May I suggest following NASA on Facebook and Instagram. They create daily Instagram stories (today is about our galaxy, the Milky Way), and host Facebook Live demonstrations (today is about trees and satellite lasers). Their website, nasa.gov, is a treasure trove of science exploration. You can learn about past, present, and future space missions, and also watch NASA TV to see science demonstrations and videos about flights and launches.

NASA was founded in 1958 during the Cold War, a time when America and Russia were competing to show which was the most powerful country in the world. One way to show dominance was to explore space, orbit earth, and land on the moon - the Space Race. Russia took the early lead by being the first to launch a satellite into space, called Sputnik (10/4/1957), and the first country to send a human into space, Cosmonaut (name for Russian Astronaut) Yuri Gagarin who was the first to orbit the earth (4/12/61). But America won all the marbles in the race when we landed on the moon on July 20, 1969.

You can read more about the Mercury Project, as well as all of the astronauts in the program, on NASA's website. I encourage you to explore the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's website and on Google Arts & Culture, where you can view NASA gear and vessels. There is a great article on their website where you can learn more about John Glenn and his trip into space on the SpaceShuttle Discovery at the age of 77. Fun fact: John Glenn was not only the first American in space, as well as the oldest person in space, he was also a US Senator representing Ohio from 1974 - 1999.

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