The 1950s
1950
First International Astronautical Congress (30 September – 2 October)
Useful links
1957
The International Geophysical Year (IGY) (July 1957 - December 1958) and the launch of Sputnik (4 October 1957)
Documents
US documents on NASA website
“Reaction to the Soviet Satellite - A Preliminary Evaluation”
White House Office of the Staff Research Group, Box 35, Special Projects: Sputnik, Missiles and Related Matters (16 October 1957)
Books
R. BULKELEY
“The Sputniks Crisis and Early United States Space Policy: A Critique of the Historiography of Space”
Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1991.
R. A. DIVINE
“The Sputnik Challenge”
Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1993.
J. J. HARFORD
“Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon”
John Wiley, New York, 1997.
Adaptation on NASA website
R. D. LANIUS, M. J. LOGSDON, R. W. SMITH
“Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite”
Routledge, 2000.
M. J. LOGSDON (edi.) with L. J. LEAR, J. WARREN FINDLEY, R. A. WILLIAMSON, D. A. DAY
“Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Volume I, Organizing for Exploration”
(NASA SP-4407). Government Printing Office, Washington, 1995.
C. MCLAUGHLIN GREEN, M. LOMASK
“Vanguard: A History”
Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, 1971.
W. A. MCDOUGALL
“...The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age”
Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1985.
P. J. ROMAN
“Eisenhower and the Missile Gap”
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1995
Articles
R. D. LAUNIUS
“Sputnik and the Origins of the Space Age”
NASA History website
W. A. MCDOUGALL
“Sputnik, the Space Race, and the Cold War”
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Volume 41 (May 1985), pp. 20-25.
M. W. ROSEN
“October 4, 1957 - Sputnik Beeps, America Responds” Astronautics and Aeronautics, Volume 15 (October 1977), pp. 20-23.
A.A. SIDDIQI
“Korolev, Sputnik and The International Geophysical Year”
NASA History website
B. J. SISTAK
“Memories of Sputnik”
Astronomy, Volume 14 (December 1986), pp. 24+.
M. K. TIKHONRAVOV
“The Creation of the First Artificial Earth Satellite: Some Historical Details”
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Volume 47, Issue 5 (May 1994), pp.191-194.
L. S. VEDESHIN, V. P. DUDYKIN
“Preparation and Launching in the USSR of the First Artificial Earth Satellite”
ITU Telecommunication Journal, Volume 44 (October 1977), pp 477-481.
G. WILLIAMS
“Sputnik: The Little Sphere that Changed the World”
Popular Mechanics, Volume 164 (October 1987), pp. 59-61.
Useful links
1958
The launch of the first American satellite (31 January), the origins of UNCOPUOS and the establishment of NASA and COSPAR
Documents
General Assembly Resolution that established the Ad Hoc Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (1958)
UNGA Resolution 1348 (XIII)
General Assembly Resolution that established the COPUOS as a permanent body (1959)
UNGA Resolution 1472 (XIV)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Act of 1958 (unamended)
Books
“Legislative Origins of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958”
Proceedings, oral history workshop conducted on 3 April 1992 and moderated by J. M. Logsdon.
Monographs in Aerospace History, Number 8, NASA History Division.
R. E. BILSTEIN
“Orders of Magnitude: A History of the NACA and NASA, 1915-1990” (NASA SP-4406). Government Printing Office, Washington, 1989.
T. K. GLENNAN
“The Birth of NASA: The Diary of T. Keith Glennan”
J.D. Hunley (eds.), NASA SP-4105, Washington, DC,1993.
R. D. LAUNIUS
“NASA: A History of the U.S. Civil Space Program”
Krieger Publishing Company, Malabar, Florida, 1994.
L. NEUMAN EZELL
“NASA Historical Data Book, Vol II: Programs and Projects, 1958- 1968”
NASA SP-4012, Washington, DC,1988.
Articles
R. BOUDREAULT
“50 years of COSPAR celebrated at its 37th Scientific Assembly”
Space Policy, Volume 24, Issue 4, November 2008, pp. 226-227.
P. JANKOWITSCH
“Committee on the peaceful uses of outer space”
Space Policy, Volume 1, Issue 1, February 1985, pp. 90-95.
Useful links
NASA History Programme Office
NASA History website on Explorer-1 and Jupiter-C
NASA website
UNCOPUOS - Office for Outer Space Affaires website
COSPAR website
UNOOSA website on COPUOS origins
