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The first official satellite to orbit Earth was Sputnik sent by the USSR -
The first animal to make orbital space flight around the Earth was Laika, the dog on the Sputnik 2 -
The Explorer 1 was launched in response to the USSR Sputnik, beginning the space race -
Created in response to the USSR Sputnik launch, NASA coordinates America's activity in space and Earth's atmosphere -
The first animal sent to space by the USA was Ham the chimp who flew a suborbital flight on the Mercury-Redstone 2, part of NASA's Project Mercury -
The first man in space was Yuri Gagarin who orbited Earth in the Vostok 1 -
Alan Shepard was the first man sent to space by the USA. He completed a suborbital flight around the Earth in the Mercury capsule, Freedom 7 -
President Kennedy gave a speech to Congress and declared that the USA would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. -
John Glenn orbited the Earth three times in the Mercury capsule Friendship 7 -
The first man to do an EVA was Alexei Leonov sent by the USSR. He spent 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside the Voskhod 2 spacecraft. -
The Gemini 3 mission was the first crewed mission in the Gemini space program, Gus Grissom and John Young did 3 low Earth orbits in their spacecraft, nicknamed the Molly Brown -
Ed White was the first American to complete an EVA in space. His spacewalk lasted approximately 20 minutes on the Gemini 4 mission. -
Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford preformed the first rendezvous between the Gemini 6A and Gemini 7 -
The original crew for the Gemini 9 mission, Elliott See and Charles Bassett, was killed in a plane crash before their set launch date so Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan took their places as pilots. -
Charles Conrad and Richard Gordon completed a rendezvous and docking with the GATV during its first orbit and completed 44 orbits total -
The Apollo 1 mission never flew, there was a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test that killed all three crew members, Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee -
The Apollo 7 mission was the first crewed mission NASA launched after the disaster of Apollo 1. It sent up Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham -
The Apollo 8 mission was the first NASA mission to leave low Earth orbit and orbited the moon -
The Apollo 9 mission was the first manned flight of the lunar module with pilots James McDivitt, James Scott, and Russell Schweickart -
The Apollo 10 mission was the second trip to orbit the moon and tested all the procedures and components just short of landing to ensure everything would work when they tried to land on the moon -
On the Apollo 11 mission, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to land and walk on the moon's surface