Maybe we havent conquered outer space yet, but there’s little argument that we have made bang-up progress since the first attempts to get into the heavens. The space age actually began in 1946, when captured German V-2 rockets were used to take measurements in the upper atmosphere. Prior to this, scientists used balloons that went up about 20 miles and radio waves were used to study the ionosphere. This continued to about 1952.
The U.S. had been considering launching orbital satellites since 1945 under the Bureau of Aeronautics of the United States Navy. The U.S. Air Force at first considered satellites to be a tool for science, politics, and propaganda. Following pressure by the American Rocket Society, the National Science Foundation, and the International Geophysical Year, military interest picked up and in early 1955 the Air Force and Navy were working on Project Orbiter, which involved using a Jupiter C rocket to launch a little satellite called Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958.
Meanwhile, in 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the earth’s first artificial satellite. It sent back the first images of outer space, beating the United States by one...
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