started the competition, is each one wanted be better. So let's develop that missile technology in the rocket tech. That was what started the nuclear part, the fear in the world, and just that hatred for the other side. And then that wanting to be better turned into the space race and everything that it encompassed and encompassed the missiles being turned into rockets, the missions to send life into orbit and on to the moon. And then that all of the politics with JFK, things like that. And it led to that back and forth of the Soviets and Americans in the war. And made the Cold War, the space race being the ultimate frontier, space being the ultimate frontier for the Cold War.

[00:18:54] - Tanner

Not the final one.

[00:18:55] - Jake

No. But the ultimate.

[00:18:56] - Tanner

But the ultimate.

[00:18:57] - Jake

No, the final one, you could say is a space shuttle.

[00:19:03] - Tanner

Could just be living in space, colonizing space.

[00:19:05] - Jake

Colonizing space. Now look at us now. We're the ones, SpaceX going to Mars.

[00:19:11] - Tanner

Yeah, we're doing that.

[00:19:12] - Jake

We're doing that. That’s us.

[00:19:14] - Tanner

We're the only ones doing real estate on Mars.

[00:19:17] - Jake

That's right, developing colonies.

[00:19:18] - Tanner

People are thinking about it. They're doing it. Matt Damon, actually, one of the first people to help colonize Mars.

[00:19:26] - Jake

That's right. That's a great film.

[00:19:27] - Tanner

Have you seen that documentary,

[00:19:27] - Tanner

The Martian?

[00:19:28] - Tanner

Yeah. It's a great documentary.

[00:19:30] - Jake

No, it really goes deep into life on Mars.

[00:19:33] - Tanner

It does. Which I think it could be the next ultimate frontier.

[00:19:37] - Jake

Oh, definitely.

[00:19:38] - Tanner

Speaking of the space race.

[00:19:39] - Jake

We got maybe two years before.

[00:19:41] - Tanner

Probably about two, maybe less.

[00:19:43] - Jake

Apartment complexes.

[00:19:44] - Tanner

They're still running the financials on them. But you can see some luxury apartments being built on Mars sometime soon.

[00:19:52] - Jake

Sure hope so.

[00:19:53] - Tanner

They might even have their own five guys up there.

[00:19:56] - Jake

Yeah, I would like to have that.

[00:19:58] - Tanner

That's what I've heard.

[00:19:59] - Jake

That would put me on Mars.

[00:19:59] - Tanner

That would put me on Mars, for sure.

[00:20:02] - Jake

All right. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in here with Tanner Gray. My name is Jake Walling. Please rate, review, and subscribe “Student's Podcasting History”, this episode titled “The Battle Fought in Space”. I'm your host, Jake Walling, again, and thank you so very much for tuning in.