"Race to Space" movie poster, Nominated for 1960 Academy Award for Documentary

Sputnik 1 ("Satellite-1"), was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It was a 58 cm (23 in) diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses. It was visible all around the Earth and its radio pulses were detectable. This surprise success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War.

This Las Vegas newspaper captures the excitement as two American astronauts explore the moon's surface on July 20. Earlier in the day, President Richard Nixon had led the nation in prayer for a successful moon landing.

It’s about more than money. The U.S. needs a strategy to harness private innovation.

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NASA has confirmed that the Mars Curiosity rover has collected rock samples that it drilled from the Martian surface.

See the cover of TIME Magazine from December 6, 1968

Sputnik 1, 1957 first soviet satellite