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Space Exploration

Information about the United States’ space flight programs, including NASA missions and the astronauts who participate in the efforts to explore Earth’s galaxy.

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• October 4 - The Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik, into space.
• November 3 - The Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 was launched with a dog named Laika on board. Laika did not survive the voyage.
• January 31 - Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States when it was sent into orbit on January 31, 1958. It was designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the California Institute of Technology. The satellite was sent aloft from Cape Canaveral in Florida by the Jupiter C rocket that was designed, built, and launched by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) under the direction of Dr. Wernher Von Braun.
• August 19 - The Soviet craft Sputnik 5 was launched, carrying the dogs Strelka and Belka. They became the first living beings to survive a trip into space.
• April 12 - Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.
• May 5 - Astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space.
• May 25 - President Kennedy challenged the country to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
• February 20 - Astronaut John Glenn became the first American in orbit.
• June 16 - Valentina Nikolayeva Tereshkova became the first woman in space.
• March 18 - While tethered to his spacecraft, cosmonaut Alexi Leonov became the first man to walk in space.
• June 3 - Astronaut Ed White became the first American to walk in space.
• July 14 - The spacecraft Mariner 4 transmitted the first pictures of Mars.
• February 3 - The Russian spacecraft Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to land on the moon.
• June 2 - Surveyor 1 became the first American spacecraft to land on the moon.
• January 27 - Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in an accidental fire in a command module on the launch pad.
• April 24 - Cosmonaut Vladimir M. Komarov was killed in a crash when the parachute on his Soyuz 1 spacecraft failed to deploy.
• October 18 - A descent capsule from the Soviet probe Venera 4 collected data about the atmosphere of Venus.
• September 15 - The Soviet spacecraft Zond 5 was launched and later became the first spacecraft to orbit the moon and return to Earth.
• December 21 - Apollo 8 was launched, and later her crewmembers became the first men to orbit the moon.
• July 20 - Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men on the moon.
• April 11 - Apollo 13 was launched.
• September 12 - The Soviet craft Luna 16 was launched and became the first automatic spacecraft to return soil samples of the moon.
• November 17 - The Soviet automatic robot Lunokhod 1 landed on the moon with Luna 17.
• December 15 - The Soviet Venera 7 became the first probe to land on Venus.
• April 19 - The Soviet space station Salyut 1 was launched.
• July 30 - The moon rover was driven on the moon for the first time.
• November 13 - The Mariner 9 probe became the first craft to orbit another world - Mars.
• December 11 - Eugene Cernan and Harrison "Jack" Schmitt became the last men to walk on the moon.
• May 14 - The U.S. launched its first space station, Skylab.
• July 17 - The American Apollo 18 and Soviet Soyuz 19 dock in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
• September - The American probe Viking 2 discovered water frost on the Martian surface.
• August and September - Voyagers 1 and 2 were launched. (Voyager 2 was launched before Voyager 1, but Voyager 1 was on a faster trajectory.)
• March and August - Voyagers 1 and 2 began transmitting images of Jupiter and her moons.
• September - The U.S. probe Pioneer 11 reached Saturn and began transmitting images.
• November 13 - Voyager 1 reached Saturn and began transmitting images.
• April 12 - Columbia became the first Space Shuttle to be launched.
• August 26 - Voyager 2 reached Saturn and began transmitting images.
• April 4 - The second Space Shuttle, Challenger, was launched.
• June 19 - Sally Ride became the first American woman in space on Challenger’s second mission.
• August 30 - Guion Bluford became the first African-American in space.
• February 3 - Astronaut Bruce McCandless became the first man to take an untethered space walk.
• August 30 - The third Space Shuttle, Discovery, was launched.
• October - Kathryn Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space.
• October 3 - Atlantis, the fourth Space Shuttle, was launched.
• January 24 - Voyager 2 began transmitting images from Uranus.
• January 28 - The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded seconds after liftoff.
• February 20 - The core section of the Space Station Mir was launched.
• August - Voyager 2 began transmitting images from Neptune.
• August 10 - The Magellan spacecraft began mapping the surface of Venus using radar equipment.
• August 24 - The Space Shuttle Discovery deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.
• May 7 - The Space Shuttle Endeavor was launched on her maiden voyage.
• September 12 - Mae Jemison became the first African-American woman in space.
• December - The Space Shuttle Endeavor made the first servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope.
• February 3 - Sergei Krikalev became the first Russian cosmonaut to fly on a Space Shuttle.
• February 2 - Eileen Collins became the first female Shuttle pilot.
• December - The Galileo probe began transmitting data on Jupiter.
• July 4 - The Mars Pathfinder arrived on Mars and later began transmitting images.
• October 29 - John Glenn became the oldest man in space.
• July 23 - Eileen Collins became the first female Shuttle Commander.
• February 14 - The U.S. Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft began transmitting images of the asteroid Eros.
• February 12 - NEAR landed on the surface of Eros.
• April 28 - American Dennis Tito became the first tourist in space after paying the Russian space program $20,000,000.
• February 1 - The Space Shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
• February 13 - An investigative panel found that superheated air almost certainly seeped through a breach in space shuttle Columbia’s left wing and possibly its wheel compartment during the craft’s fiery descent, resulting in the deaths of all seven astronauts.
• August 25 - NASA launched the largest-diameter infrared telescope ever in space, the Spitzer Space Telescope.
• September 21 - NASA’s Galileo mission ended a 14-year exploration of the solar system’s largest planet and its moons with the spacecraft crashing by design into Jupiter at 108,000 mph.
• January 14 - President Bush proposed a new space program that would send humans back to the moon by 2015 and establish a base to Mars and beyond.
• July 1 - The Cassini spacecraft sent back photographs of Saturn’s shimmering rings.
• July 3 - A NASA spacecraft collided with a comet half the size of Manhattan, creating a brilliant cosmic smashup designed to help scientists study the building blocks of life on earth.
• July 26 - Space Shuttle Discovery was launched with seven astronauts aboard; this was America’s first manned space shot since the 2003 Columbia disaster.
• January 15 - NASA spacecraft Stardust returned safely to Earth in a desert near Salt Lake City with the first dust ever collected from a comet.
• August 4 - NASA launched its Phoenix Mars Lander.
• August 8 - Space Shuttle Endeavour and a crew of seven blasted off with teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan aboard as a crewmember. Morgan was the first teacher in space since the Challenger disaster in 1986.
• January 14 - The NASA space probe Messenger skimmed 124 miles above Mercury.
• May 25 - NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander landed safely and began sending images home after a 10-month, 422 million-mile journey. Scientists later reported that Phoenix discovered chunks of ice.
• March 6 - The NASA spacecraft Kepler was launched. Its mission is to search for planets outside our solar system, in a distant area of the Milky Way.
• June 18 - NASA launched the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, also known as LCROSS. The mission is to confirm the presence or absence of ice on the moon. On November 13, 2009, NASA scientists announced the discovery of a "significant amount" of ice in a crater near the moon’s South Pole.
• October 10 - Virgin Galactic, a private company, announced the successful first manned glide flight of the VSS Enterprise. This vehicle is a suborbital plane designed to take private citizens on suborbital space flights.
• October 11 - President Barack Obama signed legislation focusing NASA’s efforts on exploring Mars and the asteroids.
• December 8 - A private company named SpaceX launched a spacecraft into orbit and returned it to earth safely. It was the first non-government organization to accomplish this.
• July 8 - The space shuttle Atlantis became the last American space shuttle to be launched into space. Mission STS-135 and its 4-member crew brought much-needed supplies and equipment to the International Space Station (ISS).
• July 16 - NASA's Dawn spacecraft became the first man made craft to orbit an asteroid.
• November 26 - NASA launched Curiosity, the biggest, best equipped robot ever sent to explore another planet. It will reach Mars in 2012.
• May 22 - SpaceX, a commercial space company, launched its Dragon C2+ mission to resupply the International Space Station (ISS).
• August - NASA’s Voyager 1 probe, launched in 1977, entered interstellar space.
• August 6 - NASA's Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars. As large as a car, it carried an array of advanced new instruments and experiments.
• September 7 - NASA launched the unmanned LADEE spacecraft from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. It was the U.S. space agency's third lunar probe in five years.
• December 24 - NASA astronauts wrapped up successful repairs at the International Space Station after a rare Christmas Eve spacewalk to fix an equipment cooling system.

