The Outer Space Treaty, which laid the foundation for an international space law, came into force in October 1967, following a feverish, decade-long space race between the Cold War rivals, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
Formulated to bar its signatory countries from placing weapons of mass destruction in orbit of the Earth, on the Moon or any other celestial body or the outer space, the treaty aimed to get the countries to use space exploration for peaceful purposes.
The space race itself is an important segment in the history of mankind, one that intensified the Cold War rivalry as a fight for supremacy in space became a matter of pride for both the countries. The race resulted in the setting of new benchmarks by the superpowers in the late 1950s and 1960s. There were many ‘firsts’ that came up during this period, like the successful test of the first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) in 1957, the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite (Sputnik 1) in 1957 and the first successful orbiting of earth by an animal (Laika, sent by Sputnik 2) in 1957. NASA, which became operational in 1958, was a partly a product of this rivalry.
Civilian, military aims
The space race left a wider impact in the field of technology, spawning pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites and unmanned space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human space flight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon.
The two countries’ zeal to outperform each other quite beneficial to the progress of science in general, despite the work cultures of the space organisations being poles apart. However, the space programmes of both the superpowers were not just for civilian purposes; they were as much about military supremacy. The idea was to battle through display of power without having to fight an actual war. At this point, the United Nations had to step in, in order to ensure that outer space didn’t become a battleground for these superpowers, and the Outer Space Treaty was born.
The space race didn’t have an end date, and, in many ways, it still continues. But the ‘space rivalry’ definitely ended to an extent in 1975, with the Apollo-Soyuz Joint Test mission through which three U.S. astronauts and two Soviet cosmonauts became part of the first joint space flight.
The space race left a legacy in the field of space research worldwide. As the pioneers of space missions, both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. helped their allies build their own individual space missions by training their scientists and engineers; transferring technology to them; and allowing their researchers to come to their space laboratories to learn and improve on their existing knowledge and skills.