On Oct. 4, 1957, the space age began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into orbit. For the next dozen years, the United States and the Soviet Union battled for dominance in spaceflight capability.
In a 2009 Book Review, “From Laika to the Lunar Module,” Jack Shafer summed it up:
The early space race was really a chase, with the United States trailing its superpower rival — the Soviet Union — badly. The Soviets took a strong lead by tossing Sputnik 1 into Earth orbit in 1957 and smacking the moon in the face with the Luna 2 probe in 1959. Although the United States launched its first Earth satellite in 1958, its less powerful rockets had a tendency to detonate on the launch pad like short-fused bombs or break up after takeoff and sizzle like Fourth of July fireworks, or veer off course.
50 Years Since Sputnik, a 2007 interactive timeline." width="480" height="255" />
Scroll through our On This Day in History index to find many, many more space exploration milestones, all linked to New York Times front pages of the past.
If you are a New York Times subscriber, you have access to Times Machine and can browse every issue of The Times from 1851 to 1980. What can you find? Let us know and we may feature it in a future edition of Throwback Thursday or on the @NYTarchives Twitter account.
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