Unit 3 Flashcards
Start of the Space age
Oct 4th 1957
with the launch of sputnik 1
England and Australia
Rocket development was crucial for the UK
but no place in the UK
so they established a rocket testing facility in Woomera, South Australia (name Skylark)
Military and Science flights have been there since the 1950s
Canada
Black Brant
Result of Canadian Armament Research and Development Establishment (CARDE)
4th country to operate a satellite
Operational for 10 years
1957
Sputnik 1: start of the space age
Sputnik 2: first living creature in space
* Laika the dog
Vanguard tv-3: complete failure
US response to Sputnik
a year later in 1958
successfully launched a satellite Explorer 1
using the Juno 1 rocket (Von Braun design)
Formation of NASA
President Eisenhower
singed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Act (NASA)
Mercury 7
NASAs first astronaut selection
The famed “Right stuff”
All military test pilots
Luna 2
Soviet impactor probe
impacted the moon
1959
Luna 3
Took images of the Lunar farside
1959
Space Race
1961, the Soviet Union launched the first human into space
* Yuri Gagarin
Us responded with NASA flying Alan Shepard as a sub-orbital flight
More importantly, it empowered President John Kennedy to commit the US to a moon landing “by the end of the decade” in 1961
Mercury 13
NASA didn’t let women be astronauts until 1978
13 women passed the same test that Mercury 7 experienced
* Wakky Funk only member of the 13, flew into space in 2021
Venera 1 and Mariner 2
Both Flew by Venus in 1961 and 1962
First Woman in Space
Valentina Tereshkova (1963)
Soviet Union
First Walks in space
Alexi Leonov (soviet union)
Ed White (US)
Mariner 4
flyby of Mars 1965
First lunar landing
Luna 9 (soviet)
The first successful soft landing on the moon
Lunar Mission
Luna 1958 - 1975
* 15 of 44 successful missions (Flyby, Orbit, Landing)
* Soviet
Ranger 1961 - 1965
* 4 of 7 successful hard impact missions
* US
Spin-Offs
even though the space age was short its implications were very helpful
- Weather satellites
- Worldwide communication became easier
- Encouraged lower-mass electronic components
Apollo 1 and Soyuz 1
The tragic incidents of both spacecraft led to significant changes and improvements in human spaceflight