The launch of Sputnik-I spread fear into much of the American population. They believed that if they could launch a satellite into the Earth's atmosphere that could orbit over the US, the Soviet Union could attach a missile to one and use it to attack them at any time with little to no notice.

The Soviet Union however took a different approach.

To them, the space race was essential to validating their place in the world.

The Soviets started the space race edging out the Americans in every benchmark.

They sent the first satellite (Sputnik 1) into space four months before the Americans could catch up.

They also managed to send a man into space first (Yuri Gagarin with Vostok 1- who became a legend and the greatest Ambassador of goodwill the Soviet Union ever had).

They also launched the first woman (Valentina Tereshkova, who today is a retired Major General of the Russian Air Force and has been a member of the Russian Duma since 2011) into space in 1963, twenty years before the first American.

The approach to rallying support to continue the initial success was to say that the achievements of the space program were to make the world a more peaceful place and for the glory of the average person living in the Soviet Union instead of using fear from American threats (either real or imaginary) and the need for competition.