Brief History of the U.S. Space Program from the End of World War II Through the International Space Station

This essay narrates a brief history of the US space since its early beginnings to the International Space Station, including the space policy of the current Obama Administration. It briefly highlights the important contributions of German scientist Werner von Braun in the US and Sergei Pavlovich Korolev in the former Soviet Union and concludes with a couple of examples about both the cooperation and conflict within the American civilian and military agencies, to illustrate which has characterized the history of our space program since its early beginnings until our days.