Why did the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik throw the fields of mathematics and science into tremendous demand in the United States? Find the many ways this revolutionary event impacted children from the 1950s to become the...

Learn about the history of space travel. Audio content is included as well as vocabulary words linked to a glossary of terms.

This resource offers an in-depth exploration of the U.S. space program and the role President John F. Kennedy took in setting the agenda for manned space flight to the moon.

In 1955, the US and the USSR each announced plans to launch a satellite into orbit. Thus began the race to the moon. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the American space program and its new classes of astronauts achieved breakthroughs in...

The story of America's first astronaut to orbit the earth during the Mercury Space program. After launching the program click on continue or on the numbers to learn about the story of the Mercury program and the first American to orbit...

Russia was ahead in the "space race" in 1961. In this article, the Library of Congress discusses how President Kennedy assigned Lyndon Johnson the task of uniting the different parts of the U.S. space program into NASA.