Launches
ON RECORD16MISSIONS
14 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1961, the most recent 2022.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
16 orbital launches flew on November 1, the earliest of them in 1961, and 14 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on November 1. Pick another date to see what happened on it.
16MISSIONS
14 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1961, the most recent 2022.
3ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1952 onward.
0IMAGES
No Astronomy Picture of the Day is available for this date.
1952
Nuclear weapons testing: The United States successfully detonates Ivy Mike, the first thermonuclear device, at the Eniwetok atoll. The explosion had a yield of ten megatons TNT equivalent.
Nuclear weapons testing ↗1963
The Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, with the largest radio telescope ever constructed, officially opens.
Arecibo Observatory ↗2009
An Ilyushin Il-76 crashes near the Mir mine after takeoff from Mirny Airport in Yakutia, killing all 11 aboard.
Ilyushin Il-76 ↗General-audience astronomy and spaceflight — none of it a textbook.
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LISTING
Still the best single argument for why any of this matters, and it leaves the arithmetic in. For a reader who wants the science, not just the awe.
LISTING
The case for leaving Earth, written by someone unsentimental about how hard that is. Suits readers who want the argument rather than the poster.
LISTING
Hard-SF problem solving in The Martian's key — for anyone who liked the engineering more than the peril. The only novel on this list.
BROWSE opens an Amazon search, not a specific recommendation.
LINKS AMAZON.COM
Event text and thumbnails come from Wikipedia and are used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Images are drawn only from Wikimedia Commons, which does not accept non-free content — each thumbnail links to its file page, where its licence and author are recorded.
Launch records are from The Space Devs’ Launch Library 2. Pictures are NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day; NASA imagery is generally not subject to copyright, but individual APOD entries are frequently the property of the photographer, and each caption says which applies.