Hello.
The Soviet Union launched the first Sputnik satellite on October, 4 1957, ushering in the age of space exploration and kicking off an intense space race with the United States.
Sputnik’s launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans. In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets.
In 1958, the U.S. launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun-A German Scientist who waworked on V2 Rocket.
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