In the same year, Construction started on the MIR space station, the first consistently inhabited long-term space station. On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger exploded due to a fuel system failure just after launch.Īfter this tragedy, all shuttles were grounded for almost three years. The first craft to start the Space Shuttle era was called Columbia. Six were built and 2011 saw their last use. With five rocket motors, it reached 17,000+ mph (27,350+ Kph). The Space Shuttle was designed to lower costs and could be used up to 100 times. 1981įrom April 12, 1981, saw the idea of reusable space crafts, prior to this they were a one-hit-wonder. Voyager 1, on February 17, 1998, became the most distant human-made object in space after it passed the previous title holder Pioneer 10. The US launched their Voyager 1 deep space probe. It was destroyed when a parachute failed. One part was to stay in orbit for the whole year sending pictures back to earth and the other was to land and explore Mars’ surface. In 1973 Mars 2, a 2-part Russian probe explored Mars. The first-ever space station was launched in 1971, the Russian Salyut 1, and was launched from an unmanned rocket. The rover took Boeing 17 months to design and develop. This saw the first use of the Lunar Rover, an electric vehicle with a top speed of 8 mph (13 kph), to explore the moon on the fourth, fifth and sixth Apollo missions. Using what was on board, NASA and the astronauts on board made repairs to bring the damaged craft back to Earth. 1970Īpollo 13 on April 13, 1970, the second day of its trip to the moon, suffered a wiring fault causing an explosion. The Apollo 11 craft flew them 250,000 miles to the moon and back. This iconic phrase confirmed them as the first men on the moon.
On July 20, 1969, the famous “one small step” was taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and the first words were spoken, “the Eagle has landed”. Once Surveyor 1 landed it took photographs and sent them back to eagerly awaiting scientists who used them to visualize the terrain and work out a plan to land people on the moon safely. It reached the moon on May 30, 1966, just after the Russian probe Luna 9. NASA firstly sent a robot spaceship called Surveyor 1, to make sure they could safely land. Kennedy promised that by 1970 the US would have put men on the moon. Who could believe, after just sending men to the moon, NASA managed to successfully conduct the first Mars flyby with their Mariner 4 craft. Valentina Tereshkova, a Russian cosmonaut, became the first woman in space.Īfter her mission, she had a crater on the far side of the Moon is named after her. John actually chose this name officially the craft is called the Mercury-Atlas 6, for the mission Mercury and it being the 6 th flight to use the faster Atlas rocket. John Glenn became the first US man to orbit the Earth aboard the Friendship 7. Gagarin had to eject and use a parachute to land as the craft was designed to crash land. Traveling in Vostok 1 he completed one orbit of the earth, landing about two hours after launch. On April 12, 1961, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Ten years later, the first human visited the surface.
Space-probe Luna 2 crash-landed into the moon at fatal speeds. 1959īy 1959 Both US and Russian scientists were in a race to get a craft to the Moon the Russians won. She traveled in Sputnik 2 and helped understand whether people could survive in space. In November the same year, Laika the Russian dog became the first animal to orbit the earth. Sputnik 1 was the first satellite in orbit around the earth. On October 4, 1957, Russia launched the first space satellite (or sputnik in Russian) named Sputnik 1. 1949Īlbert II was a Rhesus monkey and boldly went where no primate had been before on June 14, 1949, in a specially adapted US V2 rocket, that flew 83 miles from Earth. The flies traveled with a supply of corn to eat on the flight. In 1947, the first animals went into space.įruit flies were used to study the effects of space travel on animals as they’re very similar to humans. In 1942 the German V2 rocket, designed by Wernher Von Braun, was the first to reach 100km (62 miles) from the Earth’s surface.īraun later worked with NASA on the rockets that went to the moon. Here we’re going to go through a timeline of the significant moments in the history of space travel, starting way back in the 1940s.
It’s even united countries that previously had such strong conflict. Throughout time so many countries, and now private companies, across the world have tried to create a method of getting in amongst the stars. To travel into the unknown of space is a dream for so many children and adults alike, although one that very few will ever reach.
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