This timeline is mainly compiled from the NASA Space Exploration Timeline: 1957 A.D.-Present , Sea and Sky’s Space Exploration Timeline and Timeline of NASA, the Space Shuttle and Near Earth Space Flights .

The History of Space Exploration

During the time that has passed since the launching of the first artificial satellite in 1957, astronauts have traveled to the moon, probes have explored the solar system, and instruments in space have discovered thousands of planets around other stars.

Earth Science, Astronomy, Social Studies, U.S. History, World History

Apollo 11 Astronauts on Moon

A less belligerent, but no less competitive, part of the Cold War was the space race. The Soviet Union bested its rival at nearly every turn, until the U.S. beat them to the finish line by landing astronauts on the moon.

NASA photograph

We human beings have been venturing into space since October 4, 1957, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth. This happened during the period of political hostility between the Soviet Union and the United States known as the Cold War. For several years, the two superpowers had been competing to develop missiles, called intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), to carry nuclear weapons between continents. In the U.S.S.R., the rocket designer Sergei Korolev had developed the first ICBM, a rocket called the R7, which would begin the space race. This competition came to a head with the launch of Sputnik . Carried atop an R7 rocket, the Sputnik satellite was able to send out beeps from a radio transmitter. After reaching space, Sputnik orbited Earth once every 96 minutes. The radio beeps could be detected on the ground as the satellite passed overhead, so people all around the world knew that it was really in orbit. Realizing that the U.S.S.R. had capabilities that exceeded U.S. technologies that could endanger Americans, the United States grew worried. Then, a month later, on November 3, 1957, the Soviets achieved an even more impressive space venture. This was Sputnik II, a satellite that carried a living creature, a dog named Laika. Prior to the launch of Sputnik, the United States had been working on its own capability to launch a satellite. The United States made two failed attempts to launch a satellite into space before succeeding with a rocket that carried a satellite called Explorer on January 31, 1958. The team that achieved this first U.S. satellite launch consisted largely of German rocket engineers who had once developed ballistic missiles for Nazi Germany. Working for the U.S. Army at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, the German rocket engineers were led by Wernher von Braun and had developed the German V2 rocket into a more powerful rocket, called the Jupiter C, or Juno. Explorer carried several instruments into space for conducting science experiments. One instrument was a Geiger counter for detecting cosmic rays. This was for an experiment operated by researcher James Van Allen, which, together with measurements from later satellites, proved the existence of what are now called the Van Allen radiation belts around Earth. In 1958, space exploration activities in the United States were consolidated into a new government agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). When it began operations in October of 1958, NASA absorbed what had been called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and several other research and military facilities, including the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (the Redstone Arsenal) in Huntsville. The first human in space was the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who made one orbit around Earth on April 12, 1961, on a flight that lasted 108 minutes. A little more than three weeks later, NASA launched astronaut Alan Shepard into space, not on an orbital flight, but on a suborbital trajectory—a flight that goes into space but does not go all the way around Earth. Shepard’s suborbital flight lasted just over 15 minutes. Three weeks later, on May 25, President John F. Kennedy challenged the United States to an ambitious goal, declaring: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." In addition to launching the first artificial satellite, the first dog in space, and the first human in space, the Soviet Union achieved other space milestones ahead of the United States. These milestones included Luna 2, which became the first human-made object to hit the Moon in 1959. Soon after that, the U.S.S.R. launched Luna 3 . Less than four months after Gagarin’s flight in 1961, a second Soviet human mission orbited a cosmonaut around Earth for a full day. The U.S.S.R. also achieved the first spacewalk and launched the Vostok 6 mission, which made Valentina Tereshkova the first woman to travel to space. During the 1960s, NASA made progress toward President Kennedy’s goal of landing a human on the moon with a program called Project Gemini, in which astronauts tested technology needed for future flights to the moon, and tested their own ability to endure many days in spaceflight. Project Gemini was followed by Project Apollo, which took astronauts into orbit around the moon and to the lunar surface between 1968 and 1972. In 1969, on Apollo11, the United States sent the first astronauts to the Moon, and Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on its surface. During the landed missions, astronauts collected samples of rocks and lunar dust that scientists still study to learn about the moon. During the 1960s and 1970s, NASA also launched a series of space probes called Mariner, which studied Venus, Mars, and Mercury. Space stations marked the next phase of space exploration. The first space station in Earth orbit was the Soviet Salyut 1 station, which was launched in 1971. This was followed by NASA’s Skylab space station, the first orbital laboratory in which astronauts and scientists studied Earth and the effects of spaceflight on the human body. During the 1970s, NASA also carried out Project Viking in which two probes landed on Mars, took numerous photographs, examined the chemistry of the Martian surface environment, and tested the Martian dirt (called regolith ) for the presence of microorganisms . Since the Apollo lunar program ended in 1972, human space exploration has been limited to low-Earth orbit, where many countries participate and conduct research on the International Space Station. However, unpiloted probes have traveled throughout our solar system. In recent years, probes have made a range of discoveries, including that a moon of Jupiter, called Europa, and a moon of Saturn, called Enceladus, have oceans under their surface ice that scientists think may harbor life. Meanwhile, instruments in space, such as the Kepler Space Telescope , and instruments on the ground have discovered thousands of exoplanets , planets orbiting other stars. This era of exoplanet discovery began in 1995, and advanced technology now allows instruments in space to characterize the atmospheres of some of these exoplanets.

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How the space race launched an era of exploration beyond Earth

Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union fueled a technological sprint to space—which culminated with a historic landing on the moon.

Tensions ran high at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the morning of April 12, 1961, as the Soviet Union prepared to launch the first human into space. Of the 16 previous attempts to propel the U.S.S.R.’s Vostok rocket into orbit, half had failed. Two of the space program’s top engineers reportedly had to take tranquilizers that day as they waited for liftoff at the Kazakh launch site.

But Yuri Gagarin remained calm in the capsule atop the rocket. After months of rigorous physical and technical training, the 27-year-old cosmonaut had been chosen for the historic flight in part for his unflappability. Intelligent, diligent, and well-liked among his comrades, one memo written by Soviet Air Force doctors and obtained by historian Asif Siddiqi noted that Gagarin “understands life better than a lot of his friends.”

