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thousand miles above Earth. On board was a living, breathing animal. A dog named Laika.
    Americans were livid. Was Eisenhower fiddling while Rome burned? Where were our rockets? Where were our satellites? What the hell was going on? The president got the message. He acted, but prematurely. A civilian launch team working on Vanguard rushed the unproven rocket to its launchpad. On top was a grapefruit-size satellite that was so small it weighed only a laughable three pounds.
    The day was December 6, 1957. The launch team neared the end of its countdown and an anxious hush fell over a hopeful America.
    “T-minus five, four, three, two, one, zero.”
    The slender Vanguard ignited, covered its pad with flaming thrust, and rose four feet, no more, before crumbling into its self-made fireball, consuming not only itself, but burning most of its launch facilities, leaving only blackened steel and ash.

    The slender Vanguard ignited and rose four feet before consuming itself in its self-made fireball. (U.S. Navy and Air Force)
    The loss of Vanguard wounded our pride, again. It also came close to destroying our confidence, and most Americans knew it was time for something to be done. The Russians were kicking us where we sat and it was time for a stubborn White House to call in the cavalry—to call in the von Braun team.
    Eisenhower did, and Redstone 29 was hauled out of storage and refitted. A thirty-one-pound radiation-measuring satellite was mounted atop the rocket stack called Jupiter-C. The president and his White House didn’t want to be reminded that the rocket was the same rocket that could have placed a satellite in orbit ahead of Sputnik. So the order came down to change the name and lessen their shame. The rocket would no longer be called Jupiter-C. It would now be called Juno-1.
    On January 31, 1958, at 10:45 P.M. eastern the launch button was pushed. After waiting more than a year to fly, Redstone 29 came to life.
    *   *   *
    Yellow flame and thrust splashed outward in all directions. A huge pillow of dazzling fire gushed forth and thunder crashed across the Cape.
    Those lucky enough to be there blinked at the searing flames and bathed in that marvelous roar. They cheered and screamed and some cried as the Juno-1 burned a fiery path into the night sky, reaching for von Braun’s stars. One hundred and six minutes later, its satellite Explorer 1 returned from the other side of Earth. America was in orbit.
    A grateful and jubilant nation was at von Braun’s feet.
    Huntsville, Alabama, rocked with a wild and furious celebration. Horns blared and cheering thousands danced and hugged each other in the streets. Former defense secretary Charles E. Wilson, who had single-handedly stopped von Braun’s efforts to reach Earth orbit, was hanged in effigy. Neil Armstrong was gratified. He was most happy von Braun’s Huntsville group had proven America was and had been ready. He had a glimpse of the future. Perhaps pilots would not just be riding rocket planes across the skies. With the success of Sputnik and Explorer, pilots might soon be at the controls of spacecraft in orbit.

Cape Canaveral’s sprawling rocket launch complex under a 1958 moon. (U.S. Air Force)
     
    THREE
    THOSE WHO WOULD RIDE ROCKETS
    Come the fall of 1958 Neil was surprised to see the new congressionally formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s recruiters swarming about in search of astronauts for a new man-in-space project called Mercury.
    One of Neil’s assigned projects was the Dyna-Soar, a space plane he did not know then would become the forerunner of the space shuttle. It was a plausible idea, and to fly it, that project had earlier recruited astronauts. Nine were selected on June 25, 1958, for the Man-In-Space-Soonest (MISS) group.
    “I was in the first lineup,” Neil said, but with the formation of NASA, the Dyna-Soar astronauts were short-lived. The new space agency was starting all over and in October 1958 it set about