January 31, 1958: Explorer 1 Is Launched

January 31, 1958: The U.S. finally joins the space race, launching the satellite Explorer 1, atop the Juno I booster from what was then called the Cape Canaveral Missile Test Center of the Atlantic Missile Range in Florida.

Following the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, Project Orbiter was revived as the Explorer program to catch up with the Soviet Union. The 1st attempted launch came on December 6, at Cape Canaveral, but the Vanguard TV-3 rocket booster failed 2 seconds after liftoff, and the rocket fell and exploded, causing serious damage to the launch pad. The Vanguard 1A satellite aboard survived, but with enough damage that it could not be re-used.

The New York Times called it a "Blow to US Prestige." Senator Lyndon Johnson of Texas, the Majority Leader and Chairman of the Committee handling U.S. spaceflight, called it "most humiliating." The public quickly named the Vanguard the "Flop-nik," and the "Stay-put-nik."

So it was vital that the next launch not only, literally, get off the ground, but succeed. It did: Explorer 1 was the first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt, and returned data until its batteries were exhausted after nearly four months. It remained in orbit until 1970.

It began a series of unmanned rockets that led to the launching into space of Alan Shepard in 1961 -- 23 days after the Soviets launched Yuri Gagarin. It could be argued that the Soviets reached every major milestone in the space race before the Americans -- with one exception: Landing a man on the Moon, and returning him safely to the Earth.

By the time that happened, the Presidents who ordered that, and Project Orbiter (John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower, respectively) were dead; and the one who really set it motion was out of office, and had his name on the Mission Control center in his home State (Lyndon Johnson, in Houston, while Kennedy's name was on the launch site in Florida).

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January 31, 1958 was a Friday. Baseball and football were out of season. No games were scheduled in the NHL. There were 3 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Detroit Pistons, 119-105 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. George Yardley scored 36 points for the Pistons.

* The Philadelphia Warriors beat the Boston Celtics, 110-101 at the Boston Garden, in spite of 32 points and 33 rebounds from Bill Russell.

* And the Cincinnati Royals beat the St. Louis Hawks, 100-92 at the Cincinnati Gardens.