Which satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, became the first artificial object placed in orbit around the Earth?

Which satellite was the first the United States placed in orbit, on January 31, 1958, carrying the instrument whose readings led James Van Allen to identify the radiation belts around the Earth?

Who became the first human being to reach space, orbiting the Earth aboard Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961?

Which American astronaut became the first from the United States to orbit the Earth, flying Friendship 7 in February 1962?

Which agency did a law signed by Eisenhower in July 1958 create to run the American civilian space program?

Which NASA program of the mid-1960s flew two-man crews in order to practice the rendezvous, docking and spacewalking that a Moon landing would require?

Which two Apollo 11 astronauts walked on the Moon in July 1969 while Michael Collins stayed in lunar orbit aboard the command module?

What did Americans call the claim, argued loudly during the 1960 presidential campaign, that the Soviet Union had built far more intercontinental ballistic missiles than the United States had?

Which treaty, signed in Moscow in August 1963 by the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain, banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water, while still permitting them underground?

Which 1960 incident, in which a Soviet missile brought down an American spy plane and the pilot Francis Gary Powers was captured alive, wrecked the Paris summit between Eisenhower and Khrushchev?

Which weapon did the United States test for the first time at Enewetak Atoll on November 1, 1952, in the shot code-named Ivy Mike?

Which nuclear doctrine did the Kennedy administration adopt so that a limited Soviet move could be met with conventional forces rather than an all-out nuclear strike?

In a January 1956 Life magazine interview, Dulles said that 'the ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art.' Critics, including Adlai Stevenson, coined which term for that approach?

With the Berlin crisis boiling over in July 1961, Kennedy went on television and asked Congress for new civil-defense money. What did he want that money spent on?

Alarm about Soviet science after Sputnik led Congress to pass the National Defense Education Act in September 1958. What did that law provide?

In September 1949 Truman announced that the Soviet Union had exploded an atomic device, ending the American nuclear monopoly. What did he order the United States to do in January 1950?

The Federal Civil Defense Administration's 1952 film Duck and Cover, shown in schools across the country, told children to drop under a desk at the flash of a bomb. What was it preparing them for?

On May 1, 1960 a Soviet missile downed an American reconnaissance plane and Powers was taken alive, after Washington had insisted the flight was a weather mission. What followed within weeks?

Gagarin orbited the Earth in April 1961, and Alan Shepard's American flight three weeks later went up and came straight back down. On May 25, 1961 Kennedy asked Congress to fund which goal?

Congress met the shock of Sputnik in 1958 with money for schools and a new space agency, but a third answer came from the Defense Department. Which research body did the Pentagon set up that same year?

Put these four events in the order they happened: Apollo 11 lands on the Moon; the Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1; Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space; John Glenn orbits the Earth.

Put these in order: the Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb; the United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; the United States tests the first hydrogen bomb; the Limited Test Ban Treaty is signed.

Gemini flights in 1965 and 1966 practiced rendezvous, docking and working outside the spacecraft. Which NASA program came next and carried the crews that flew to the Moon?

In his farewell address of January 1961, Eisenhower said the nation must guard against 'the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.' What combination was he describing?

In the weeks after Sputnik 1, American commentators argued that a rocket able to lift a 184-pound satellite into orbit could carry something else just as far. What were they warning about?