-
First satellite in space sent by the USSR named Sputnik 1 and it orbited Earth for 92 days -
The first animal to orbit the Earth was a Soviet stray dog named Laika -
The first satellite sent into space by the United States was the Explorer 1 -
NASA was created in response to the Soviet Union's Sputnik, it was signed into law by Dwight D. Eisenhower. -
Kennedy proposed the idea of having a man land on the moon within the decade -
Ham the Chimp flew a suborbital flight on the Mercury-Redstone 2 mission, part of the U.S. space programs Project Mercury -
Yuri Gagarin the first man in space was a Soviet cosmonaut, he completed a orbit around the Earth aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft, it was a 108 minute flight -
The first American in space was Alan Shepard who made a 15 minute suborbital flight aboard the Freedom 7 -
The first American to orbit the Earth was John Glenn and he orbited Earth 3 times aboard Mercury-Atlas 6 mission -
The first man to perform an EVA (extravehicular activity) was Alexei Leonov on the Voskhod 2 mission. He spent 12 minutes outside being the first person to perform a spacewalk -
The American to perform an EVA was astronaut Ed White during the Gemini 4 mission, he spent 23 minutes outside the capsule. -
NASA crewed spaceflight in August 1965. Flown by Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad had a primary goal of demonstrating that astronauts could fly in space for 8 days, the duration of a lunar mission -
The original crew for the Gemini 9 mission was Elliot See Jr. and Charles Bassett II but they were both killed in a plane crash before the mission could launch. -
Flown by Neil Armstrong and David Scott, this mission achieved the first on-orbit docking between two spacecraft, with Gemini 8 successfully connecting with the Agena trade vehicle -
This mission was James Lovell Jr. and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. and was scheduled to perform rendezvous and docking with the Agena vehicle, to perform 3 EVA operations, to conduct a tethered stationkeeping exercise, to perform docked maneuvers using the Agena propulsion system to change orbit, and to demonstrate an automatic reentry. -
Virgil Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, died in a fire during a pre-launch test -
Apollo 7 was the first crewed flight of NASA's Apollo program -
Apollo 8 was the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earths gravitational and the first human space flight to reach the Moon -
Apollo 9 completed a success 10-day Earth-orbital mission and splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean. The primary goal of the mission was to test the first crewed Lunar Module in Earth's orbit -
Apollo 10 was preparation for the first moon landing -
Apollo 11 was the first spaceflight to land humans on the moon