At 9:07 a.m., Gagarin called out “ Poyekhali!”— Russian for “Off we go!”—as the rocket lifted off. He narrated his experiences to those on the ground as the rocket’s acceleration to 17,000 miles an hour pushed him back into his seat. “I see the Earth. The g-load is increasing somewhat. I feel excellent, in a good mood. I see the clouds. The landing site ... it's beautiful. What beauty.”

Moments later, the Soviet cosmonaut became the first person in space and, 89 minutes after launch, the first person to orbit the planet. It was a pivotal moment in the space race between the United States and Soviet Union that would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. But it isn’t where the story of human spaceflight truly begins: That trajectory was charted years earlier by another Soviet success.

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The space race begins

Despite being allies during World War II, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. grew increasingly suspicious of one another as the war drew to a close in 1945. The U.S. had just demonstrated its ability to destroy entire cities by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force Japan’s surrender. Thus began the Cold War , in which the U.S. and U.S.S.R. jockeyed for world dominance.

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To prove their superior technological capabilities, both countries began to build massive nuclear arsenals and rockets capable of hitting targets across the world. In the mid-1950s, both countries announced plans to use these rockets to propel artificial satellites into space. While the U.S. scheduled a 1958 launch for its Project Vanguard, the Soviets quietly resolved to beat the Americans to the punch.

On October 4, 1957, the world was taken by surprise when the Soviet Union announced that it had launched a satellite called Sputnik, Russian for “traveling companion ,” into orbit. Although it was no larger than a beach ball and had limited technical capabilities, Americans were frightened as they heard its radio signature “beep, beep, beep” as it passed overhead.

President Dwight Eisenhower had his own concerns. White House officials fretted over whether the world would see the Soviet Union as the more sophisticated superpower, writing in one report that Sputnik’s launch would “generate myth, legend and enduring superstition of a kind peculiarly difficult to eradicate or modify, which the U.S.S.R. can exploit to its advantage.”

Unwilling to concede space to the Soviet Union, the U.S. established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in July 1958 and began its own pursuit of spaceflight in earnest.

Earliest human flights to space

Human space travel was not a novel concept in the 1950s. The U.S. had been launching rockets with animals — including fruit flies and rhesus macaques —into suborbital space since the late 1940s, while the U.S.S.R. began launching dogs in 1951. Just weeks after Sputnik’s 1957 launch, the Soviets famously sent a dog named Laika into orbit. (Laika died within hours of the flight from heat and stress.)

( Subscriber exclusive: See a visual timeline of every animal ever sent to space .)

But the true goal was to send humans to space. In 1958 NASA launched Project Mercury with three specific goals : Launch an American into orbit around Earth, investigate the human body’s ability to tolerate spaceflight, and bring both the spacecraft and astronaut home safety. The unstated goal: Accomplish all of this before the Soviets.

Yet once again the U.S.S.R. proved a step ahead. Gagarin’s historic flight took place a month before astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space on May 5, 1961. Although Shepard’s 15-minute suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7 was a key milestone—watched by millions of television viewers—it was overshadowed by Gagarin’s journey all the way around Earth.

Weeks after Shepard’s flight, President John F. Kennedy stood before a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Acknowledging that the country hadn’t treated space exploration with enough urgency, he declared his intention to make it a priority and issued a new challenge : Put an American on the moon by the end of the decade.

“No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish,” he said. “In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon—if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation.”

Reaching for the moon

Before NASA could venture to the moon, however, its scientists and engineers had much to learn. The space agency pushed forward with Project Mercury, making astronaut John Glenn the first American to orbit Earth in February 1962 . In May 1963 Gordon Cooper completed a 22-orbit flight, a journey that took about 34 hours and 20 minutes. A month later, though, cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky spent four days and 23 hours in space— still the record for the longest solo spaceflight —and Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly to space.

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After Mercury, NASA advanced its spaceflight capabilities with Project Gemini. Considered a bridge to the moon , Gemini’s goals were to rendezvous and dock in orbit, test atmospheric reentry maneuvers, and determine how longer periods of space travel affected humans.

Meanwhile, the Soviets were still logging milestones. In March 1965 cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first person to exit an orbiting spacecraft. Lasting 12 minutes, the spacewalk was particularly harrowing : Leonov’s spacesuit was so rigid he had difficulty reentering the spacecraft and ultimately had to release some of his suit’s pressure to close the airlock behind him.

Ten weeks later Ed White became the first American to walk in space , spending 23 minutes floating at the end of a 25-foot umbilical line while he and astronaut James McDivitt in the Gemini 4 capsule circled Earth at 17,000 miles an hour. After that the U.S. began to gain on the Soviets: In December 1965 the astronauts aboard Gemini 7 set the record for the most time in space during a two-week mission. Gemini 8 achieved the first space docking in 1966—though a malfunction sent the spacecraft spinning out of control, to be narrowly recovered by a 35-year-old Neil Armstrong in the commander’s seat .

After 10 crewed flights in five years, the program ended with Gemini 12 on November 15, 1966—a mission during which Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin logged a record-setting five hours and 30 minutes exploring outside a spacecraft. At last it was time to go to the moon.

Footprints on the moon

As it conducted the Gemini missions, NASA had already begun developing the spacecraft for the Apollo program. The vehicle included a command/service module that would fly to the moon and enter orbit, and a lunar module that would undock for landing and then blast off to rejoin the command module for the return trip to Earth.

But the Apollo program got off to a tragic start . On January 27, 1967, astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire on the launchpad during a ground test for their planned February mission. An investigation concluded that the fire was sparked by a short circuit in the wires near Grissom’s seat, and that it spread quickly due to high oxygen levels and flammable materials in the cabin.

Following a lengthy reevaluation of the design and safety of the spacecraft, the first crewed Apollo mission launched on October 11, 1968, when Apollo 7 blasted into Earth orbit. On the first of 11 days in space, the three astronauts aboard came down with cold s—learning the hard way that mucus cannot drain from the head in the weightlessness of space.

The mission was followed by the first flight all the way to the moon, more than 230,000 miles away. Before Apollo 8, the farthest humans had been from Earth was about 850 miles. The crew orbited the moon 10 times between December 24 and December 25, reading the opening lines of Genesis to a captivated audience of roughly a billion people —a quarter of the global population—during a Christmas Eve radio broadcast. The three astronauts were the first to see the far side of the moon with their own eyes and watch as Earth rose over the lunar horizon .

Apollo 9 was the first flight with the lunar module, testing the spacecraft in Earth orbit. Apollo 10 took the lunar module to the moon and descended to within 50,000 feet of the surface.

Finally on July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off. On the fifth day in space, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin began preparations to land the lunar module Eagle on the moon’s surface. They touched down at precisely 3:17 p.m. Houston time on July 20—and hours later, at 9:56 p.m., Armstrong became the first person to step on the moon, famously proclaiming: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Over the next two hours , Armstrong and Aldrin collected soil and rock samples and set up experiments. They left an American flag planted on the moon’s surface and a plaque that reads, “We came in peace for all mankind.”

Subsequent lunar exploration

The U.S. would make five more successful crewed trips to the moon’s surface in the years that followed. Astronauts collected samples, ran scientific experiments, and tested a lunar rover. The program ended in December 1972 with Apollo 17, which saw astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spend more than three days on the moon.

( A brief history of moon exploration .)

