-
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability.
-
4 October 1957: The USSR successfully launched Sputnik 1, the first Earth-orbiting satellite in history. 3 November 1957: The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 2, carrying a dog named Laika into space. -
The first animal to make an orbital spaceflight around the Earth was the dog Laika, aboard the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 on 3 November 1957. -
Explorer 1 became the first successfully launched satellite by the United States when it was sent to space on January 31, 1958. A quick response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1, Explorer 1's success marked the beginning of the U.S. Space Age. -
A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959. -
Yuri Gagarin from the Soviet Union was the first human in space. His vehicle, Vostok 1 circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometers per hour with the flight lasting 108 minutes. Vostok's reentry was controlled by a computer. Unlike the early U.S. human spaceflight programs, Gagarin did not land inside of capsule. -
On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American and the second man to travel in space when he launched a 15-minute, sub-orbital flight aboard NASA's Mercury spacecraft Freedom 7. (Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had completed one orbit of the Earth on April 12, about three weeks earlier.) -
Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut, was selected from more than 400 applicants to launch on the Vostok 6 mission June 16, 1963. She was 26 at the time -
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first humans ever to land on the moon. About six-and-a-half hours later, Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon