The base of the jovial groove as the little group walked was a lilting, repeating riff on the kora, the 21-string harp-lute that a musician played with its base propped against his torso, plucking with his thumbs. â
The Vanguard team was still working on a test vehicle (TV-2) designed to test the first stage of the rocket when they learned of the launch of the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, by the USSR on October 4, 1957. On December 2, the Department of Defense announced the imminent launch of TV-3.
The launch of Apollo 17 in the early morning hours of December 7, 1972 was not the first nighttime launch in the Apollo-Saturn program. (NASA) As spectacular as this night launch of a Saturn V had been, it was not the first such launch in the Apollo-Saturn program.