Evolution de la Moon Race

Today, July 19, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first moon landing in history, performed by astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and the often overlooked Michael Collins, supervised by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the NASA. This exploit should have been the final blow of this moon race, but it was only one stage.

The moon race was launched at the same time as the Sputnik satellite by the Soviets on October 4, 1957. It only sent radio signals from low orbit to the earth. That was the top start. Then after the first living being was sent into space (the dog Laika in 1957), the creation of NASA in 1958, the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961, President Kennedy's “Race to space speech”,at Rice University in 1962 and colossal investments in space, the Moon was finally reached first by the United States. At the time, we thought the space race was over. But why are we still talking about going to the moon today when we have already reached it? Why is this topic still relevant even five decades later ? Well, new ambitions, new profits still allow us to dream of the Moon.

First of all, the reasons for going to the moon are not the same anymore. Or almost. Indeed, the Apollo space program was primarily envisioned to discover the unknown. Neil Armstrong spoke of the human race's thirst for knowledge. It's in his instinct, it is part of his existence: "I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul …” . Thus, this first excursion was synonymous with scientific and technological advances. It has, for example, given us a better understanding of our solar system. Surprisingly, however, lunar exploration always leads to discoveries. This could be because today's technologies are more sophisticated than those of our parents or grandparents and allow us to probe things that were invisible 50 years ago. Now robots can stay longer on Earth's natural satellite and give us real-time information about its composition. Or more importantly, Moon exploration constitutes a proving ground for further space exploration. Going back to the moon would provide an opportunity to demonstrate new technologies that are necessary for crewed Mars missions or even train for life on another planet.

Obviously, international rivalries are pushing nations to speed up the process. That was the case fifty years ago. We need to put it in context. The space race did not get off the ground until ten years after the Cold War, when the United States and the USSR were engaged in an unarmed conflict. These two blocs were opposed in all areas, mainly ideological. And it is this rivalry that has set the space race on fire. The Soviet Union gave the first blows in this fierce battle, with Sputnik, Laika and Yuri Gagarin. But the Americans were able to meet the challenge and retaliate to bring down the USSR thanks to the first moon landing in history. USA now had a monopoly but this was without counting the emergence of countries such as China, India or Israel which also aspire to lunar exploration. China stands above all as the main competitor to the United States, as demonstrated by the feat of landing on the dark side of the Moon in 2019. But there are also cooperations between several countries with the aim of sending man back to the Moon like the ISS.

Moreover, the

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