Extending the Toehold in Space

y the end of the summer of 1958, less than a year after the first penetration into space, three successful Sputniks had led the venture into the new realm, accompanied by three Explorers and a Vanguard satellite.

Both the Soviet Union and the United States quickly tooled up for the unfolding grand adventure and opportunity. In the United States, the Department of Defense established, in February 1958, a new agency for focusing their space program—the Advanced Research Projects Agency, later renamed the Defense Research Projects Agency. In addition to oversight of the Argus program, as described in the previous chapter, it began vigorous work on the reconnaissance satellites that had been a long-standing aspiration of the military and other national intelligence-gathering organizations. It also began to address the urgent needs of the Department of Defense for improved worldwide communications.

A new U. S. agency to oversee the nation’s civilian space program was signed into law on 1 October 1958, just before the first anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch. That National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) took over responsibility for the scientific missions then in progress and quickly expanded its scope to encompass a vast array of robotic and manned endeavors.

This chapter concentrates on the rapid blossoming of instrumented space research during the rest of the decade of the 1950s.