Rockets And Commies And Chimps, Oh My!

The Russians got there first. In 1957 they launched the first successful satellite called Sputnik. To me it looked like a silver Christmas ornament with wires sticking out of it. What it did up there I hadn't a clue. We were supposed to be the world leaders in technology, and here these godless commies had put a metal beach ball into orbit! Was that thing spying on us? Would it tell the Russians where to drop their bombs? One more thing to duck and cover from?
In 1958 we put up a satellite of our own, Explorer, but it wasn't the same, we didn't get the glory. We were second best, so we had to play catch-up in a hurry. Astronauts were in training, and we looked forward to the day when the first American would fly into outer space. Captain Video and Flash Gordon, make room for real space men at last.
We all waited, and on January 31, 1961, the first American rocket would be launched into outer space. The astronaut would be called Ham, but he wasn't an astronaut, heck he wasn't even a man, it was a chimpanzee, what gives? We're waiting for men on the moon, a chance for Americans to get up there and show the world we're the best, and all we can do is shoot a monkey into the sky? What a gyp.
What we didn't know was that Ham was up there for a reason. He went into outer space to see if a lever could be pulled in a weightless environment, and in case anything went wrong, well then a chimp would be sacrificed and not a man. Something did go wrong, the capsule lost pressure, but Ham's space suit kept him alive, so the mission was important even if it did only last 16 minutes, and never orbited the earth. Take that, you dirty commies, America is on the move! So what if the Russians were first and they sent up dogs before we sent an ape, we'll show them. Any day now an American space man will be on his way to the moon.
In April of 1961 a man would orbit the earth. He would sail among the stars and sing a patriotic song and return to earth a hero.
It wasn't an astronaut and it wasn't an American. It was another Russian rocket, and they called their guys cosmonauts. Yuri Gagarin went around the earth and came back, and we wondered what the Russians would do next; what could they do to us now?
Twenty three days later an American would finally be launched into space. Alan Shepard would open the door, and that's about all he did. He didn't orbit the earth, he went up and came down in fifteen minutes. Is that the best we can do?
The space race was on, and one after another the rockets went up, placing satellites up above us all. Military ones, spying on us, information and weather satellites, Russian and then American, one by one, and I'd wonder how they stayed up there and how come they didn't crash into one another after all?
Then in July, another American, Gus Grissom would go, but only straight up and down, and his capsule would sink in the ocean, and a Russian would obit the earth again in August.
More satellites, more fear. It looked like the Russians would have the edge on us; that their missiles and rockets were better than ours, and soon they'd have missiles on the moon ready to blow up the entire planet.
President Kennedy would tell us that it would be our goal to have a man on the moon before the end of the decade, and he pledged that America would be first, that we would win this race to the heavens.
So more rockets would go up. Titan and Atlas, Jupiter and Thor. Mostly American ones now, from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base, and it looked like the Russians would be forced from the skies.
On November 29, 1961 our eyes would look to the stars for the first American space craft to orbit the earth. Finally, we'd say. An American would circle the globe, and the Russians would eat our dust. But, it was another chimpanzee, Enos was his name, and once again we'd wonder; is this the best we can do?
Oh, Buck Rogers, where are you when we need you?