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Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite.
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United States launches Explorer 1, which discovers the radiation belt.
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NASA is established to conduct space activities.
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The Mercury Seven was the group of seven Mercury astronauts picked by NASA on April 9, 1959.
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Luna 3 sends back the first pictures of the backside of the moon.
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Yuri Gagarin becam the first human being to travel into space in Vostok 1.
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Freedom 7's Alan Shepard became the first American in space.
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John Glenn became the first american to orbit the earth in Freiendship 7.
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Gordon Cooper becomes the first american to spend 24 hours in space.
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Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to travel in space.
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Aleksei A. Leonov becomes the first man to perform a spacewalk.
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Luna 9 takes the pictures of the surface of the moon.
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Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land and walk the moon.
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Skylab, a US space station, is used as a laboratory in earth orbit.
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The Voyager sends back photos of Saturn. They confounded all known laws of physics
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Fist space shuttle launch.
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Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
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The Challenger disintegrates less then one minute after launch, killing seven astronauts.
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The Voyager 2 flies within 3100 miles of Neptune and discover six new moons.
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Pathfinder lands on Mars. The rover explored the Martian terrain.
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John Glenn, 77, becomes the oldest person to travel in space.
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Space shuttle Columbia STS-107 disintegrated upon reentering the earths atmosphere. The fiery explosion left a huge trail of debris, mostly over east Texas.
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SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately built craft to enter space.