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The first artificial satellite to orbit earth. orbited 18,000 mph for three months. -
Dog Laika made the first orbital spaceflight around earth. on the Soviet spacecraft sputnik 2. she sadly died on the fourth orbit of the earth. -
Explorer 1 was the USA firsts satellite in space. twice the size of a basketball. -
The U.S Congress passes legislation on establishing NASA. NASA was created as a response to the Soviet Union's launch of the satellite. -
Ham was a chimpanzee and the first ape launched into space. Ham flew a suborbital flight on the mercury redstone 2 mission. Ham's flight lasted 16 and a half minutes. -
Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space after being launched into orbit by a Vostok rocket. once he completed one orbit around earth the automatic controls on the rocket brought him back down safely. -
Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut to travel into space, after being launched into space on the Freedom 7 space capsule. -
John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. He orbited around the earth 3 times in 4 hours and 56 minutes. -
President John F. Kennedy declared by the end of the decade the United States would land on the moon. -
Alexei Leonov performed the first eva. he spent 12 minuets and 9 seconds outside the Voskhod 2 spacecraft. -
Ed White was the first American to perform a spacewalk. from the second crewed Gemini flight, Gemini IV,for 21 minutes. He was tethered to the spacecraft and his oxygen was supplied through a 25ft long umbilical cord, it also carried communications and biomedical instruments. -
Frank Borman launched Gemini VII into space, where he spent two weeks in orbit. the longest duration flight to that time.