-
Sputnik 1
The Sputnik 1 was a successful launch into the earths orbit. This began the space age. The launch shocked much of the world. It gave the former Soviet Union the attention of putting the first human-made object into space. https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_924.html -
Laika the Space Dog
Laika was a Soviet space dog that became one of the first animals in space AND the first animal to orbit the Earth. This travel was meant to test the safety of space travel for humans. http://time.com/3546215/laika-1957/ -
Explorer 1
Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United Sates. This was designed to measure the radiation environment in Earth orbit. The orbit took the Explorer 1 to as close as 354 km to the Earth and as far as 2,515 km. Every 114.8 minutes another orbit was made. One last transmission was made. As Exploere 1 entered the Earths atmosphere it burned up on March 31, 1970 with a total of more than 58,000 orbits made. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/explorer/explorer-overview.html -
Luna 1
Luna 1 was the first spacecraft to reach the moon. Luna 1 was intended to impact the moon. They wanted to measure the magnetic fields of the Earth and Moon and many other properties of cosmic rays. https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1959-012A -
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri was the first man to orbit Earth. He graduated Soviet Air Force Cadet school in 1957 and became a fighter pilot. Yugi made an orbit around the Earth but when he came back into the atmosphere his aircraft almost crashed and he had to parachute to the ground to save himself. -
Alan Shepard
Alan was the first American to go to space. He flew on a Mercury Aircraft and called it Freedom 7. Shepard flew up 116 miles high then came back down. His flight only took 15.5 minutes. His second flight was Apollo 14. On Feb 15, 1971 he landed on the moon with Edgar Mitchell. Both flights were a success. https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/who-was-alan-shepard-k4.html -
John Glenn
John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. He was one of the "Mercury Seven". John named his spaceship Friendship 7. He made 3 orbits around the Earth. John spent 5 hours in space. https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/who-is-john-glenn-k4.html -
Apollo 8
The Apollo 8 became the first spacecraft to leave Earths orbit, reach the Earths moon, and return back. It took 3 days to travel to the moon. It orbited 10 times within 20 hours. The Apollo 8 was the "D", they wanted to test the LM in a low Earth orbit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8 -
Apollo 11
