On October 4th, 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 into an elliptical low Earth orbit – this caught America completely by surprise and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War.
The Soviets would go on to launch the dog Laika into space, followed by the first man in orbit, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, while America played catch-up in the full glare of the media spotlight.
U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the moon” speech was delivered to a large crowd gathered at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas on September 12th, 1962. It galvanised the American space effort which would ultimately result in the Apollo programme and the landing of the first man on the moon …
