By Mike Ward
Senior Vice President, Government & Public Affairs

Huntsville is the birthplace of the USA’s space program. On January 31, 1958, the US launched its first satellite into orbit on a Jupiter C (modified Redstone) rocket designed and built in Huntsville, Alabama. The Huntsville Times published a special edition – tagged their “Satellite EXTRA” – a little after midnight that evening, celebrating the event.

The Chamber recently received a package in the mail containing several copies of the “Satellite EXTRA” edition and a number of newspaper clippings from February of 1958, chronicling Huntsville’s role launching the first US satellite into orbit and the local celebrations that followed the launch.  The clippings provide terrific insight into the events of that day and the days that followed.  The clippings also included an editorial that described the serendipitous events that led to Huntsville’s role supporting the launch.

On October 5, 1957, the Secretary of Defense designate, Neil McElroy, just happened to be at Redstone Arsenal, attending a cocktail reception in his honor, when news came that the Soviets had launched Sputnik. The editorial summarized the conversation between then Secretary of War Bruckner, Mr. McElroy and Dr. Wernher von Braun, concerning how long it would take for the Redstone team to launch a satellite into orbit.  “60 days,” von Braun replied. One month later, von Braun and his team received the mission to launch the first US satellite into orbit and the rest is well documented history.  The editorial suggests that Huntsville and Redstone might never have had that opportunity, had McElroy not been in Huntsville that night.

The newspaper special edition and clippings are below. We thank Tim Marsh of McMinnville, Oregon for sending them. He said a friend gave them to him whose wife, Carolyn, had died, and she had collected the materials over the years.