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Encyclopedia entry: Space Program
- Article from:
- The Oxford Companion to United States History
- Author:
Copyright© The Oxford Companion to United States History 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information)
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Space Program.
The American space program emerged in large part from the pressures of national defense during the
Cold War
. In the late 1940s, eager to assure American leadership in
technology
, the Department of Defense began pursuing research in rocketry and upper‐atmospheric science. The civilian side of the space effort began in 1952, when the International Council of Scientific Unions began planning for an International Geophysical Year (IGY) for the period 1 July 1957 through December 1958. As part of this effort, the U.S. scientific community in 1955 persuaded President Dwight D.
Eisenhower
to approve a plan to orbit a scientific satellite. The Naval Research Laboratory's ...