Breaking free of Earth

Abstract

The space age began on October 4, 1957, with the launch of Sputnik during a test flight of Korolev’s new R-7launcher. The ignition of the rocket’s engines on the pad in Baikonur on that day was the explosion that opened the floodgates of space exploration. A little over ten months later, on August 17, 1958, the first attempt was made to send a spacecraft to the Moon, a tiny orbiter, and this time launched by the US, but the rocket exploded. On September 23, the USSR attempted to send a lunar impactor to the Moon using a new variant of the R-7 augmented with a small third stage to reach escape velocity. The booster failed and was destroyed. The race to the Moon and planets was on.