Evolution of Internet

From Gagarin to Google: The Evolution of the Internet

Your Name Here

Your Educational Institution Here

On April 12, 1961, for the first time in history, man escaped earth’s gravity. Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, in his spaceship the Vostok I, orbited the earth for 108 minutes at an altitude of almost 200 miles, circling the earth at a speed of 18,000 miles an hour. http://www.russianarchives.com/gallery/gagarin/

To the Russians he became a hero and proved to the Russians their military superiority over the decadent West. In America, his flight sent shock waves throughout the government and the citizenry alike. Fear began to infiltrate the previously impenetrable self-assurance and confidence the American people had enjoyed. America had won two World Wars and was successfully containing Communism. Yuri Gagarin’s flight however, changed the mood of the American people almost overnight. They were now behind the Russians in the exploration of space and this made us vulnerable. Could the Russians attack the United States from space? Could satellites detect America’s national secrets? Would nuclear war become a reality now?

The space race had begun in 1957 with the Soviet launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I. While the USA quickly began to challenge the Soviets in the satellite arena, Gagarin’s manned orbit of Earth emphasized Soviet supremacy in space and contributed to additional feelings of inferiority by the Americans. Of special concern to America was that manned flight meant that the Russian rockets had heavy lift capabilities that could be translated into a military advantage. John F. Kennedy described the danger of falling behind the Russians in a speech he made. He said, “we are in a strategic space race with the Russians and we have been losing…Control of space will be decided in the next decade. If the Soviets control space, they can control Earth, as in the past centuries the nations that controlled the seas...