After the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite in 1957, Americans riveted their attention on the U.S. space program. As Chairman of the National Space Council, Lyndon Johnson played a significant role in developing coherent policy for a program plagued by inter-agency rivalries, high turnover of top personnel, and expanding costs.
Development, during and after WWII, of the appropriate technology of large, liquid-fueled rockets made the space program possible. Rockets like those which were tested at the White Sands Missile Range were to provide the power to boost both satellites and men into orbit. The U.S. Air Force Missile Test Center began operating at Cape Canaveral in 1949, and 1959 saw the launching of the first U.S. earth satellite, Explorer I, from the center.
Under Johnson, the Space Council recommended that NASA provide policy coordination with all government agencies involved in space flight. NASA established its command and control center, the Manned Spacecraft Center (now known as the Johnson Space Center), in Houston, in Johnson's home state of Texas.
The government's policy approach was two pronged: 1) develop a system of unmanned satellites that would orbit the earth and provide global telecommunications; and 2) pursue manned and unmanned space exploration. To serve the former purpose, the Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) was founded in 1963, and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT) in 1964. In 1965, INTELSAT oversaw the launch of Early Bird, the capacity of which was sufficient to provide either 2,400 voice circuits or one two-way television link between the U.S. and Europe, technology which would come to impact people's everyday lives.
NASA's Mercury Program rapidly pursued space exploration by preparing a group of seven astronauts to go into outer space. On May 5, 1961, Alan B. Shepard, Jr. flew sub-orbitally, and, on February 19, 1962, John Glenn orbited the earth. June of that year saw Soviet astronaut Vakebtuba Teresgkova become the first woman in space, but it was another twenty-two years before an American woman orbited Earth.
Sally Kirsten Ride, who had received her Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University, was accepted for astronaut training in 1978. During her 1983 six-day mission aboard the Challenger, Mission Specialist Ride helped launch two communications satellites and retrieve another. An expert in use of the shuttle's fifty-foot-long mechanical arm, the Remote Manipulator System, Ride also monitored the Challenger's instrument panel. As a result of this mission Ride became the first U.S. woman in space. Her first mission was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 18, 1983 and returned to Edwards Air Force Base, California on this day, June 24, in 1983.