After the successful missions to the moon, the U.S. and the Soviet Union began to collaborate. In 1975 the countries launched their first joint mission, Apollo-Soyuz , in which American and Soviet spacecraft successfully docked with one another while in orbit—allowing their crews to meet in space. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. and Russia continued their partnership in space, working together to build the International Space Station .

Several countries have since made uncrewed journeys to the moon, but the U.S. remains the sole country whose astronauts have set foot on the lunar surface. NASA intends to return astronauts to the moon by 2025 with its Artemis program , and other countries such as China also plan to send humans to the moon in the coming years or decades.

In the future, humans may venture all the way to Mars. Such a journey would require technologies that do not exist yet —but the same was true when the Apollo program was announced six decades ago.

“We choose to go to the moon,” Kennedy told the nation in a 1962 address . “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

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Space race timeline

What was the Space Race? When did it happen? How did it affect the world?

Explore and learn about the key events and achievements that shaped almost 20 years of competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

If you want to find out about the 'new space race' between USA, China and Russia, click here . 

The world's greatest space photography

What was the space race.

The space race was a 20th Century struggle between two nation-states, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US). The pursuit for both was the domination of space flight technologies. The competition began on 2 August 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement of their similar intent to launch artificial satellites.

The space race has its origins in the nuclear arms race between the two nations following the Second World War. Both sides were aided by German missile technology and scientists from their missile programme. The technological advantages required for such power were seen as necessary for national security and political superiority. The space race produced groundbreaking efforts to launch artificial satellites; space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human space voyages in low Earth orbit and lunar missions. 

The space race between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) was a remarkable time in history with many far-reaching achievements in science, space exploration, and technology. This timeline shows the twenty-year competition between the two nations.

2 August 1955:  The USSR responds to the US announcement that they intend to launch the first artificial satellite into space with a satellite of their own. 

4 October 1957:  The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 1, the first Earth-orbiting satellite in history.

3 November 1957:  The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 2, carrying a dog named Laika into space. They become the first nation to successfully send a living organism into orbit. 

31 January 1958:  The US enter the space race by launching Explorer 1, the first US satellite to reach orbit. It carried experimental equipment that led to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt.

1 October 1958:  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is created in the US, replacing the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA). 

18 December 1958:  The US launch SCORE, the world's first communications satellite. It captured world attention by broadcasting a pre-recorded Christmas message from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, becoming the first broadcast of a human voice from space. 

2 January 1959:  The USSR launches Luna 1, known as the first "cosmic rocket" as it accidentally escaped the orbit of the Moon due to the object having too much speed. Luna 1 becomes the first human-made object to leave the orbit of the Earth and orbit the sun instead. 

2 August 1959: The US launches Explorer 6, the world's first weather satellite and obtains the first pictures of Earth from space. 

12 September 1959: The USSR launches Luna 2 and accomplishes its mission of creating the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon. 

4 October 1959: The USSR launches Luna 3 and succeeds in their mission of sending an object into orbit around the Moon and photographing the far side of the Moon. 

19 August 1960: Aboard the Soviet Union's Sputnik 5, the first animals (two dogs, Belka and Strelka) and a range of plants are returned alive from space. 

31 January 1961: Ham, a US chimpanzee, becomes the first hominid (or great ape) in space and the first to successfully survive the landing. 

12 April 1961: The Soviet Union achieve a clear triumph in the space race. Aboard the Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin makes a single orbit around the Earth and becomes the first man to reach space. He remained in space for one hour and forty-eight minutes before landing in Saratov Oblast, west Russia. 

5 May 1961: The US achieve the first pilot-controlled journey and first American in space with Alan Shepard aboard the Mercury-Redstone 3 (or Freedom 7) spacecraft. On this flight, Shepard did not orbit Earth. He flew 116 miles high. The flight lasted about 15 minutes. 

16 June 1963: Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first civilian and first woman in space. She spends almost three days in space, orbiting the Earth 48 times aboard her spacecraft, Vostok 6.

18 March 1965: Alexei Leonov leaves his spacecraft, the Voskhod 2, in a specialized spacesuit and conducts a twelve-minute spacewalk, the first of its kind. 

14 July 1965: The US satellite, Mariner 4, performs the first successful voyage to the planet Mars, returning the first close-up images of the Martian surface.

1967: This year proves the most deadly of the space race for both the US and Soviet Union. In January, American astronauts Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee die when a fire ignited in their Apollo 1 capsule on the launch pad. Only a few months later the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is also killed when the parachute on his Soyuz 1 capsule fails to open on his reentry into Earth's atmosphere. 

21 December 1968: US spacecraft Apollo 8 becomes the first human-crewed spacecraft to reach the Moon, orbit it, and successfully return to Earth. 

20 July 1969: Neil Armstrong and later Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon while their crewmate Michael Collins continues to orbit the Moon aboard the Apollo 11. This secured a victory for America in the space race with a televised landing witnessed around the world by 723 million people.

Find out more about Apollo 11

11 April 1970: The US Apollo 13 mission is known as the first explosion onboard a spacecraft where the crew survived. 

19 April 1971: The USSR launches the first space station. Parts of this spacecraft will become core segments of the International Space Station (ISS) almost thirty years later in November 2000. 

1 August 1971: David Scott, commander of the Apollo 15 mission, becomes the first person to drive on the Moon. He's also remembered for paying tribute to the Soviet Union and US astronauts who died in the advancement of space exploration. When walking on the Moon, Scott places a plaque with a list of the dead. Alongside this, he leaves a small aluminium sculpture of an astronaut in a spacesuit, created by Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck. 

15 July 1975: With tensions between the US and USSR softening, the first cooperative Apollo-Soyuz mission is launched. With two separate flights, the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft dock in space and the two commanders Tom Stafford and Alexei Leonov exchange the first international handshake. This act can be seen to symbolically end the space race, paving the way for future joint missions, such as the International Space Station and the Shuttle-Mir programme.  

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Space race facts

The first animals sent into space were fruit flies .

These were carried aboard a Second World War V2 rocket on 20 February 1947.  Find out more about the first animals in space

Dogs were sent into space

While the US often sent primates on test flights, the Soviet Union preferred to use dogs. They were seen to be more obedient, and Moscow stray dogs were reckoned to be more equipped to deal with the extreme conditions and potential hunger of space travel. 

There is a solar powered satellite

The US Navy's Vanguard 1 was the first solar-powered satellite. Launched on 17 March 1958, it remains the oldest human-made probe in orbit. Although communication with the satellite is now lost, it will stay in space for many years to come.  

Yuri Gargarin started a tradition

On the 12 April 1961, the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin asked the bus driver to stop on the route to the launchpad and urinated against the right-hand back tyre of the bus. This act has become a tradition for all astronauts travelling into space. Female astronauts bring vials of their urine to splash on the wheel.

Astronauts were nearly cosmonauts

In the 1950s an ongoing discussion began at NASA between astronauts and cosmonauts. The deputy administrator wanted to name US travellers in space as cosmonauts, the term applied to Russian spacemen. He felt that "cosmos" was more applicable to space travel than just the term used to stars (or "Astro"). However, while he made a clear point, he was outvoted by his peers.  

