WEBVTT FILE

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0...and liftoff! The final liftoff of Atlantis

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[ cheers ]

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The NASA you know today?

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It was actually founded after the launch of the first scientific mission in space.

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After the Soviet Union successfully launched the first satellite ever to orbit the Earth,

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the United States was under enormous pressure to pick up the pace of its own satellite program.

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Built by a team of more than 100 engineers, electronics experts and machinists

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working around the clock, Explorer 1 became the first American satellite

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to orbit the Earth just four months later.

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In reality, Explorer 1 was actually the U.S.’s second attempt to launch a satellite

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into space after Sputnik first took flight.

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Working in tandem, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and

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the Army Ballistic Missile Agency had a rocket nearly ready to launch.

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But the Navy’s Vanguard Project was given the first opportunity to send their rocket into space.

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Vanguard made it about two feet off the ground before exploding on the launch pad.

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The Eisenhower Administration, eager to ease the anxieties of a nation deep into the Cold War,

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gave JPL and the Army just ninety days to finish and launch Explorer 1.

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Think for a minute, what a different world it would be if Explorer 1 never happened.

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Say Vanguard successfully launched in December, the Explorer 1 may have been turned off.

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There may have been less pressure to create a separate space agency

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so we might not have NASA.

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There’s a lot of chance involved in all this.

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Minutes click past relentlessly. The beams of powerful search lights light up the missile

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truly the star of one of the star of one of the greatest suspense dramas of our time.

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After Explorer 1 launched on January 31st, 1958, the Space Race officially began.

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Explorer 1 played a huge symbolic role

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in galvanizing America’s legacy in space.

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But its true scientific mission was a milestone unto itself.

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The instruments on board made the first major scientific find of the Space Age:

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a belt of radiation around the planet linked to the very survival of life on Earth.

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With Explorer 1, science moved into space,

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and we can finally address questions scientifically we’ve asked for millennia.

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The launch of Explorer 1 sixty years ago opened the flood gates for future scientific missions,

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positioning the US to be a leader in space exploration.

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There are 18 missions observing Earth right now, while another 36 are

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currently exploring our solar system and beyond.

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To date, the United States has successfully sent a crewed mission to the moon,

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dispatched a spacecraft to each planetary body in our solar system,

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and reached interstellar space.

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Just this year alone, there are 8 missions launching

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all made possible by the collaborative efforts of NASA, its partner agencies like NOAA,

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and other space agencies around the world.

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Even though this started as a nation activity, we’ve brought the world along,

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and it’s an international activity in which humanity together transcends

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the boundaries and really opens up views of the world in a way we could have never imagined.

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Less than a life time ago, humankind barely left the limits of our own atmosphere.

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Who then could have imagined that only sixty years later

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we would be touching the atmosphere of the sun, arriving at the most distant object

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humans have ever explored, and launching the world’s most

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powerful telescope to get a glimpse of the first galaxies born after the Big Bang.

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Humanity’s exploration of the universe will continue to expand,

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from our home planet to the far reaches of interstellar space.

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But wherever NASA goes, one thing is certain: it won’t be boring.

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