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Objective: demonstrate an 8 day long flight to prove humans could endure the time needed for a lunar mission and evaluate the performance of a new fuel cell power system
Crew: Charles Conrad Jr. and L. Gordon Cooper Jr.
Successful mission -
The first satellite was launched into space by the USSR on October 11, 1957 -
Laika, the first animal to orbit Earth in the Sputnik 2 launched by the USSR in 1957 -
The Explorer 1 launched after the failure of Project Vanguard which had failed to launch in December of 1957. -
The creation of NASA following the launch of the Russian satellite, Sputnik, was due to fearing an attack from the Soviet Union. -
The US sent out a chimpanzee named Ham on the Mercury Redstone 2 mission, making him the first hominid in space to perform tasks survivinv 16.5 minutes in space -
Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space, piloting the Vostok 1 deployed by the Soviet Union -
Alan Shephard was the first man in space sent by the USA. Flying aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft, his flight was a 15 minute suborbital trip -
JFK's speech at Rice University set a deadline of getting to the moon by the end of the decade and rallied nationwide support for this mission -
John Glenn completed a historic flight of orbiting Earth aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft -
Objective: Pilots James McDivitt and Edward White II would test the perfomance of the spacecraft and crew during the 4 day flight and perform the first American spacewalk
Successful Mission -
During the Voskhod 2 mission, Alexei Leonov completed man's first extravehicular activity, spending 12 minutes outside the spacecraft -
Objective: test the first maneuverable Gemini spacecraft by demonstrating its controlled lifting during reentry, recovery procedures, and maneuverability of the new spacecraft
Manned by: Virgil Grissom and John Young
successful mission -
Here we have the first man to perform an EVA sent by the US, Ed White. He spent 23 minutes outside the spacecraft during the Gemini 4 mission. -
Astronauts Elliot See and Charles Bassett tragically passed on the Gemini 9A mission in a T-38 jet crash. Due to poor weather conditions, See misjudged the landing and the aircraft struck the McDonnell Aircraft building, resulting in the deaths of both crew members. -
Virgil Grissom, Edward White II, and Roger Chaffee were all killed during a pre-launch test. Faulty wiring resulted in the lighting of the pure oxygen inside he command module. -
Crew: Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele, R. Walter Cunningham
Mission: First crewed Apollo mission, first live TV broadcast from an American spacecraft, first three-person American spaceflight, and -
Crew: Frank Borman, Bill Anders, and Jim Lovell
Mission achievements: first mission to orbit the moon and return safely, first to live stream from lunar orbit, first humans to see the far side of the moon -
Crew: James McDivitt, David Scott, and Russell Schweickart
Mission achievements: first 2 person EVA, first space docking and seperation, first complete Apollo spacecraft test, first crew transfer -
Crew: Thomas Stafford, John Young, Eugene Cernan
Mission Achievements: first crew to completely orbit the moon in a completed Apollo spacecraft, first live color TV space broadcast -
Crew: Neil Armstrong, Michral Collins, and Edwin Aldrin Jr.
Mission Achievements: first man on the moon, first steps on the lunar surface, first live TV transmission from the moon, first deployment of scientific instruments