Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The moment that a
country or asociety , in particular theUS , realizes that it needs tocatch up with the apparent technological and scientific gap that exists between it and some other country, increasing itsinvestment efforts intoeducation and innovativeR&D .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
In reference to the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the first Earth-orbiting satellite Sputnik 1, which caught US unprepared, eventually igniting the Space Race within the Cold War which US ultimately won in 1969 with the first human landing on the Moon.
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