Alan Shepard played golf on the Moon

On 2 February 1971,  Alan Shepard became the first human to play golf on the Moon. After smuggling a makeshift golf club aboard his Apollo 14 lunar mission, Shepard hit two balls just before liftoff. Find out about what's been left on the Moon

The Mercury Seven were the oldest

The Mercury Seven were the group of seven astronauts that piloted all the crewed spaceflights of the Mercury programme, occurring from May 1961 to May 1963. Of the Mercury Seven, John Glenn went on to become a US senator and on 29 October 1998 (while still a senator), he became the oldest person to fly in space at the age of 77.

Apollo 12 was struck by lightning 

On 14 November 1969, Apollo 12 was sent on its lunar mission. The launch was the most distressing of the Apollo programme, as a series of lightning strikes just after liftoff temporarily disabled their power and guidance systems. On stepping onto the lunar surface five days later, Conrad joked, "Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."

The last person to walk on the Moon was Eugene Cernan 

Cernan was the Mission Commander of the Apollo 17 mission that occurred between 11 and 14 December 11 1972. Only twelve people (all US astronauts) had done so before, and none have done so since.  He walked on the Moon with geologist and astronaut, Harrison Schmitt. 

Who won the space race?

With no official measure of success, the winner of the space race is a point of controversy. Most historians agree that the space race ended on 20 July 1969 when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon for the first time. As the climax of space history and exploration, the lunar landing led to a triumph for the US.

While the US set a man on the Moon first, their success was fed by a series of pioneering achievements by the Soviet Union. The Space Race can be seen as a climactic comeback for the United States starting in 1968, rather than a decisive victory. 

Following the Moon landing, the Soviet Union concentrated their efforts on building a space station. On 7 June 1971, the Soyuz 11 spacecraft successfully docked with the Salyut 1 space laboratory and completed a record 22-day stay - demonstrating that space exploration would continue. 

Furthermore, in May 1972, the US and the Soviet Union negotiated an easing of hostile relations. This "thaw" in the cold war led to cooperation between the two nations on future missions, and the space race became a joint venture. 

The space race and the Cold War

Following the Second World War in 1946, tensions rose between two of the victors; the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US) The primary source of conflict arose from the struggle between two political beliefs of communism (USSR) and capitalism (US). This conflict became known as the Cold War. 

The term cold in this context meant that there was no direct fighting between the two sides, but each sponsored and supported many conflicts across the world. The Cold War lasted until 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

The space race played a significant part in the Cold War as the Americans and Soviets competed to prove their technological and intellectual superiority by becoming the first nation to put a human into space. From beginning to end, the world's attention was captivated by this contest for dominance.  

How did the space race affect the world?

The space race has had a broader impact on society than just space exploration; here are some of the ways the world has changed. 

Communication

The Earth is now surrounded by a network of satellites, which provide broadband communications and high-definition television, data used for weather reporting and GPS navigation and positioning. Many of these tools and systems were created and developed during the space race. 

The image processing used in CAT scans and radiography were both initially developed for deep space imaging and photography. NASA's innovations into shock absorbent materials also helped create more functionally dynamic artificial limbs. 

The world's first portable computer and mouse were created for space exploration and adapted for the commercial markets. Even the wireless headsets we use today originate from NASA creating hands-free equipment for astronauts and pilots. One of the classic examples is NASA's creation of the ball-point pen for writing in space. However, the Soviet Union found a cost-effective method of using a pencil.

President Kennedy space race speech 

On 12 September 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech to a large crowd gathered at the Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas. The speech called for an ambitious space exploration programme that included not just missions to put astronauts on the Moon, but various other space projects such as communications and weather satellites. The quotation "We choose to go to the Moon" is remembered as the tagline from the speech. The US would succeed in this mission eight years later, but Kennedy would not be around to see it. He was assassinated two years later in Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963. 

What even started the space race?

Following the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed to see who had the best technology in space. This included events such as the first satellite to orbit Earth, the first human-crewed spacecraft and the first person to walk on the Moon. The space race was considered vital by the two nations as it showed the world which country had the superior scientific, economic and political systems.

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The Space Race

By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 21, 2020 | Original: February 22, 2010

After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle pitted the world’s two great powers—the democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union—against each other. Beginning in the late 1950s, space became another dramatic arena for this competition, as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower and–by extension–its political-economic system.

Causes of the Space Race

By the mid-1950s, the U.S.-Soviet Cold War had worked its way into the fabric of everyday life in both countries, fueled by the arms race and the growing threat of nuclear weapons, wide-ranging espionage and counter-espionage between the two countries, war in Korea and a clash of words and ideas carried out in the media. These tensions would continue throughout the space race, exacerbated by such events as the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the outbreak of war in Southeast Asia.

Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War competition. On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik (Russian for “traveler”), the world’s first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into the Earth’s orbit. Sputnik’s launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans. In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets. In addition, this demonstration of the overwhelming power of the R-7 missile–seemingly capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into U.S. air space–made gathering intelligence about Soviet military activities particularly urgent.

Did you know? After Apollo 11 landed on the moon's surface in July 1969, six more Apollo missions followed by the end of 1972. Arguably the most famous was Apollo 13, whose crew managed to survive an explosion of the oxygen tank in their spacecraft's service module on the way to the moon.

NASA Is Created

In 1958, the United States launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun . That same year, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a public order creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA ), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration.

Eisenhower also created two national security-oriented space programs that would operate simultaneously with NASA’s program. The first, spearheaded by the U.S. Air Force, dedicated itself to exploiting the military potential of space. The second, led by the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ), the Air Force and a new organization called the National Reconnaissance Office (the existence of which was kept classified until the early 1990s) was code-named Corona; it would use orbiting satellites to gather intelligence on the Soviet Union and its allies.

Space Race Heats Up: Men (And Chimps) Orbit Earth

In 1959, the Soviet space program took another step forward with the launch of Luna 2, the first space probe to hit the moon. In April 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit Earth , traveling in the capsule-like spacecraft Vostok 1. For the U.S. effort to send a man into space, dubbed Project Mercury, NASA engineers designed a smaller, cone-shaped capsule far lighter than Vostok; they tested the craft with chimpanzees  and held a final test flight in March 1961 before the Soviets were able to pull ahead with Gagarin’s launch. On May 5, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space (though not in orbit).

Later that May, President John F. Kennedy made the bold, public claim that the U.S. would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. In February 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, and by the end of that year, the foundations of NASA’s lunar landing program–dubbed Project Apollo –were in place.

Achievements of Apollo

From 1961 to 1964, NASA’s budget was increased almost 500 percent, and the lunar landing program eventually involved some 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 employees of industrial and university contractors. Apollo suffered a setback in January 1967, when three astronauts were killed after their spacecraft caught fire during a launch simulation. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union’s lunar landing program proceeded tentatively, partly due to internal debate over its necessity and to the untimely death (in January 1966) of Sergey Korolyov, chief engineer of the Soviet space program.

December 1968 saw the launch of Apollo 8, the first manned space mission to orbit the moon, from NASA’s massive launch facility on Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral, Florida . On July 16, 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong , Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins set off on the Apollo 11 space mission, the first lunar landing attempt. After landing successfully on July 20, Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon’s surface; he famously called the momen t “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Who Won the Space Race?

By landing on the moon, the United States effectively “won” the space race that had begun with Sputnik’s launch in 1957. For their part, the Soviets made four failed attempts to launch a lunar landing craft between 1969 and 1972, including a spectacular launch-pad explosion in July 1969. From beginning to end, the American public’s attention was captivated by the space race, and the various developments by the Soviet and U.S. space programs were heavily covered in the national media. This frenzy of interest was further encouraged by the new medium of television. Astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American heroes, and earth-bound men and women seemed to enjoy living vicariously through them. Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the power of the communist system.

