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The Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1. It was the start of the space race.
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The dog Laika aboard the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 on 3 November 1957 orbited the earth until he died
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Explorer 1 was the first US satellite sent to space it would orbit earth every 114 minutes.
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President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and space act of 1958 into law creating NASA
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On January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy delivered his inaugural address in which he announced that "we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty."
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HAM was the first chimp in space as he blasted off to an altitude of 157 miles during the Mercury-Redstone 2 mission on January 31, 1961. He performed the tasks that he was trained to do and was found to be in good health after recovery from the flight, despite some fatigue and dehydration.
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Yuri Gagarin from the Soviet Union was the first human in space
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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
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astronaut John H. Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth during the three-orbit Mercury-Atlas 6 mission
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The first EVA was performed on March 18, 1965, by Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who spent 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside the Voskhod 2 spacecraft
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Ed White became the first American to conduct a spacewalk