Before spaceflight

Before spaceflight, 1840 to 1962: the Moon on a daguerreotype, the Sun’s red flames at an eclipse and a rocket plane flown faster than anyone had flown, then the first American satellite, the first photograph of Earth from a satellite and the work on the ground that set a course for the Moon.

10 photographs · 1840 to 1962 · Mission 1 of 14
10 photographs
Earth from about 65 miles up, from a camera on a V-2, V-2 No. 13, 24 October 1946
V-2 No. 13 · 24 October 1946

The First Photograph from Space

The rocket hit the desert at speed and broke apart. The steel cassette in the nose did not.
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The first photograph of Earth from a satellite, from Explorer 6, Explorer 6, 14 August 1959
Explorer 6 · 14 August 1959GPN-2002-000200

Earth's First Portrait

Built up one line at a time as the satellite spun, from 17,000 miles out.
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Katherine Johnson at her desk at Langley, Mercury, 7 December 1962
Mercury · 7 December 1962LRC-1962-B701_P-09381

Katherine Johnson at Work

Before Friendship 7 flew, John Glenn asked for her to check the computer's numbers by hand.
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John Houbolt at a blackboard explaining lunar orbit rendezvous, Apollo, 1962
Apollo · 1962GPN-2000-001274

The Way to the Moon

John Houbolt went over the heads of his own superiors to argue for this plan. It is how Apollo got there.
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Early photograph of the Moon from Harvard College Observatory, Before spaceflight, c. 1857
Before spaceflight · c. 1857

The Moon at Harvard

Made through the largest telescope in the United States, and already altered by hand.
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Pickering, Van Allen and von Braun holding a full scale Explorer 1 overhead, Explorer 1, 1 February 1958
Explorer 1 · 1 February 1958P8485

America's First Satellite

None of the three men holding it up worked for NASA. The agency would not exist for another eight months.
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The oldest surviving photograph of the Moon, Before spaceflight, March 1840
Before spaceflight · March 1840

The Oldest Moon Photograph

Made in 1840 from a rooftop in New York, with a camera built out of a cigar box.
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Bell rocket aircraft under power over Edwards, Before spaceflight, 1950s
Before spaceflight · 1950s

Faster Than Anyone Yet

The Bell X-1A over Edwards, built to go past the aircraft that first broke the sound barrier.
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First Saturn I booster raised at Launch Complex 34, Saturn I (SA-1), August 1961
Saturn I (SA-1) · August 1961

Eight Tanks and a Ninth

The first Saturn I coming off the horizontal at a launch complex that had never held a rocket.
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Solar prominences at the edge of the eclipsed Sun, Before spaceflight, 18 July 1860
Before spaceflight · 18 July 1860

The Sun's Red Flames

Two cameras hundreds of miles apart settled what they were.
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Before spaceflight, 1840 to 1962: the Moon on a daguerreotype, the Sun’s red flames at an eclipse and a rocket plane flown faster than anyone had flown, then the first American satellite, the first photograph of Earth from a satellite and the work on the ground that set a course for the Moon.

10 photographs · 1840 to 1962 · Mission 1 of 14
About Before spaceflight

These are the photographs that came before the astronauts flew, and the years when NASA was new. John William Draper made the oldest surviving photograph of the Moon from a New York rooftop on 26 March 1840. Photographs of the total eclipse of 18 July 1860, made at two sites in Spain, showed that the red flames at the Sun’s edge belong to the Sun itself. Explorer 1, the first American satellite, went up on 31 January 1958, eight months before NASA opened on 1 October, and in August 1959 Explorer 6 sent back the first photograph of Earth made from a satellite. The collection also holds the first Saturn I on its pad at Cape Canaveral in 1961, John Houbolt at the blackboard where he argued for lunar orbit rendezvous, and Katherine Johnson at work at Langley in 1962.