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Sputnik
The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. This marked the start of the Space age and the US-USSR Space race. Sputnik was the size of a beach ball and weighed approximately 189 pounds. While during the time this caught America off guard and people thougt if the USSR can launch Sputnik then they could launch nuclear weapons as well. And so it began the Space Race.
https://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/ -
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 was made to complete a goal set by President John F. Kennedy. Apollo 11 had
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo11.html -
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Gemini Program
The Gemini Program helped get NASA ready for the Apollo moon landings. They called it the Gemini program because the rockets were meant to carry two people. NASA made the Gemini capsule which looked a lot like the capsule used for the mercury missions but much larger. But before any astronauts could go on it they had to test the rockets for safety
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-was-gemini-program-58.html -
Sky Lab
The Sky Lab made a way to make some permanent options to the ISS. Sky Lab was seen as a "Bold Concept" by Rocco Petrone, who was a director of some launch operations for NASA. The Sky Lab program started as the Apollo Applications Program in 1968 -
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990. Soon after the launch scientists noticed a tiny flaw it was on the priamary mirror it was 1/50th of a hair. But, it was just enough to distort the view of the telescope. So it had to return and get repairs. Hubble is the most successful and long lasting missions NASA made.
https://hubblesite.org/mission-and-telescope/the-telescope -
Space X (Founding)
In 2002 Elon Musk found Space X a private space company. In 2008 the Falcon 1 became the first privately developed rocket to reach Earths orbit. Space X's mission is to make humans a spacefaring civilization. Space X is the first to launch and recover a spacecraft from orbit.
https://www.spacex.com/elon-musk -
The Mars Rovers
Spirit and Opprotunity aka The Adventure Twins had gathered information from Mars. Both proved that a long time ago Mars was wetter and had oceans and land. Mars could support life, small life but life. Both gathered information for much longer than expected about 15 years longer than the 90 day expectancy.
https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/overview/
