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In the 1950s, when the Soviets started to launch satellites into space, it caught the United States by surprise. The U.S. had to make a decision about the future of its space program. Would it try to compete with the Soviets just as an expression of the military, or would it launch a civilian program? The Eisenhower administration decided that it would launch a civilian space agency: NASA.

When John F. Kennedy came into office, he was not very interested in the agency. But the Soviets successfully sent the first person into space when Yuri Gagarin completed an orbit of Earth. The same month, the Bay of Pigs invasion f

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