The IISL together with partners the IAF and IAA have produced this report on the International Geophysical Year - the initiative in the 1950s which kick-started the space race:

IGY report.

The International Geophysical Year (IGY) was a global co-operation for scientific study of various geophysical aspects and phenomena of the Earth and near-earth space. The programme included numerous disciplines collecting data in world-wide co-operation during the period 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. A limited group of countries agreed to an extended programme of related data collection through 31 December 1959, which extension was known primarily in the US as the International Geophysical Cooperation 1959, or IGC-59.