1961 in science
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See also:
Other events of 1961
List of years in science
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1960 in science
1961 in science
1962 in science
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The year 1961 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.
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Astronomy and space exploration
- January 31 - Ham, a 37 pound male chimpanzee, was rocketed into space in a test of the Project Mercury capsule designed to carry U.S. astronauts 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 the moon" before the end of the decade.
- The first quasar is discovered by Allan Sandage at Mt Palomar, California
Physics
- February 14 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized (Berkeley, California).
Awards
Births
- March 10 - Laurel Clark (d. 2003), American astronaut.
- July 1 - Kalpana Chawla (d. 2003), Indian astronaut.
- September 23 - William C. McCool (d. 2003), American astronaut.
Deaths
- January 4 - Erwin Schrödinger (b. 1887), physicist.