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robotic spacecraft from NASA's Jet

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Propulsion Laboratory explore our solar

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system and beyond

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the twin rovers examining mars the

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Cassini spacecraft touring Saturn and

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many other JPL missions continue to

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unlock scientific mysteries but early in

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the Cold War

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JPL built missiles for the army that all

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changed with the Soviet Union's first

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scientific satellite Sputnik one

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launched the space race today a new moon

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is in the sky a 23 inch metal sphere

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placed in orbit by a Russian rocket you

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are hearing the actual signals

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transmitted by the earth circling

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satellite one of the great scientific

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feats of the age but we were very

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disappointed but when the first one was

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launched because we knew damn well that

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we could launch a satellite in time we

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were told to Eisenhower finally came to

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understand that the only way to

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tranquillize the nation was to give the

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American people a satellite

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even though JPL had a rocket nearly

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ready to launch the Navy's Vanguard

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project was chosen instead America's

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first attempt to launch a satellite a

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six and a half inch sphere weighing just

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over three pounds was checked out by

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scientists and declared ready a great

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wave of advance publicity focused

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attention at Cape Canaveral Florida for

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the launching of test vehicle three a

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project Vanguard what happened is

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already unhappy history another setback

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the whole world goes nuts I mean they

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didn't you know you know flop Nick and a

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you know excuse Nick and there's just

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all these mocking headlines and there's

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this huge huge failure to have the

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communists in technology to pioneer a

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new frontier of infinite size the

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under enormous pressure President

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Eisenhower gives JPL and the army the

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go-ahead to build and launch Explorer 1

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this is what they've been waiting for

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the deadline is 90 days 90 days to put a

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satellite into orbit minutes

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click fast relentlessly the beams of

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powerful searchlights light up the

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missile truly the star of one of the

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greatest suspense dramas of our time the

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drama approaches the final act the

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Army's first attempt to fire a man-made

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moon into orbit time late evening Friday

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January 31st 1958 in a blockhouse Atkin

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we got a report from the Cape that the

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launch looks pretty good and it should

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fly over California and such a time and

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so the decision was made that we would

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make no public announcements about the

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rocket until it had actually been picked

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up in California and so we sat there for

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an hour and a half the time came and

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went and there was a period of that is a

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period of eight minutes there which of

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the long statements overspent in my life

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Explorer one finally signal and went on

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to discover the existence of radiation

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belts around the earth because of this

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of these belts we are able to survive it

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has dominated the way in which we

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pursued our science since that time the

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success of Explorer and what we learned

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from it really does kind of recreate in

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the in the most fundamental way the

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nature of the of the Jet Propulsion lab

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and moving it from a rocket development

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center to one in which space science

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becomes what it really does it really