Children and the cosmos as projects of the future and ambassadors of soviet leadership

Abstract

1 social tensions arose. Some of these stemmed from the gap between promises and reality concerning the supply of commodities. They also had to do with the ongoing rivalry of systems, even if the Cold War was now (temporarily) called ‘peaceful coexistence’: The high costs of the arms race and the images of Western consumer culture were not easy to deal with. At that very moment, the Soviet achievements in outer space, Sputnik and Gagarin, appeared like a deus ex machina to help the leaders of the state and the Communist Party. Though the space project had been in preparation for a long time, the popularity and propaganda value of the success came as a surprise.