Jupiter-c Explorer 1 was the first successful US. Rocket to be launched into space. The official name was known as satellite 1958 alpha. The satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral (now Cape Kennedy) in Florida at 10:48 P.M. EST on 31 January 1958. The Jupiter-c was designed by the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA). The Rocket was used to test the reentry nose cones for later more sophisticated models. Before this attempt there had a been a long road to get where they were. since the american quest for space travel more than 160 launch attempts have failed. Now a lot of these failures have occurred after Jupiter-C Explorer 1 however it expresses the complexity of the space race and the importance of our successful launch. Besides man desire to explore the unknown one of the main reasons the race to space was so important was the russian satellite sputnik. Sputnik allowed for russia to see the activity of the globe giving them technology that the all mighty U.S. did not. Soon Billions would be invested by the two countries to build upon and further the achievements of sputnik and Jupiter-C Explorer1.
This moment in time was the morning after the first successful launch. It is of the van burren rocket team holding up a scaled module of the Jupiter-C Explorer1. This image captured the excitement and passion of the William H. Pickering, James van Allen and Wernher von Braun who were responsible for the successful launch. This launch will be the turning point in history for the united states space exploration and ignite a generation to continue to pursue. even to this day we've continued to grow and expand upon the knowledge we've gained since this historic day.
http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/expinfo.html
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/whyweexplore/Why_We_28.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter-C
