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Period: to
1960s space race
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Tiros 1, the first successful weather satellite, is launched.
Tiros 1, the first successful weather satellite, is launched. -
The US launches Discoverer XIV, its first camera equipped spy satellite.
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John F. Kennedy is elected the 35th President of the United States.
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(Soviet Union)Yuri Gagarin orbits the Earth once and becomes the first man in space.
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Alan B. Shepard becomes the first American in space.
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(SU)Gherman Titov spends a day in space aboard Vostok 2
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President John F. Kennedy addresses Congress and challenges the nation to go to the Moon before the end of the decade.
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Gus Grissom is launched on a sub-orbital flight. His Liberty-Bell capsule is lost when it fills with water and sinks after splashdown.
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(SU) Gherman Titov spends a day in space aboard Vostok 2.
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NASA announces the Gemini Program.
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(US)John Glenn orbits the Earth three times.
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(US)Scott Carpenter repeats John Glenn's flight aboard "Aurora 7".
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President Kennedy gives a speech at Rice University reaffirming the importance of the Moon program.
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NASA selects its second group of astronauts.
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(US)Walter Schirra orbits the Earth six times.
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(US)L. Gordon Cooper spends 34 hours in space. He is the last American to fly in space alone.
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(SU)Cosmonaut Valentia Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.
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(SU)Alexei Leonov spends 12 minutes outside of his Voskhod spacecraft performing the first spacewalk.
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(US)Ranger 7 transmits the first close range images of the Moon.
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(US)Astronaut Theodore Freeman dies in a plane crash.
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Gus Grissom and John Young fly the first manned Gemini spacecraft.
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(SU)Luna 9 becomes the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon.
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(US)Astronauts Charles Bassett and Elliott See die when their plane crashes in bad weather.
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(US)Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee are killed when a fire ignites in their Apollo 1 capsule while performing a test on the launch pad.
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(SU)Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed when the parachutes of his Soyuz 1 capsule fail to open properly following re-entry.
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(SU)Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, dies in a plane crash.
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(SU)Zond 5 is launched. It carried a biological payload (including two turtles) around the Moon and returned to Earth six days later.
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(SU)Soyuz 4 & 5 perform the first Soviet spacecraft docking.
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(US)Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon while crewmate Michael Collins orbits around the Moon alone.
