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America's Debut in Space: Explorer 1 - presented by Science@NASA
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Sixty years ago, on January 31, 1958, the United States joined the "space race" with the successful launch of the Explorer 1 satellite.
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But the event was much more than a rocket launch.
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Geopolitically, it leveled the Cold War playing field with the Soviet Union, which had sent Sputnik into orbit four months earlier.
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Scientifically, the launch of Explorer 1 represented the first time humans sent instruments into space,
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including a modified Geiger counter for tracking radiation, to collect data and relay it back to Earth.
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And historically, it led us into an infinite new frontier that has yielded data, images, and wonders never before imagined.
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University of Iowa physicist James Van Allen, who designed and ran the science experiment on Explorer 1, and experiments on myriad subsequent missions,
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called the event "one of the landmarks in the technical and scientific history of the human race."
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He continued: "Its instrumentation revealed the existence of radiation belts of the Earth and opened up a massive new field of scientific exploration in space.
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It inspired an entire generation of young men and women in the United States to higher achievement and propelled the Western world into the space age."
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Jim Green, NASA's Planetary Science Director, was among those who were inspired, as a student and protégé of Van Allen's at Iowa.
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"Dr. Van Allen was a pioneer of the space age, and the results from his Explorer 1 instrument marked the birth of space science.
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The discovery of the radiation belts encircling the Earth was a game changer for space exploration.
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Space was no longer thought to be empty, and for that the man and the mission will long be remembered."
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Spacecraft en route to Earth orbit or deep space must dash through the Van Allen belts; donut-shaped regions of charged particles trapped by Earth's magnetic field.
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The high-energy particles can batter spacecraft and even interfere with onboard instruments.
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To ensure the safety and health of astronauts and space science missions,
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scientists have been uncovering vital information about the radiation belts ever since Explorer 1 discovered them.
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In a speech at Cornell University on March 3, 1965,
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then-NASA Administrator James Webb explained the critical importance of success in the vast new horizon of space:
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"...the mastery of a new environment, or of a major new technology, or the combination of the two as we now see in space,
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has always in the past had the most profound effects on all nations and on all the peoples of the Earth.
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...In the modern world, basic knowledge, applied through technology, is a source of national power."
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Former NASA Chief Historian Steven Dick summarized the impact of Explorer 1's launch:
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"One could hardly have known what this singular event would set off during the next 60 years.
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...Like the railroad and the airplane, spaceflight has impacted society in ways and that we cannot fully fathom even today."
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The drive for discovery that enabled the success of Explorer 1 endures today at NASA.
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The Agency's innovative spacecraft continue to find new ways to observe and understand the interconnected systems of our home planet,
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as well as help us see beyond our solar system into worlds we can explore as one.
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For more on amazing advancements in space science, visit science.nasa.gov.