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The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1. It was beach ball size, and weighed 184 pounds.
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Less than a month later, the Sputnik 1 sent the first animal in space. It was a dog named Laika
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The Explorer 1, was the first American attempt to compete with the Sputnik 1. It blew up on the launch pad, and orbited 1,560 miles.
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President Lyndon B. Johnson, signed for NASA to assume many of the duties of the pre-existing National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics.
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The Soviet Union launched the first man in space. His name was Yuri A. Garagin.
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Determined to be #1, the US launches astronaut Alan Shepard on a 15- minute subortibal flight.
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John H. Glenn, an astronaut, orbits the Earth 3 times in nearly 5 hours.
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Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov exits his Voskhod 2 capsule for a 12-minute spacewalk.
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As the U.S. is gearing up for its three-man Apollo moon missions, a fire breaks out in a routine ground test. Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee are killed, as the blaze, ignited by faulty wiring, spreads with incredible speed in the Apollo 1 module's 100-percent-oxygen atmosphere.
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The lunar module of Apollo 11, nicknamed the Eagle, touches down on the moon, with 30 seconds' worth of fuel to spare. Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., descend to the surface.
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