The same Cold War rocket built to carry a nuclear warhead across continents became the vehicle that launched humanity into ...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Embarking on a mission that scientists have been dreaming of since the Sputnik era, a NASA spacecraft hurtled Sunday toward the sun on a quest to unlock some of its mysteries ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The successful launch of the Soviet Union's first two satellites prompted U.S. President Dwight D ...

The space agency was officially created with a stroke of President Eisenhower's pen. But first, there were months of anxiety, failure and frenzied lawmaking, Eric Mack has been a CNET contributor ...

A model of Sputnik, the little orb that could. Image: NASA View Slideshow The standard Sputnik story goes like this: It was the launch of this metal ball that forced the United States to elevate the ...

Forty years ago, Sputnik and the Soviets set the course for a space race with the West. Now the satellite, the space race - and even the Soviet Union itself - are gone. But Sputnik’s legacy endures.

The Space Age began in 1957 with the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik NASA has landed a new robot on Mars in an attempt to study the Red Planet’s deep interior. Let’s take a closer look at the ...

Fifty years ago, science fiction became science fact. On Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union, having worked in complete secrecy, launched Sputnik I. Humankind's first man-made satellite, a tiny ball that ...

IOWA CITY - Just days after stepping onto the University of Iowa campus as a freshman engineering major, a 17-year-old Don Gurnett redirected his focus skyward. 'They used to post a time at which you ...