Space Race
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The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missi
Wernher von Braun's space station concept (1952)
The US stable of Explorer 1, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launch vehicles were a varied group of ICBMs and the NASA-developed Saturn IB rocket.
Soviet stamp commemorating Sputnik 1, 1957
William Hayward Pickering, James Van Allen, and von Braun display a model of Explorer 1 at a news conference after confirmation the satellite was in orbit.
Project Gemini
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Project Gemini was the second United States human spaceflight program to fly. It was conducted after the first American crewed space program, Project Mercury, while the Apollo program was still in ear
A cutaway illustration of the Gemini spacecraft. The Adapter module in white, the Reentry module in grey
Gemini 7 capsule
Unablated Gemini heat shield
Ablated Gemini heat shield