Launching a basketball-sized satellite Sputnik 1 into space on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union began a race in space.
The launch attracted a lot of attention in the US, as they feared that the same technology could be used to bring nuclear missiles from Europe to the US. Soon they will start a race in space.
A month later, the USSR struck a new blow. But this time - with Sputnik-2, larger and heavier, on board which was the dog Laika.
Interest in the new technology was also great in Norway. On November 29, 1957, VG's morning shift wrote the following:
“At 07.09 in the morning, Sputnik-2 passed over us rather unnoticed. This is a great time to observe, but VG observation points, in any case, could not notice it."
Johnson took an active part
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Almost four months after the launch of Sputnik 1, the United States launched the Explorer I satellite into space. He first measured the radiation waves of the Earth.
The Explorer confirmed that there is an unusually strong radioactive belt around the Earth, VG told its readers on July 29, 1958.
Lyndon Johnson, who later became president, began a six-week hearing in November over the "missile chasm" between the two superpowers. At the end of the hearing, Johnson changed his view of the potential for space as a battlefield, recognizing it as an arena of scientific and commercial opportunity.
And from there the road went straight to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), went through two houses of Congress, and then, in July 1958, the decision was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Starting shot for the Apollo project
April 1 (sic) 1961 Soviet man Yuri Gagarin became the world's first cosmonaut, a little later, on May 5, it was the turn of the United States and their astronaut Alan Shepard, This feat and the loss of first place made President John F. Kennedy taste the struggle. Just 20 days after Shepard was sent into space, he asked Congress to commit to sending a man to the moon by the late 1960s. This was the beginning of the Apollo project.
In January 1967, Apollo 1, the first manned spacecraft of the project, stood on the launch platform at Cape Kennedy. He had three astronauts on board: Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. What should have been a test ended in tragedy when the ship caught fire. All three were killed.
First - to the moon
Two and a half years later, at 0930 hours on July 16, Apollo 11 took off from Cape Kennedy. Astronauts made 1.5 orbits around the Earth and received a clear signal to fly to the Moon. Four days after launch, Neil Armstrong was able to report that "the eagle has landed."
"Houston, we have a problem," NASA communications rang out in 1970. Then the Apollo 13 spacecraft was heading to the Moon, and an oxygen tank exploded on board, as a result of which several technical malfunctions appeared on the ship.
For the crew, it became a struggle for survival. Having made a revolution around the moon, they directed the ship towards Earth. The temperature in the ship was almost at freezing point. Four days after the explosion, three astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
Apollo 13 got off with fright. The Challenger was less fortunate in 1986. 73 seconds after launch, the space shuttle exploded, killing all seven on board. Including teacher Christa McAuliffe, the first non-professional astronaut.
Hubble Telescope Provides New Possibilities
April 24, 1990, marked NASA's biggest astronomical achievement since Galileo Galilei pointed his telescope up in 1610. Then the management launched the Hubble telescope.
The telescope was named after Edwin Hubble, who proved that the universe is constantly expanding and thus created the basis for the Big Bang theory.
In 1997, Mars Pathfinder landed on the Red Planet. The device sent more than 16.5 thousand images from the surface of Mars, which gave scientists the opportunity to get a more complete picture of what the situation looks like on the neighboring planet.
A year later, the first part of the International Space Station was launched into space with the help of a Russian rocket, others were to follow. Over the next two years, astronauts assembled a space station where people could live. People have been living at the station since November 2000.
A new tragedy overtook NASA in 2003, when the Columbia 1 spacecraft returned to Earth on February 1 after 17 days of flight. Damage occurred during launch, which caused the ship to crumble as it entered the atmosphere. The crew of seven died.
Signal lost
On January 23, 2003, NASA received a weak signal. These were the last signs of life from Pioneer 10, a space probe that for 30 years faithfully passed the asteroid belt and photographed Jupiter up close.
Pioneer 10's photographs of Jupiter and its moons, as well as measurements of the planet's magnetic sphere, radiation belts, atmosphere, and appearance, were critical to the design of the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft.
Andrea Rognstrand
