The US responded by speeding up its space program and the "space race" began.
The United States launched its first satellite, Explorer I, on January 31, 1958, within only a few months after the successful launch of Sputnik by the Soviets in October, 1957. Under President Eisenhower, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was founded in July, 1958. By the early 1960s, US President John F. Kennedy was pressing for a mission to the moon. "We choose to go to the moon," Kennedy said in a famous speech in 1962. By 1969, NASA had achieved that goal.
