The Space Race

The first event in the space race was who could get a satellite into orbit. In 1957 the Russians won when they launched Sputnik. The Americans desperately wanted to outdo the Russians. They tried to launch their own satellite but the rocket exploded during the launch. This was an embarrassing failure so it got lots of embarrassing nicknames including Flopnik, Splatnik and Oopsnik which are all lovely names for your pet hamster. Thankfully the Americans didn't do that and instead they sent something much much cuter into space. Now the Russians used dogs because they thought chimps were emotionally unstable. But if you were used to swinging through trees and eating bananas and then found yourself being shot