The Space Race and Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM’s)

• In 1957 the soviets launch the first Earth-orbiting satellite named Sputnik
• About the size of a basketball and only made beeps
• People feared that atomic weapons would soon be delivered without airplanes
• This gave the USSR and upper hand and they began to demand concessions

ICBMs and Delivery Systems

• Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile
• MIRVs (Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles)
• Nuclear submarines
• MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)
• Pre-emptive Strike
• SAC (Strategic Air Command) planes flying 24hrs a day

Summary

After the Soviets launched Sputnik into space, Americans began to fear that the Russians could deliver atomic weapons without airplanes. This resulted int he creation of -MAD (mutually assured destruction),-MIRVs (Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles), and -Pre-emptive Strike (SAC).