How America's First Satellite Helped Create NASA

On Jan. 31 att 10:48 p.m. EST, Explorer 1 launched into space, hurtling into Earth's orbit in seven and a half minutes. The next day's front-page news declared that the United States was now officially in the Space Age. Music: Look Forward by Laurent Dury, The Space Between by Max Concors, Picking Locks by James Alexander Dorman and Foraging At Dusk by Benjamin James Parsons. Complete transcript available.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/LK Ward