- 1961 in science
The year 1961 in
science andtechnology involved some significant events, listed below.Astronomy and space exploration
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January 31 - Ham, a 37 pound malechimpanzee , was rocketed into space in a test of theProject Mercury capsule designed to carry U.S.astronaut s into space.
*April 12 -Yuri Gagarin is the first human in space.
*May 19 -Venera program :Venera 1 becomes the first manmade object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (however the probe had lost contact with earth a month earlier and did not send back any data).
*May 25 -Apollo program : President Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on themoon " before the end of the decade.* The first
quasar is discovered byAllan Sandage atMt Palomar ,California Physics
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February 14 -Discovery of the chemical elements : Element 103,Lawrencium , is first synthesized (Berkeley, California ).Awards
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Nobel Prize s
** Physics -Robert Hofstadter ,Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer
** Chemistry -Melvin Calvin
** Medicine -Georg von Békésy Births
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March 10 -Laurel Clark (d. 2003), Americanastronaut .
*July 1 -Kalpana Chawla (d. 2003),India nastronaut .
*September 23 -William C. McCool (d. 2003), Americanastronaut .Deaths
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January 4 -Erwin Schrödinger (b. 1887),physicist .Organisations
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Spain joinsCERN .
*Yugoslavia leavesCERN .
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