With the conclusion of the space race, U.S. government interest in lunar missions waned after the early 1970s. In 1975, the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission sent three U.S. astronauts into space aboard an Apollo spacecraft that docked in orbit with a Soviet-made Soyuz vehicle. When the commanders of the two crafts officially greeted each other, their “ handshake in space ” served to symbolize the gradual improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late Cold War era.

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Space exploration as it was imagined in the '50s

By Nathan Ingraham

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Back in the 1950s, when the allure of space travel captured the imagination of a nation, Collier's magazine fed that desire with a series of articles that outlined in detail how the US would explore the reaches of space. While the scenarios detailed in the magazine over the span of two years didn't come true, it wasn't for lack of talent: Collier's editor Gordon Manning put together a dream team of scientists and artist to bring their vision to readers, a vision that included a 50-man moon expedition by 1964 and a manned mission to Mars not long after.

io9 has a great look at the endeavor , with plenty of detail on each step of the scenario dreamed up by Manning's team — and just as importantly, a wide variety of the original illustrations are included as well. The circular space station, in all its 2001 glory, is a particularly impressive piece of art. Of course, to built the massive structure would have required an estimated launch every four hours at the height of construction. For all the details behind this wildly ambitious and visually stunning space exploration that was not to be, head on over to io9.

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The Best Children's Site for all things Astronomy, Space and its Exploration!

Space Exploration Timeline & Future Missions For Kids!

History of the space age.

Born from World War II technology, rockets have enabled mankind to put satellites in orbit, send probes to the furthest regions of the solar system and even put men on the Moon! Learn about when, and where, these all happen by reading this timeline of the coolest major milestones and dates of first accomplishments during humanity’s exploration of outer space! Enjoy!

Space Exploration In The 1940’s!

• June 20 th 1944 – A V-2 Rocket launched by Nazi Germany during World War II is the first man-made object to go beyond 100 km – the Kármán line – and reach space!
• October 24 th 1946 ­ – A captured V-2 rocket in US is launched to 105 km (65 miles) and records the first pictures from space.
• February 20 th 1947 ­ – The first animal (fruit flies) reaches space aboard an American V-2.

Space Exploration In The 1950’s!

• July 22 nd 1951 – A Soviet R-1 rocket launches the first dogs (Dezik & Tsygan) into space!
• October 4 th 1957 ­ – The Soviet Union launches the first satellite into orbit called Sputnik-1 which transmits for 22 days! The Space Race begins!
• November 3 rd 1957 – A Soviet rocket launches the first dog (Laika) into orbit!
• January 31 st 1958 ­ - The America’s launch their first satellite called Explorer-1 into orbit.
• January 4 th 1959 ­– The USSR launches Luna-1 and is the first satellite to reach the vicinity of the Moon and first to enter heliocentric orbit.
• September 13 th 1959 ­– The USSR launches Luna-2 and is the first probe to touch another world when it impacts with the Moon.
• October 4 th 1959 ­– The USSR launches Luna-3 the first probe to image the far side of the Moon .

Space Exploration In The 1960’s!

• January 31 st 1961 – The US launches the first Chimpanzee into space who performs tasks and survives.
• April 12 th 1961 – The USSR launches the first human into space - Yuri Gagarin .
• May 5 th 1961 – The US launches the first American into space – Alan Shepard .
• February 20 th 1962 – The US launches their first man into orbit – John Glenn .
• December 14 th 1962 – The first successful planetary flyby ( Venus ) – by Mariner 2 .
• June 16 th 1963 – The USSR puts the first women ( Valentina Tereshkova ) into Space!
• March 18 th 1965 – Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov performs the first spacewalk (extra-vehicular activity) .
• July 14 th 1965 – The first flyby of Mars and first close-up photographs from another planet - Mars .
• February 3 rd 1966 – First soft landing on another world ( the Moon ) and the first images from the surface.
• March 16 th 1966 ­ – During Project Gemini , Gemini 8 completed the first orbital docking between two spacecraft.
• December 21 st 1968 – Apollo 8 carries 3 astronauts to the Moon , for the first time humans leave low Earth orbit.
• July 20 th 1969 – First human walks on the Moon during Apollo 11 mission !

Space Exploration In The 1970’s

• November 17 th 1970 – The USSR lands Lunokhod 1- the first lunar rover.
• December 15 th 1970 – USSR conducts the first soft landing on another planet with Venera 7 on Venus .
• November 14 th 1971 – Mariner 9 becomes the first probe to orbit another planet.
• March 3 rd 1972 – Pioneer 10 becomes the first probe to reach escape velocity of the Solar System and crosses the asteroid belt enroute to Jupiter .
• February 5 th 1974 – Mariner 10 uses a gravity assist for the first time enroute to flyby Mercury  for the first time!
• August 20 th 1977 – Voyager 2 launches on its epic journey through the outer planets.
• September 5 th 1977 – Voyager 1 launches bound for Jupiter , Saturn and Titan !

Space Exploration In The 1980’s

• April 12 th 1981 – Launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia – the first reusable (orbital) spacecraft!
• January 24 th 1986 – First Uranus flyby by Voyager 2 .
• January 28 th 1986 – Challenger disintegration shortly after launch.
• February 19 th 1986 – Mir Space Station becomes the first consistently inhabited space station.
• May 4 th 1989 – The Magellan spacecraft launches from the payload bay of the Space Shuttle bound for Venus to map the surface through the dense clouds.
• August 25 th 1989 – First Neptune flyby by Voyager 2 .

Space Exploration In The 1990’s

• April 24 th 1990 – The famous Hubble Space Telescope is launched into space aboard Shuttle Discovery .
• October 21 st 1991 – The first flyby of an asteroid in the asteroid belt by Galileo.
• March 22 nd 1995 - Record longest duration spaceflight (437.7 days) set by Valeri Polyakov.
• December 7 th 1995 – Galileo achieves the first orbit of Jupiter .
• July 4 th 1997 – Mars Pathfinder becomes the first operational rover on another planet.
• October 24 th 1998 – Deep Space 1 launches to test the ion propulsion system .
• November 20 th 1998 – Construction of the International Space Station (ISS) begins.

Space Exploration In The 2000’s

• February 14 th 2000 – The first spacecraft ( NEAR Shoemaker ) to orbit an asteroid!
• April 28 th 2001 – American Dennis Tito became the first paying space tourist to go to space on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and spent 8 days at the ISS.
• February 2003 – The Space Shuttle Columbia burns up during re-entry killing 7 astronauts.
• July 1 st 2004 – First spacecraft ( Cassini-Huygens ) to enter orbit around Saturn .
• January 14 th 2005 – The Huygens probe performs the first soft landing beyond Mars on Titan !
• March 6 th 2009 – The Kepler spacecraft is launched to discover Exoplanets in the Milky Way .

