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Sputnik
The USSR launched the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth, marking the start of the Space Race. -
Laika
Laika was the first animal to make an orbital spaceflight around the Earth, she was aboard the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2. She did not survive the travel -
Explorer 1
The satellite was twice the size of basketball and the launch marked an important moment for USA since the Space Race with the Soviet Union was just beginning. -
Creation of NASA
The U.S Congress passed legislation, establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America's activities in space. NASA was created in response to the Soviet Unions launch of their first satellite, Sputnik 1. -
Ham the Chimp
Ham the Astrochimp, was the first great ape launched into space. Hame flew a suborbital flight on the Mercury-Redstone 2 mission, apart of the U.S. space program's Project Mercury. -
JFK's speech about going to the moon
JFK declared that the USA needed "to take a clearly leading role in space achievement" and "commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth." The mission was clear: the United States must go to the Moon. -
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin
Gagarin was launched into orbit by a Vostok rocket and became the first man in space and to complete an orbit around the Earth. After completing one orbit, the spacecraft's automatic controls brought him safely back to Earth -
John Glenn
John Glen was the first American and the second human to orbit the Earth abroad the Friendship 7. -
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Gemini Mission
The Gemini mission had four main goals:
-To test an astronaut's ability to fly long-duration missions
-To understand how spacecraft could rendezvous and dock in orbit around the Earth and moon
-TO perfect re-entry and landing methods
-To further understand the effects of longer space flights on humans -
Astronaut Alexei Leonov
He was the first person to preform an EVA, he spent 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside the Voskhod 2 spacecraft. -
Ed White
The first American to ever preform a spacewalk, he was apart of the second crewed Gemini flight, Gemini IV, and spent 21 minutes outside the craft. -
Apollo 1
First Fatal accident in the history of U.S space flight. During prepartings a flash fire broke out in the command module of Apollo 204, killing Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee of asphyxiation -
Soyuz 1
Three months after the fire Apollo 1, Vladimir Komarov became the first fatality in space flight when the Soyuz 1 crashed into Earth on a mission to the moon. One of the solar panels failed to deploy which cut his power off and the parachutes failed to deploy, causing him to crash violently into the ground in southeastern Russia. -
Apollo 7 Mission
Apollo 7 accomplished many firsts, first 3-person American spaceflight, the first live TV downlink from an American spacecraft, the first Saturn rocket to launch a crew into space, and the first time hot food was available to a crew in space -
Apollo 8 Mission
Apollo 8 achieved the first manned mission launched on the Saturn V, first manned launch from NASA's new Moonport, first pictures taken by humans of the Earth from deep space, and the first live TV coverage of the lunar surface. -
Apollo 9 Mission
The Apollo 9 mission was the first manned flight of all Apollo lunar hardware in Earth orbit and first manned flight of the lunar module. -
Apollo 10 Mission
The Apollo 10 mission encompassed all aspects of an actual crewed lunar landing, except the landing aspect. It was the first flight of a complete, crewed Apollo spacecraft to operate around the Moon. -
Apollo 11 Mission
Apollo 11 was the mission that marked the first Humans to ever be on the Moon, Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin will go down in history for their remarkable accomplishment on making it to the Moon.