ABSTRACT
In 1945, as the Allies advanced into Germany, one of the early battles of the Cold War was fought. The USA and the USSR engaged in a race to acquire German rockets and rocket scientists (Lasby 1971; Neufeld 1996). The V2 rocket, developed by Wernher von Braun and his team, was to become the basis of Cold War missile technology. Over a decade later the descendants of the V2 rocket launched the first Earth satellites, and twenty-five years later, they propelled the first humans towards the Moon. In this chapter we look at the oldest surviving satellite, Vanguard 1, and the lunar landing site Tranquility Base, as part of the cultural heritage of the Cold War.
