VIDEO

This newsreel clip announces the launch of the Soviet Sputnik, the first artificial satellite launched into Earth orbit.

Discoverer XIII capsule recovered 333 miles from Hawaii, 50-star flag taken from capsule and given to President Eisenhower. Echo I satellite launched by Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral the next day, relayed telephone call west coast.

The story of the Echo communications satellite project, and how scientists learned to bounce a radio signal off a big balloon.

Traces the development of the United States man-in-space program Project Mercury, showing scenes of the flight of Freedom 7 and the orbital flight of Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. Discusses briefly Project Gemini, Project Apollo, and the Saturn booster.

The short film features space news from 1965. Topics include the upcoming Gemini 5 mission and the Space Park at the New York World's Fair

Through television, motion picture and still photography, this film provides an "eye-witness" perspective of the Apollo 11 mission that put a human on the moon in July 1969.