Exploration of the solar system and the Cold War

Eventually yes, but later because without the Cold War Congress wouldn't have funded the projects.

"Beat the Russians,
"Beat the Russians,
"Oh my God,
"Beat the Russians."

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra

Do you think any of that would have happened were it not for the Cold War?

No. Even after what the Germans did in WWII, most US politicians, including President Truman, considered space exploration to be so much "Buck Rodgers crap". Sputnik I and the implications of it, both militarily and scientifically, was the big wake up call.

Conflicting opinions. Interesting. I'd like to hear more.

Even after what the Germans did in WWII, most US politicians, including President Truman, considered space exploration to be so much "Buck Rodgers crap".The NACA and later NASA had President Eisenhower thinking more of space. Sputnik simply sealed the deal. Von Braun and his US Army team were "close to building a rocket that could orbit a satellite" in 1956, but the government funds went to the Navy's Vanguard program instead.

http://www.space.com/11336-space-race-united-states-soviets-spaceflight-50years.html


"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra

By and large the US military of the early 20th century was a conservative lot.
First was convincing them of the value of aircraft, then transitioning it from just intelligence gathering, to a defensive weapon, then ultimately an offensive weapon. Until Pearl Harbor, naval strategists based their plans
with the battleship as the centerpiece of naval warfare, even after General Mitchell's "unauthorized" demonstration. The same with rockets and missiles.
Most of the groundwork for the German V-2 was actually done by Professor Robert Goddard. There was a point in 1945 where he was given the opportunity to inspect a captured V-2. While doing so Goddard pointed out various components that where nearly identical to those of his own rockets tested in the 1930s.
So from a certain POV, if properly funded, the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
may have been carried out by missile in stead of bomber.

Eisenhower may have had a personal interest in it, but presidents aren't kings, and one person's whims don't move an entire political system. There was a certain geopolitical context in which the Soviet Union was rushing ahead technologically and the capitalist West felt threatened by it, causing them to invest heavily in scientific and technological development so as not to fall behind and have the communist system emerge as the superior socioeconomic model in the eyes of the world, or, more tangibly, to have the communists develop superior rocket and missile technology with which it could surpass the capitalist world militarily. Without the Soviet Union, the pressure on the West to develop more advanced technology would have been weak to nonexistent, and many among the ruling circles would have been saying "why spend so much public money on this waste of time? Leave it to the private sector". You know, like they do now. NASA's budget has been gutted since the fall of the communist world.

By the way, NASA was founded one year after Sputnik was launched. You say Eisenhower was already interested in space because of NASA, but NASA didn't exist until after Sputnik, and in fact was at least partly a direct response to Sputnik. Sputnik galvanized the American space program.

Definitely not. And if the Soviet Union still existed and the Cold War was still ongoing, chances are someone would have put human beings on Mars by now. We can't even imagine what we could have achieved by now, or could be on the verge of achieving, if the Cold War hadn't ended. The Cold War was a massive stimulator of technological progress. Not only of horrible things like nuclear weapons and missiles, but of great things too that have been of immense benefit to humanity.

The fall of the USSR and the end of the Cold War ended two things: On the Soviet side, it ended the planned economy and the ideology of social and technological progress for the collective benefit of humankind, replacing it with the disorganized market economy based on profit for the few rather than collective progress for all. On the capitalist side, it ended the urgency of needing to prove (for propaganda purposes) that they're "better" than their ideological competitors and have the more successful political and economic system, plus the urgency to develop technology to keep ahead of that competitor for military reasons; it became preferable to cut the budget because, from the capitalist point of view, there's no need to have the government spend so much money on something that has no short-term, tangible, profitable benefit to the capitalist class, the ruling class that the government represents. Better to slash government spending so more of that wealth can accumulate in private hands. Central planning is gone and privatization and neoliberalism became king in both west and east. With the end of the Cold War, investment in space development was slashed on all sides, because it's not profitable in the short term.

The slashing of space development is one of the many reasons why I deeply regret the fall of the Soviet Union/communist bloc and the end of the Cold War. We (as in all of humanity, not one particular country) could be so much further along now, in so many ways, than we are. So many people don't realize just how important a role the Soviet Union played, both directly and indirectly, in the social and technological advancement of humankind.

You say Eisenhower was already interested in space because of NASA, but NASA didn't exist until after Sputnik, I mentioned NACA and NASA. Wasn't Ike instrumental in the founding of NASA?