Many great things have happened in our history. We've been inventing and exploring things since day one. Many of these things we discovered or invented we thought would never be possible in our lifetime on earth. But they exist now, today, they are used by almost all human beings and there are many other incredible and unmanageable things that come to help us in everyday life. One of the most interesting things for me would be exploration and invention. You are about to venture into the history of space and discover how man and his objects got there. Space exploration dates back over 40 years, January 31, 1958 to be exact. On this date Explorer 1, which was the first American satellite to be launched into space and is unknown, orbited the earth. It lifted off from Cape Canaveral using a modified Jupiter-C rocket called ABMA-JPL. He brought with him a science experiment by James A. Van Allen and discovered the Earth's radiation belt. Along with defeat and triumph also come disappointment and failure. On March 5, 1958, Explorer 2 was launched from another Jupiter-Crocket and failed to reach orbit. On October 1, 1958, NASA was founded, taking over from the existing National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and only ten days later the United States. - The IGY space probe was launched to an incredible altitude of 70,700 miles. On March 3, 1959, Pioneer 4, a US-IGY space probe launches from a Juno II rocket and achieves an earth-to-moon trajectory, passing within 37,000 miles of the moon. It then fell into solar orbit, becoming the first US solar orbiter. About a year later Tiros 1 was launched into Earth orbit and became the first successful weather satellite for the United States. Then, on August 18 of the same year, 1960, Discoverer XIV was launched, becoming the first US Corona spy satellite equipped with a camera. On July 14, 1965, US Mariner 4 sent back the first close-range images of Mars. The above paragraph explains some of the first satellites, spy satellites and probes sent into space to explore the unknown and the “Impossible”. On May 5, 1961, Mercury Freedom 7 carried Alan B. Shepard, Jr., who was the first U.S. astronaut in space, on a suborbital flight. This first U.S. manned spaceflight project was successfully completed over a 4.5-year period of dynamic activity. During this time they met with more than 2,000,000 people from many major government agencies and much of the aerospace industry and combined their skills, initiative and experience in a national effort. Also during this 4 2/3 period another six manned spaceflights