The Week in Space History- October 21st-27th

This week I’ve got some Cold War history, Shuttle Enterprise history, and more.

The Missile Gap

One of the televised Nixon/Kennedy debates took place on October 21st, 1960. Kennedy mentioned the Missile Gap during their Foreign Policy with then-Vice President Nixon. The term “Missile Gap” was first used in the late 1950s during Kennedy’s Senate re-election campaign, and then further used throughout that presidential campaign.

Nixon and Kennedy during the 4th televised debate.

What was the Missile Gap?

“The “Missile Gap” was a growing perception in the West, especially in the USA, that the Soviet Union was quickly developing an intercontinental range ballistic missile (ICBM) capability earlier, in greater numbers, and with far more capability than that of the United States. Although there were several ingredients in the US perception (actually a misperception), the principal ones were: effective Soviet secrecy; limited intelligence collection; biased analysis; Soviet deceptive announcements, and the actual Soviet success in testing intercontinental-range ballistic missiles. All of them were justified concerns.”