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The USSR launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth -
it was a monkey named Laika -
Explorer and it discovered radiation belts around earth -
President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). -
he was a navy test pilot and had a 15 minute suborbital flight -
Travelling in the Vostok 1 capsule, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth. -
Astronaut John H. Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth during the three-orbit Mercury-Atlas 6 mission. -
Officially titled the Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort. -
Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who spent 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside the Voskhod 2 spacecraft. -
A chimpanzee also known as Ham the Chimp and Ham the Astrochimp, was the first Great Ape launched into space.