Curated OER
National Park Service: America's Space Program Exploring a New Frontier
This site includes a instructional activity for teachers to use when teaching about America's space program. Also included is the history of the space program, maps, readings, images of the space program, and benefits that resulted from...
Other
Iki: Russian Space Research Institute
The official site for the "leading organization of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the field of investigations of Outer Space, Solar System planets and other objects of the Universe"
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Education: Walk on the Moon
This online lesson helps students explore primary sources, including photographs and audio and video recordings, in order to learn about the Apollo crew and spacecraft, the history of the space race, and the incredible technological...
Georgia Department of Education
Ga Virtual Learning: Contemporary Nonfiction: Jfk Speech
This lesson focuses on John F. Kennedy's speech, "We Choose to go to the Moon," delivered at Rice University on September 12, 1962. It features links to JFK's biography and Wikipedia entry, the National Geographic: "Moon 101" video, the...
NASA
Nasa: Aeronautical/astronautical Events of January March 1961
This NASA site offers a timeline of significant events in the space race during this brief frame of time, with some discussion of the prestige involved.
A&E Television
History.com: The Space Race: Interactive Universe
A virtual journey through space offers photos and facts about Earth and its neighboring planets, comets, other celestial bodies of the Solar System, and the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies.
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum: Space Program
In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik and had an astronaut orbit the moon a few years later. The U.S. was shocked and vowed to not be left behind. Examine how JFK rallied the country and Congress to get behind the race...
Other
Yuri Gagarin: Comrade Kosmonaut
Highly detailed biography of the first man in space. Includes the pamphlet published to celebrate his return to Russia.
A&E Television
History.com: The Soviet Response to the Moon Landing? Denial There Was a Moon Race at All
Until 1989, Russians claimed they were not trying to reach the Moon first and that the U.S. was in "a one-nation race." Until 1989, a group of American aerospace engineers went to Moscow and finally saw the Soviets' failed lunar-landing...
NASA
Nasa: Sputnik and the Origins of the Space Age
NASA provides a paper providing a background to the Sputnik launch and the U.S. response.
NASA
Nasa Space Science Data Archive: Russian Lunar Missions
Details the Russian lunar missions from Luna 1 to Zond 8.
PBS
Pbs: Red Files: Secret Soviet Moon Mission
PBS offers biographies and stories from the early days of the Soviet Space program, which prompted the Space Race and nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.
US National Archives
Docsteach: Landing a Man on the Moon: President Nixon and the Apollo Program
This activity chronicles the Space Race from President Kennedy's call to land on the Moon until Apollo 17 - the last lunar Mission, placing particular emphasis on President Nixon's role in the space program.
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Education: Apollo 11 Walking on the Moon
Check out this interactive website about the space race.
A&E Television
History.com: Why the Air Force Almost Blasted the Moon With an H Bomb
Detonating a thermonuclear weapon on the moon? It sounds like the bizarre scheme of a deranged comic-book villain -- not a project initiated inside the U.S. government. But in 1958, as the Cold War space race was heating up, the U.S. Air...
CommonLit
Common Lit: Jfk's Race to Space Speech
A learning module that begins with "JFK's Race to Space Speech" by President John F. Kennedy, accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. The text can be printed as a PDF or assigned online...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: A Trip Through Space to Calculate Distance
Imagine two aliens racing across outer space to their moon. Who can we deem the fastest alien? With DIRT- or the equation Distance = Rate x Time- we can calculate their rates, using the distance they traveled and the time they took....
NASA
Nasa: Salyut 4
Overview of the Salyut 4 space station mission and instrumentation. Has a great picture of the computer rendering of the space station.
Other
Lebensraum: Living Space for the German Race
Resource provides a discussion of the concept of "Lebensraum," or "living space" for the German people. This was one of Hitler's main justifications for his military conquests.
Other
Historic Wings: John Glenn Friendship 7
The story of America's first astronaut to orbit the earth during the Mercury Space program. After launching the program click on continue or on the numbers to learn about the story of the Mercury program and the first American to orbit...
Other
Flickr: Project Apollo Archive: Albums
Browse through over 200 albums of more than 13,000 photographs taken of all of the Apollo space journeys. This project provides a visual history of the space race.