Pioneer 1 succeeded

Background
In real life, NASA's first spacecraft Pioneer 1 failed to reached the Moon due to a programming error in the upper stage causing a slight error in burnout velocity and angle. But what if the programming error never happened in the first place, causing Pioneer 1 to flew by the Moon and beyond?

Timeline
October 11, 1958: NASA's spacecraft Pioneer 1 is launched. After flying by the moon instead of orbit insertion as planned, the space probe became the first man made object to enter interplanetary space. Although this mission is seen as a partial success since it did not went into lunar orbit, this seen as a major milestone to upstage the Russians after the humiliation suffered during Sputnik 1.

1959: Luna 3 is the first spacecraft to photograph the far side of the moon as in OTL.

March 24, 1961: NASA astronaut Alan Shepard became the first man in space with a suborbital Freedom 7 flight. Ticker tape parade were held in his honor thereafter.

April 12, 1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is the first to orbit the Earth, humiliating Americans as in OTL.

May 25, 1961: Kennedy delivers the "We shall go to the Moon" speech. In response Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders Chief Designer Sergei Korolev to work on a booster and spacecraft capable of taking cosmonauts to the lunar surface.

November 22, 1963: Assassination of President Kennedy.

1965: Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov made the first spacewalk.

1968: Yuri Gagarin did not die in a plane crash in this TL. Apollo 8 flew around the Moon as in OTL.

July 4 1969: The test firing of Soviet N1 rocket is successful.

July 20 1969: NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first human to land on the Moon.

1970: A Soyuz 7K-LOK spaceship carrying Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova flew around the Moon. This alone caused a major shock to Americans regardless of Apollo 11.

1971: Soviet Union's Salyut 1 is the first space station. On October, Alexei Leonov became the first Soviet citizen to step foot on the Moon after landing with an LK (Lunniy Korabl) spacecraft.

1972: After the conclusion of Apollo 20 with a landing on Copernicus Crater, NASA began plotting a LESA (Lunar Exploration System for Apollo) moon base.

1973: Launch of NASA's Skylab space station.

1974: Unlike in OTL, NASA launched Pioneer H into the interstellar space.

1975: NASA's Skylab B artificial gravity space station is launched, which is based on the Self-Deploying Space Station design. This is seen as another big lead against the Soviet Union in the Space Race.

1976: First components of LESA moon base arrives at the surface between the Reinhold and Lansberg Craters in the Sea of Islands. Later on June, a group of three NASA astronauts, namely John Glenn, Frank Borman and Buzz Aldrin, arrived at the location. The 4th of July proved to be one of the most significant moment in American history when these astronauts greeted the peoples of the United States from their lunar base via television feed. They returned to Earth on 20th July and received a hero's welcome more grandiose than Apollo 11. Viking 1 successfully landed on Mars on this year.

1977: In response to this the Soviets celebrated the 60th anniversary of Bolshevik Revolution by placing a L3M habitat on the lunar surface, near where Alexei Leonov has landed 6 years ago. Yuri Gagarin occupied the lunar habitat and greeted the Soviet citizens in a same away the Americans did a year earlier on November 7th, 1977, the 60th anniversary of the communist revolution.

1979: Soviet Mars 5M sample return spacecraft is launched to the Red Planet. The successful conclusion of the mission would bring more shock to NASA.

1981: NASA launched the first space shuttle "Columbia".

1984: Soviet space probe Vega 1 flew by Halley's comet.

1989: Spaceship "Galileo" is launched to Jupiter.

1991: The Soviet Union and most of the Communist World collapses.

1995: NASA's Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby mission is launched to Comet Kopff.

2003: Europa Orbiter is sent to the namesake Jovian moon with the aid of a Space Shuttle.

December 2004: Pluto Kuiper Express is launched to Pluto, with an arrival in around 8 years later.

2006: Pluto is being demoted to a dwarf planet.

2012: NASA's Voyager 1 is the first spacecraft to reach interstellar medium. Around this year the Pluto Kuiper Express arrived at the dwarf planet.

2017: As of this year, instead of being defunct, the Inspiration Mars mission is being busily prepared for a launch in January 2018, with a manned Mars flyby in August 21st, 2018.