Before the end of the decade or ten years as I remember it.
Since you asked...
Oct. 4, 1957: A modified R-7 two-stage ICBM launches the satellite Sputnik 1 from Tyuratam.
The Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States begins.
Nov. 3, 1957: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2 with the first living passenger, the dog
Laika, aboard.
Dec. 6, 1957: A Vanguard TV-3 carrying a grapefruit-sized satellite explodes at launch; a failed response to the Sputnik launch by the United States.
Jan. 31, 1958: Explorer 1, the first satellite with an onboard telemetry system, is launched by the United States into orbit aboard a Juno rocket and returns data from space.
Oct. 7, 1958: NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan publicly announces NASA's manned spaceflight program along with the formation of the Space Task Group, a panel of scientist and engineers from space-policy organizations absorbed by NASA. The announcement came just six days after NASA was founded.
Jan. 2, 1959: The U.S.S.R. launches Luna 1, which misses the moon but becomes the first artificial object to leave Earth orbit.
Jan. 12, 1959: NASA awards McDonnell Corp. the contract to manufacture the Mercury capsules.
Feb. 28, 1959: NASA launches Discover 1, the U.S. first spy satellite, but it is not until the Aug. 11, 1960, launch of Discover 13 that film is recovered successfully.
May 28, 1959: The United States launches the first primates in space, Able and Baker, on a suborbital flight.
Aug. 7, 1959: NASA's Explorer 6 launches and provides the first photographs of the Earth from space.
Sept. 12, 1959: The
Soviet Union's Luna 2 is launched and two days later is intentionally crashed into the Moon.
Sept. 17, 1959: NASA's
X-15 hypersonic research plane, capable of speeds to Mach 6.7, makes its first powered flight.
Oct. 24, 1960: To rush the launch of a Mars probe before the Nov. 7 anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Field Marshall Mitrofan Nedelin ignored several safety protocols and 126 people are killed when the R-16 ICBM explodes at the Baikonur Cosmodrome during launch preparations.
Feb. 12, 1961: The Soviet Union launches Venera to Venus, but the probe stops responding after a week.
April 12, 1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the
first man in space with a 108-minute flight on Vostok 1 in which he completed one orbit.
May 5, 1961: Mercury Freedom 7 launches on a Redstone rocket for a 15-minute suborbital flight, making
Alan Shepard the first American in space.
May 25, 1961: In a speech before Congress,
President John Kennedyannounces that an American will land on the moon and be returned safely to Earth before the end of the decade.
Oct. 27, 1961: Saturn 1, the rocket for the initial Apollo missions, is tested for the first time.
Feb. 20, 1962: John Glenn makes the first U.S. manned orbital flight aboard Mercury 6. (seems like yesterday)
June 7, 1962: Wernher von Braun backs the idea of a Lunar Orbit Rendezvous mission.
July 10, 1962: The
United States launches Telstar 1, which enables the trans-Atlantic transmission of television signals.
June 14, 1962: Agreements are signed establishing the European Space Research Organisation and the European Launcher Development Organisation. Both eventually were dissolved.
July 28, 1962: The U.S.S.R launches its first successful spy satellite, designated Cosmos 7.
Aug. 27, 1962: Mariner 2 launches and eventually performs the first successful interplanetary flyby when it passes by Venus.
Sept. 29, 1962: Canada's Alouette 1 launches aboard a NASA Thor-Agena B rocket, becoming the first satellite from a country other than the United States or Soviet Union.
June 16, 1963: Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to fly into space.
July 28, 1964: Ranger 7 launches and is the Ranger series' first success, taking photographs of the moon until it crashes into its surface four days later.
April 8, 1964: Gemini 1, a two-seat spacecraft system, launches in an unmanned flight.
Aug. 19, 1964: NASA's Syncom 3 launches aboard a Thor-Delta rocket, becoming the first geostationary telecommunications satellite.
Oct. 12, 1964: The Soviet Union launches Voskhod 1, a modified Vostok orbiter with a three-person crew.
March 18, 1965: Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov makes the first spacewalk from the Voskhod 2 orbiter.
March 23, 1965: Gemini 3, the first of the manned Gemini missions, launches with a two-person crew on a Titan 2 rocket, making astronaut Gus Grissom the first man to travel in space twice.
June 3, 1965: Ed White, during the Gemini 4 mission, becomes the first American to walk in space.
July 14, 1965: Mariner 4 executes the first successful Mars flyby.
Aug. 21, 1965: Gemini 5 launches on an eight-day mission.
Dec. 15, 1965: Gemini 6 launches and performs a rendezvous with Gemini 7.
Jan. 14, 1966: The Soviet Union's chief designer, Sergei Korolev, dies from complications stemming from routine surgery, leaving the Soviet space program without its most influential leader of the preceding 20 years.
Feb. 3, 1966: The unmanned Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 makes the first soft landing on the Moon.
March 1, 1966: The Soviet Union's Venera 3 probe becomes the first spacecraft to land on the planetVenus, but its communications system failed before data could be returned.
March 16, 1966: Gemini 8 launches on a Titan 2 rocket and later docks with a previously launched Agena rocket — the first docking between two orbiting spacecraft.
April 3, 1966: The Soviet Luna 10 space probe enters lunar orbit, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon.
June 2, 1966: Surveyor 1, a lunar lander, performs the first successful U.S. soft landing on the Moon.
Jan. 27, 1967: All three astronauts for NASA's
Apollo 1 mission suffocate from smoke inhalationin a cabin fire during a launch pad test. (remember this putting a lot of things in question)
April 5, 1967: A review board delivers a damning report to NASA Administrator James Webb about problem areas in the Apollo spacecraft. The recommended modifications are completed by Oct. 9, 1968.
April 23, 1967: Soyuz 1 launches but myriad problems surface. The solar panels do not unfold, there are stability problems and the parachute fails to open on descent causing the death of Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.
Oct. 11, 1968: Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, launches on a Saturn 1 for an 11-day mission in Earth orbit. The mission also featured the first live TV broadcast of humans in space.
Dec. 21, 1968: Apollo 8 launches on a Saturn V and becomes the first manned mission to orbit the moon.
Jan. 16, 1969: Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 rendezvous and dock and perform the first in-orbit crew transfer.
March 3, 1969: Apollo 9 launches. During the mission, tests of the lunar module are conducted in Earth orbit.
May 22, 1969: Apollo 10's Lunar Module Snoopy comes within 8.6 miles (14 kilometers
) of the moon's surface.
July 20, 1969: Six years after U.S. President John F. Kennedy's assassination, the
Apollo 11 crew lands on the Moon, f
ulfilling his promise to put an American there by the end of the decade and return him safely to Earth.
Heller, for over a decade I rented a condo to engineers working in the space center...and there were some strange birds there. They might work for a few days in a crammed setting hours and hours and then take a few days off. Amazing some of the things that we have been fortunate to have witnessed...
