Race to the Moon

By sopranocpa

  • USSR launches Sputnik 2

    first animal to travel in earths orbit

  • Luna 1 is launched by the USSR. It is the first -man made object to orbit the Sun.

    First man-made object to orbit the sun

  • Luna 2 is launched. It impacts the Moon on September 13, becoming the first man-made object to do so.

    First man-made object to impact the moon

  • Tiros 1, the first successful weather satellite, is launched.

    First successful weather satellite

  • Yuri Gagarin orbits the Earth once and becomes the first man in space.

    The first man in space

  • John Glenn orbits the Earth three times.

    First man to orbit the Earth three times

  • Mariner 2 flies past Venus and enters a solar orbit

    Flies past Venus and enters a solar orbit

  • Cosmonaut Valentia Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.

    First woman in space

  • Ranger 7 transmits the first close range images of the Moon.

    First close-range images of the moon

  • Alexei Leonov spends 12 minutes outside of his Voskhod spacecraft performing the first spacewalk.

    First spacewalk outside of spacecraft

  • Mariner 4 returns close -range images of Mars.

    Returns with close-range images of Mars

  • Venus 3 impacts venus

    First man-made object to impact Venus

  • Surveyor 1 soft-lands on the Moon.

    First space-craft to soft-land the Moon

  • Lunar Orbiter 1 enters orbit around the Moon and takes the first picture of the Earth from that distance.

    First picture of the Earth from the Moon

  • Zond 5 is launched. It carried a biological payload (including two turtles) around the Moon and returned to Earth six days later.

    Biological payload (turtles) goes around the moon and returns to Earth

  • Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon while crewmate Michael Collins orbits around the Moon alone.

    First men to walk on the moon