On October 4, 1957 at 1028 Moscow time, a rocket carrying the worlds first orbiting satellite roared into space, signaling a new era in human history and the beginning of the socalled "space race" an epic rivalry pitting the technological knowhow of the Soviet Union against that of the United States. Despite some highly publicized failures, the USA managed to answer the Russians with the successful launch of Explorer 1 in January of 1958. The next major milestone would be to put a human into orbit, a goal that defined the USAs Project Mercury. After a long series of test launches including a suborbital flight with the chimp Ham on board, Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space. On May 5, 1961 Shepard rode a Redstone rocket into space for a suborbital flight that lasted under 16 minutes. Nine months later, John Glenns Friendship 7 capsule was launched into space atop an Atlas booster, and Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. Glenn remained in space for nearly five hours and circled the planet three times. While these flights represented enormous achievements neither was an outright space race victory cosmonaut Yuri Gagarins orbital flight of April 12, 1961 earned him the title of first man in space, and first man to orbit the Earth. Designed by brilliant engineer Max Faget and a team at NASA, the Mercury space capsule represented an entirely new class of vehicle. Just large enough for a single astronaut, the joke about the cramped...

Binding: Paperback;402 pages; Publisher: Periscope Film; Classification: N/A; Weight: 915.15 g; Dimensions: N/A

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