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HISTORY
TIMELINE
Timeline of Space Race events from 1957 to 1975.
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A DAY IN THE LIFE DURING ...
THE SPACE RACE
by Jacquelin Cangro
Meet Mary, a high school student in the late 1960s who is enchanted
with the space program and dreams of a career as an astronaut.
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A REAL ROCKET MAN: WILLIAM H. PICKERING
Mary Ellen Ryan
The Soviets were one step ahead of the United States until 1962.
That year Pickering and his team developed the Mariner 2, which made
its way to Venus. America could finally claim an important first
in the space race. For his contribution, Pickering was pictured on
the cover of Time magazine. On November 28, 1964, Mariner 4 was launched
for Mars. The next July Pickering was again on the cover of Time – learn
about the life and career of this real rocket man.
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MORE THAN A SPACE RACE
Rachel Boehm
The space race was a heated struggle between the United States and
the Soviet Union. Both nations were in a head-to-head competition
to prove to the world that they were the superior power. How did
each nation try to prove this? By working tirelessly to develop the
best space and military technologies faster than their rival nation – find
out how role the CORONA program played in this rivalry. |
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EXPLORING STRANGE NEW WORLDS: VENUS AND MARS
Christine M. Roane
The Space Race wasn’t just a race to the Moon, although in
the United States, the lion’s share of funding was going
to the Moon program. This required American planetary scientists
to fight for the money they needed to reach planets such as Venus
and Mars, while the Soviets were busily moving forward in their
ambitious attempts – uncover which country achieved its planetary
objectives.
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HISTORY SHAPES AMERICA’S NEW SPACECRAFT
Tracy McMahan
To build the next generation of American spacecraft – the Ares
I crew launch vehicle and the Ares V cargo launch vehicle – NASA
is using hardware and rockets that were developed for earlier projects
such as the Saturn rockets and the space shuttle program. Listen
to NASA scientist Phil Sumrall as he talks about this blend of NASA
history with the future.
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GOING BANANAS IN SPACE
Deborah Bryson
In January of 1961, one of the world’s first star sailors waited
to launch into space at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Bad weather and equipment
problems delayed the flight for over six hours. A little before noon,
powerful Redstone rocket engines blasted the Mercury capsule high
above Earth. Lights flashed on the panel in front of the astronaut
and he pulled levers to make pellets roll into a metal cup. As he
soared higher and higher, he munched his banana-flavored treats and
sipped water through a narrow tube. Ham the chimponaut was only one
of the many animals, insects, birds, reptiles, and fish who have
ventured into space. Let’s learn more about these space pioneers
and their contributions to the space race.
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STARS AND WARS: THE INCREDIBLE LIFE OF YURI GAGARIN
Phil Anderton
The Soviet leaders wanted to win the space race to prove that Russian
communism was better than American capitalism. This meant they had
to make sure the first man in space was a Russian cosmonaut and
not an American astronaut. Learn about the life of Yuri Gagarin
and how he became the first man in space and fulfilled the dream
of the Soviet Union. |
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ALAN SHEPARD: FIRST AMERICAN IN SPACE
Heather Rutkowski
On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard sat in his cramped capsule atop an enormous
Mercury-Redstone 3 rocket. At thirty-seven years old, he was about
to become the first American in space, and it seemed as if his whole
life had been leading up to this moment – find out why.
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LIVE FROM THE MOON
Beth Rienti
Forty years ago, 500 million spellbound viewers watched Neil Armstrong’s
famous first steps on the Moon. The power of television brought them
together on that momentous occasion, just as it had captured each
triumphant and challenging step along the path of space exploration.
Find out how the power of television that first convinced Americans
they could and would put a man on the Moon, and helped shape the
history of the
Space Race.
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VALENTINA TERESHKOVA: FIRST WOMAN IN SPACE
Abigail Mieko Vargus
Think of your dream job. Do you want to be a professional basketball
player? A huge music star? The president of the United States? Imagine
writing a letter to someone who could make that happen. Now imagine
that person writing back to grant that dream – because that
is exactly what happened to Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman
in space. |
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THE MERCURY 13: WOMEN OF THE SPACE RACE
Barbara Diggs
Alan Shepard. John Glenn. Neil Armstrong. Buzz Aldrin. When reading
the names of the American astronauts of the space race, one can’t
help but notice there are no women on the list. No American woman
would travel to space until astronaut Sally Ride did so in 1983.
One wonders: why weren’t any American women involved in the
race to
outer space? In truth – there were – but they never made
it off the ground. Learn about the Mercury 13 and why these women
never took off.
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SPACE IS RADIOACTIVE: THE VAN ALLEN BELTS
Steve Carper
Light’s dominance over the Earth ensured that the process of
evolution resulted in humanity being able to see visible light in
all its forms and manifestations. Over centuries, we learned that
infrared heat, X-rays, and radio waves acted in a similar way, but
were actually invisible electromagnetic radiation. The twentieth
century brought another surprise: a different form of radiation also
streamed in from every corner of space – the Van Allen Belts.
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SPIN-OFFS FROM SPACE
Steve Carper
People often ask what benefits Americans have received from the money
spent in space. The answer is that they’re everywhere. Since
1976, when NASA started documenting the results, about 1,400 NASA
inventions can be shown to have aided U.S. industry, improved the
quality of life, and created jobs for Americans. Of course, the spinoffs
started long before 1976. Learn what NASA developed during the Apollo
and Skylab programs that we take for granted today.
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SKYLAB:AT HOME IN ORBIT
James Sutherland
When Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to
walk on the dusty soil of the Moon in July 1969, the space race between
the United Sates and the Soviet Union seemed to be over. America
had won – or had it? Even as later Apollo missions continued
exploring the lunar surface, Soviet space program managers gave up
plans for Moon trips and refocused on establishing space stations
(named Salyuts) in low orbit around the Earth. Find out why NASA
felt it had to respond to the challenge posed by the Salyuts, and
how that decision was the birth of Skylab, America’s first
space station.
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DIPLOMACY AMONG THE STARS:THE APOLLO-SOYUZ MISSION
Mac Carey
It was 1975, six years after the United States unofficially won the
space race by landing a man on the Moon. Unbelievably, while the
Soviet Union and the United States were still in the midst of political
and economic competition all around the world, these two rival superpowers
decided to put their differences aside and join together on a space
mission. Learn how the Apollo- Soyuz mission saw astronauts and cosmonauts
shake hands in the middle of space, a moment broadcast live on television
to a stunned world below.
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