The Soviet challenge In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first satellite. At that time, the United States and the Soviet Union were enemies. They were trying to get ahead of each other. The US realised it had to go into space, too. In 1958, Nasa was born. Nasa stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The birth of Nasa was the start of the 'space race'. Nasa's first act was to put the first American satellite into orbit in 1958. It had a staff of about 80 people. The new agency began researching rockets. It decided it needed to beat the Soviet Union and put people into space. Early projects In the beginning, Nasa was focused on putting people in space. Alan Shepard was the first American in 1961. He spent 15 minutes in space on a rocket called Freedom 7. The next year, John Glenn went up in the same rocket and became the first man to circle - or orbit - the earth. The project that put Glenn into orbit was called Mercury. The next project launched by Nasa was called Gemini. Its aim was to put a man on the moon. It was nearly 50 years ago, long before mobile phones or computers. Mission: the moon Before Nasa could put someone on the moon, it had to find out if people could survive for long periods in space, where there is no gravity. In other words, you are weightless, and float around. Nasa also started sending unmanned space vehicles - probes - into space. In 1962, it sent one to Venus. In 1961, then US president John F. Kennedy told America he wanted to put a man on the moon. This project was called Apollo. The first rocket, Apollo 1, ended in a tragedy in 1967. All three space pilots were killed when it caught fire in an experiment. After that Nasa did not put people on the rockets until Apollo 8. Finally, on July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Shuttle and the Hubble Putting a man on the moon was very expensive. When Nasa was at its busiest with the Apollo project, it had about 400,000 employees, compared to 80 when it started. Apollo rockets could only be used once. They broke into parts as they left earth and travelled into space. Nasa decided to build a space vehicle that could be used many times. This was the shuttle. The programme was launched in the late 1970s. In 1981, the first, the Columbia, successfully launched into space. Sadly, in 1986, the Challenger, which had the first civilian passenger - a school teacher - had a terrible accident. It blew up after 73 seconds. All seven crew members died. But the programme continued. It has achieved many important things, including putting the Hubble Telescope into space. The telescope has taught us many things about the universe. In 2006, Nasa announced it would build a base on the moon. It is hoped the base will start working in 2020. now do this 1 Nasa started the ... a. race to the moon b. satellite race c. space race 2 Nasa's first probe to another planet was to ... a. Mars b. Venus c. Jupiter 3 Nasa landed a man on the moon in ... a. 1969 b. 1967 c. 1971 Answers: October 14 1. b, 2. a, 3. c