Orbit sputniks launch came as a surprise and not a

orbit. Sputnik’s launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans. In the
United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American
tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets. In
addition, this demonstration of the overwhelming power of the R-7 missile–seemingly capable of

delivering a nuclear warhead into U.S. air space–made gathering intelligence about Soviet
military activities particularly urgent.
In 1958, the U.S. launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army under the
direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, and what came to be known as the Space Race
was underway. That same year, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a public order creating the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a federal agency dedicated to space
exploration, as well as several programs seeking to exploit the military potential of space. Still,
the Soviets were one step ahead, launching the first man into space in April 1961.
That May, after Alan Shepard become the first American man in space, President John F.
Kennedy (1917-1963) made the bold public claim that the U.S. would land a man on the moon
by the end of the decade. His prediction came true on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong of
NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, became the first man to set food on the moon, effectively winning
the Space Race for the Americans. U.S. astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American
heroes, and earth-bound men and women seemed to enjoy living vicariously through them.
Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless efforts to
surpass America and prove the power of the communist system.
Cuban Revolution and the Bay of Pigs Invasion
In Cuba, the July 26 Movement seized power in January 1959, toppling President Fulgencio
Batista, whose unpopular regime had been denied arms by the Eisenhower administration.
Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States continued for some time after Batista's
fall, but President Eisenhower deliberately left the capital to avoid meeting Cuba's young
revolutionary leader Fidel Castro during the latter's trip to Washington in April, leaving Vice
President Richard Nixon to conduct the meeting in his place. Cuba began negotiating arms
purchases from the Eastern Bloc in March 1960.
In January 1961, just prior to leaving office, Eisenhower formally severed relations with the
Cuban government. In April 1961, the administration of newly elected American President John
F. Kennedy mounted an unsuccessful CIA-organized ship-borne invasion of the island at Playa
Girón and Playa Larga in Las Villas Provincea failure that publicly humiliated the United States.
Castro responded by publicly embracing Marxism–Leninism, and the Soviet Union pledged to
provide further support. However, hundreds of thousands of East Germans annually emigrated to
West Germany through a "loophole" in the system that existed between East and West Berlin,