Space Exploration In The 2010’s

• March 18 th 2011 – A spacecraft orbits Mercury for the first time – MESSENGER .
• July 21 st 2011 – The final flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis signals the end of the Shuttle Program.
• May 25 th 2012 – A SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous with and attach to the ISS.
• August 25 th 2012 – A man-made probe reaches interstellar space – Voyager 1!
• November 12 th 2014 – The Rosetta spacecraft performs a soft landing on a comet.
• March 6 th 2015 – the Dawn spacecraft enters orbit around dwarf planet Ceres becoming the first spacecraft to visit Ceres and to orbit two bodies.
• July 15 th 2015 – The New Horizons spacecraft makes the first flyby of Pluto and its moons.
• August 10 th 2015 – Lettuce became the first food to be grown and eaten in space.
• December 21 st 2015 – Space Exploration Corp (SPACEX) successfully lands the Falcon 9 first stage. The first time an orbital class rocket has been recovered.
• March 30 th 2016 – SpaceX reuses a previously flown Falcon 9 first-stage, the first orbital-class 1 st stage to be reflown in history.

Missions and Spaceflight Milestones Of The Future!

• 2019/2020  - Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin will start taking paying space tourists into space via sub-orbital flights.
• 2019/2020  – SpaceX and Boeing plan to launch astronauts to the International Space Station  aboard their Starliner  and  Dragon Crew capsules!
• 2021  – NASA plans to launch the James Webb Telescope which will likely create many discoveries.
• 2023 – NASA intends to send astronauts on a lunar flyby mission aboard their new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The first time humans have left low Earth orbit since 1972 (the Apollo 17 mission).
• 2024 – SpaceX intends to send their new Starship spacecraft  on a trip around the Moon with paying passengers for a journey called Dear Moon !
• 2030 – The European Space Agency (ESA) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer will enter orbit around Ganymede becoming the first probe to orbit another planets moon.
• 2030s – NASA plans to launch the Orion spacecraft using the Space Launch System (SLS) and send astronauts on a 2 year journey to Mars .
• 2050’s – Could humans send a manned mission to the moons of Saturn ?
• 2100’s – Could human beings build an interstellar spaceship capable of travelling to a nearby star system with Earth-like exoplanets ? Is this our destiny to venture out, explore and live amongst the stars of the Milky Way Galaxy ?

Back To Space Exploration

Cool future missions.

History of Space Travel

Learn about the history of humans traveling into space.

The first earthling to orbit our planet was just two years old, plucked from the streets of Moscow barely more than a week before her historic launch. Her name was Laika. She was a terrier mutt and by all accounts a good dog. Her 1957 flight paved the way for space exploration back when scientists didn’t know if spaceflight was lethal for living things.

Humans are explorers. Since before the dawn of civilization, we’ve been lured over the horizon to find food or more space, to make a profit, or just to see what’s beyond those trees or mountains or oceans. Our ability to explore reached new heights—literally—in the last hundred years. Airplanes shortened distances, simplified travel, and showed us Earth from a new perspective. By the middle of the last century, we aimed even higher.

Our first steps into space began as a race between the United States and the former Soviet Union, rivals in a global struggle for power. Laika was followed into orbit four years later by the first human, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin. With Earth orbit achieved, we turned our sights on the moon. The United States landed two astronauts on its stark surface in 1969, and five more manned missions followed. The U.S.’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched probes to study the solar system. Manned space stations began glittering in the sky. NASA developed reusable spacecraft—space shuttle orbiters—to ferry astronauts and satellites to orbit. Space-travel technology had advanced light-years in just three decades. Gagarin had to parachute from his spaceship after reentry from orbit. The space shuttle leaves orbit at 16,465 miles an hour (26,498 kilometers an hour) and glides to a stop on a runway without using an engine.

Space travel is nothing like in the movies. Getting from A to B requires complex calculations involving inertia and gravity—literally, rocket science—to "slingshot" from planet to planet (or moon) across the solar system. The Voyager mission of the 1970s took advantage of a rare alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune to shave off nearly 20 years of travel time. Space is also dangerous. More than 20 astronauts have died doing their job.

That hasn’t stopped people from signing up and blasting off. NASA’s shuttle program has ended, but private companies are readying their own space programs. A company called Planetary Resources plans to send robot astronauts to the Asteroid Belt to mine for precious metals. Another company named SpaceX is hoping to land civilian astronauts on Mars—the next human step into the solar system—in 20 years. NASA and other civilian companies are planning their own Mars missions. Maybe you’ll be a member of one? Don’t forget to bring your dog.

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The History of Space Travel Timeline

Albert II became the first monkey in space on June 14, 1949, in a specially adapted US V2 rocket.

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.

Throughout time so many countries, and now private companies, across the world have tried to create a method of getting in amongst the stars.

It’s even united countries that previously had such strong conflict.

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.

In 1942 the German V2 rocket, designed by Wernher Von Braun, was the first to reach 100km (62 miles) from the Earth’s surface.

Also known as the boundary of space.

Braun later worked with NASA on the rockets that went to the moon.

In 1947, the first animals went into space.

Fruit flies were used to study the effects of space travel on animals as they’re very similar to humans.

The flies traveled with a supply of corn to eat on the flight.

Albert II was the first monkey in space.

Albert 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.

On October 4 , 1957, Russia launched the first space satellite (or sputnik in Russian) named Sputnik 1.

Sputnik 1 was the first satellite in orbit around the earth.

In November the same year, Laika the Russian dog became the first animal to orbit the earth. Laika is Russian for “Barker”.

She traveled in Sputnik 2 and helped understand whether people could survive in space.

By 1959 Both US and Russian scientists were in a race to get a craft to the Moon; the Russians won.

Space-probe Luna 2 crash-landed into the moon at fatal speeds.

Ten years later, the first human visited the surface.

On April 12, 1961 , Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.

Traveling in Vostok 1 he completed one orbit of the earth, landing about two hours after launch.

Gagarin had to eject and use a parachute to land as the craft was designed to crash land.

John Glenn became the first US man to orbit the Earth aboard the Friendship 7.

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.

Valentina Tereshkova, a Russian cosmonaut, became the first woman in space.

After her mission, she had a crater on the far side of the Moon is named after her.

Who could believe, after just sending men to the moon, NASA managed to successfully conduct the first Mars flyby with their Mariner 4 craft.

In 1963 John F. Kennedy promised that by 1970 the US would have put men on the moon.

NASA firstly sent a robot spaceship called Surveyor 1, to make sure they could safely land.

It reached the moon on May 30 , 1966, just after the Russian probe Luna 9.

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.

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”.

This iconic phrase confirmed them as the first men on the moon.

The Apollo 11 craft flew them 250,000 miles to the moon and back.

Apollo 13 on April 13, 1970 , the second day of its trip to the moon, suffered a wiring fault causing an explosion.

Using what was on board, NASA and the astronauts on board made repairs to bring the damaged craft back to Earth.

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.

The rover took Boeing 17 months to design and develop.

The first-ever space station was launched in 1971, the Russian Salyut 1, and was launched from an unmanned rocket.

In 1973 Mars 2, a 2-part Russian probe explored Mars .

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.

It was destroyed when a parachute failed.

The US launched their Voyager 1 deep space probe.

Voyager 1, on February 17, 1998 , became the most distant human-made object in space after it passed the previous title holder; Pioneer 10.

From April 12, 1981, saw the idea of reusable space crafts, prior to this they were a one-hit-wonder.

The Space Shuttle was designed to lower costs and could be used up to 100 times.

With five rocket motors, it reached 17,000+ mph (27,350+ Kph). Six were built and 2011 saw their last use.

