Titan II - Launch of an Unmanned Spacecraft

Eight days before President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, the United States launched an unmanned space capsule and a Titan II rocket.  JFK had announced America would send a man to the Moon by the end of the decade, and this mission was a step forward in implementing his plan.

This Universal Newsreel - from November 14, 1963 - includes footage from the unmanned capsule.  It shows the first stage disengaging, then falling away.  And ... for the first time, people could actually see the curvature of the Earth.

Credits

14 November 1963, Universal Newsreel.

Public Domain, courtesy U.S. National Archives.