February 14, 2009 Afternoon Session

Sputnik

 1957, First artificial satellite “Sputnik”  “friendly traveler”

 1957, First living creature in space Dog “Laika”—Sputnik 2

 1959, First spacecraft to vicinity of moon “Luna”

 First person in space, 12 Apr Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin Vostok 1

 June 1963, First woman in space Valentina Tereshkova Vostok 6

 1965, First space walk (EVA) Alexei Leonov, “Voskhod 2”

 1971, First space station “Salyut 1”

 Sputnik 1, Oct. 4, 1957  Sputnik 2, Nov. 3, 1957  Luna 3, Oct. 4, 1959  Yuri Gagarin, April 12, 1961  Valentina Tereshkova, June 14, 1963  Leonov EVA, March 18, 1965  Salyut I, April 1971



Konstantin Tsiolkovskii Father of Cosmonautics, Group for the Study of Reaction Motion—GIRD, 1931 Soviet rocket designs,

Dr. Robert Goddard,

WHY WAS THE USSR FIRST??

Soviet R-7 (SS-6) ICBM Korolev

Dr. Edward Teller: “Father of the Hydrogen Bomb” Stanislas Ulam

 Lightweight thermonuclear warhead

WW2 German V-2 US Redstone R-7 Soviet ICBMs

Nikita Khrushchev

1957 International Geophysical Year (IGY)

Jupiter RocketWernher von Braun

Viking Rocket Vanguard Satellite

U.S. spy photo of Soviet airfield, early 1960s

President Dwight D. Eisenhower,

 Coined term “military-industrial complex”  Threatened democracy

National Reconnaissance Office Discoverer satellites “Keyholes” Top-secret “Corona” Program (Central Intelligence Agency)

“Discoverer” Keyhole Camera platform

U-2 Spyplane

Eisenhower’s Measured Response to Sputnik

Flopnik!! Dec Attempt to launch Vanguard satellite

Explorer 1: first U.S. satellite to orbit 31 Jan. 1958

KennedyNixon

“Symbols of the Cold War”

 Wanted America’s space program to be peaceful, research-oriented  Not to be controlled or fought over by the military  Selected NACA as the nucleus

 James E. Webb  NASA Administrator,  JFK appointment  Former director, Bureau of the Budget

 Robert Gilruth, head of NASA’s Space Task Group  Future director of the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston (later named Johnson Space Center)  Accomplished aeronautical engineer

 Life magazine editor Hugh Sidey on JFK

 Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin  Vostok 1  April 12, 1961  One complete orbit

 JFK’s science adviser  Director of MIT’s Radiation Laboratory,  MIT President,  No fan of the Apollo program

 May 5, 1961  Astronaut Alan B. Shepard  15-minute suborbital flight

 Five more flights, to include John Glenn’s first orbital flight  Gemini Program Rendezvous and Docking Long-duration flight Extra-vehicular activity  Apollo Saturn V rocket Lunar lander

 Geraldine “Jerrie” Cobb  1963 Congressional Hearings