How the space race unfolded

— -- Key dates in the space race:

•Oct. 4, 1957: The Soviets launch Sputnik I, the world's first orbiting satellite, setting off near panic in the USA.

•Nov. 3: The Soviets launch a dog, named Laika, into space. Laika dies during the flight but is credited with being the first living creature in orbit.

•Dec. 6: The first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite fails.

•Jan. 31, 1958: The first U.S. satellite, Explorer I, is launched successfully.

•July 29: President Eisenhower signs a law establishing NASA.

•April 9, 1959: NASA announces its first group of U.S. astronauts, the "Mercury Seven."

•May 28: The U.S. launches two monkeys, Able and Baker, into orbit. They become the first living creatures to survive a U.S. spaceflight and be recovered.

•April 12, 1961: The Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space.

•May 5: Alan Shepard is the first American to reach space.

•Feb. 20, 1962: John Glenn becomes first American to orbit Earth.

•June 16, 1963: Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.

•March 18, 1965: Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov makes the world's first spacewalk.

•March 23: A two-man U.S. crew, Gus Grissom and John Young, makes the first manned flight of the USA's Gemini program.

•June 3: From a Gemini capsule, astronaut Ed White is the first American to perform a spacewalk.

•Dec. 15: Gemini VII and Gemini VI-A make the first rendezvous of two spacecraft in space, a key step in preparing to go to the moon.

•Jan. 27, 1967: During a launch pad test for Apollo 1, astronauts White, Grissom and Roger Chaffee die in a fire in their capsule. They are the first astronauts killed in the U.S. space program.

•April 24: A Soviet cosmonaut dies during the first manned test of the new Soyuz capsule, becoming the first reported death in that nation's space program.

•Oct. 11, 1968: The USA returns to manned flights with launch of Apollo 7, carrying three astronauts.