The first craft to start the Space Shuttle era was called Columbia.

On January 28, 1986 , Space Shuttle Challenger exploded due to a fuel system failure just after launch.

All seven astronauts were killed.

After this tragedy, all shuttles were grounded for almost three years.

In the same year, Construction started on the MIR space station, the first consistently inhabited long-term space station.

It was built in sections, taking 10 years, with each bit rocket-launched and combined in orbit.

In 2001 it was destroyed on its descent to earth. The ISS or International Space station also started construction in this year designed for research and space exploration.

The final major module of the ISS didn’t arrive until 2010.

The shuttle Discovery was launched to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope into Earth’s Orbit.

The telescope is able to lock onto a target without moving to about the width of a human hair seen a mile away, or more scientifically, more than 7/1000 th of an arcsecond.

Just like there are 60 minutes in an hour, there are 60 arcminutes in 1 degree, and 60 arcseconds in an arcminute.

In 1989, Helen Sharman won a competition to become the first British astronaut in space, she previously worked for Mars Bar.

After 18 months of harsh training, she joined a Russian mission to the MIR space station.

After all their problems, the US and Russia finally start working together, or at least in space terms they were.

This year saw the US shuttle Atlantis dock at the Russian MIR space station.

The first look at mars occurred when Sojourner, A U.S rover, travels onto Mars to explore the planet’s geology.

In 2000 the first permanent crew inhabited the International Space Station (ISS), and have been there ever since.

On April 28, 2001 , US millionaire Dennis Tito spent around $20,000,000 and had 900 hours of training to be the first space tourist for a ride in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

He spent one week in orbit and of this time he spent most visiting the ISS.

This symbolized the hopes for space travel, for it to become a normal venture one day for everyone.

On June 21 , 2004, the first privately funded manned space flight happened with the craft SpaceShipOne.

An adaptation of this technology is being used by Virgin Galactic, a company offering private tourist flights into space.

Even though in 2014 it crashed during testing, flights are still happening.

In this year, the European Space Agency launched their Rosetta probe hoping to reach Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

SpaceX, a private company that built a craft to replace the newly retired Space Shuttle, became the first to launch a privately funded liquid-fueled rocket into Orbit, the Falcon 1.

These rockets are used to launch their Dragon capsule, a remote-controlled capsule that takes supplies to the ISS.

The U.S Messenger mission to Mercury , launched in 2004, made its journey successfully traveling 48 million miles (77 million km), to begin its yearlong orbit of the mysterious planet.

Russia launched the largest space telescope to date named Spekt-R beating the Hubble.

The device is built to study astronomical objects with an angular resolution of a few millionths of an arcsecond.

The colossal telescope weighed 11,000 pounds (5,000 kilograms).

A major moment for commercial space travel started on May 22 nd , SpaceX launched another Dragon C2+ powered by their Falcon 9 rocket to deliver a resupplying capsule to the ISS.

The capsule was caught by the ISS’s robotic arm and docked for nearly six days while astronauts removed cargo and loaded that destined for Earth, a trip it made with no real complications.

NASA’s Curiosity rover, a piece of equipment the size of a car, landed on Mars on August 6 th .

It’s the largest and most advanced rover ever to land on the red planet.

On August 25 th , Voyager 1, launched in the late ‘70s, became the first man-made spacecraft to cross into interstellar space.

The Rosetta probe, launched in 2004, finally reached Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko after a 4 billion-mile journey.

Whilst on the comet, the lander sent data and high-resolution images from the Comet’s surface back to earth including 490-foot cliffs and house-sized boulders.

The Philae lander made a soft landing on November 12 th after a perilous 7-hour descent.

Harpoons designed to attach to the comet failed, and the lander bounced twice before landing successfully.

On March 6 th , NASA’s Dawn spacecraft entered an orbit around a dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter .

With a 590 mile (950 km) diameter, it makes up a quarter of the mass of the belt.

July 14 th saw NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft arrive at Pluto after traveling 9 years and 4.6 billion miles.

It passes, during its closest approach, only 7,750 miles from the surface and took high-resolution photos of Pluto and Charon, the largest moon.

Pluto is said to be about 50 miles larger than thought.

On July 30 , 2020, at 11:50 UTC, NASA launched their Mars Rover, which was the largest of four missions to Mars in 2020 . 

Without a doubt, this mission plans to be the most fruitful with the craft equipped with state-of-the-art modern technology and engineering capable of truly exploring the martian land like never before!

The Mars Rover’s mission among other things is to see if the red planet has ever accommodated extra-terrestrial life by exploring any signs of habitable conditions both in the past and present.

Space travel has for so many people mesmerized them from a very young age, myself included, and as this list has shown, there is always something new to discover!

We have barely scratched the surface, and yet every year we learn or launch something new with the dream of reaching some unknown bit of the universe.

To travel to the furthest edge man can reach will always be the aim.

To unearth the secrets hidden, to find life or anything that’s interesting and bewildering drives some of the best minds in the world every day.

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About the author.

Dan Lewis has worked in the tech sector for about 7 years and is qualified in most areas including networking, hardware, software & support. Enjoys writing about anything techy, nerdy or factually interesting.

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Glenn Historical Timeline

NASA’s Glenn Research Center, once a cluster of facilities dedicated exclusively to advancing aircraft propulsion systems, is now a sprawling campus employing scientific experts in world class propulsion, communications, power, and materials research.

Glenn History

For decades, our scientists and engineers have advanced technology in both aviation and space exploration. These innovations have given the U.S. a leading role in the aerospace industry.

1940s – The Beginning

The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) transforms the site of the National Air Races in Cleveland into a world-class Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (AERL), which quickly makes contributions to the World War II effort.

1940  – The NACA announces on November 25 that it will build a new laboratory in Cleveland. 1941  –  Groundbreaking ceremony  for the AERL takes place on January 23. 1942  –  E. Raymond Sharp  officially named laboratory manager on December 1. 1943  – First research flight takes place on March 17 with  a Martin B-26 . AERL  dedication ceremony  held on May 20. 1944  – First test is performed in the Altitude Wind Tunnel with a jet engine. Construction of the  Icing Research Tunnel  is completed. 1945  – Lab’s first supersonic wind tunnel begins operation in June. AERL undergoes  major reorganization  in October to focus on jet propulsion. 1946  – Post-war visitors include  Dwight Eisenhower , Curtis LeMay, Frank Whittle and James Doolittle. 1948  – In honor of the late George Lewis, the lab’s name changed to NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory. 1949  –  8-by-6 Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel  begins operation on April 3. First sponsored rocket testing at the lab is conducted for the Navy.  Abe Silverstein  is appointed Chief of Research and reorganizes the staff.

1950s – New Types of Propulsion

The laboratory’s research activities are reorganized to focus on high energy rocket propellants and nuclear propulsion. The launch of Sputnik in the fall of 1957 leads to the lab’s incorporation into the new NASA space agency.

1950  –  New water droplet system for the the Icing Research Tunnel is perfected. 1951  – Initiation of transonic compressor research. 1952  – Abe Silverstein is appointed Associate Director.  Propulsion Systems Laboratory  No. 1 and 2 begins operation. 1953  – Lewis researchers receive safety award for their  full-scale aircraft crash investigations . 1954  –  First firing of a liquid hydrogen -oxygen engine takes place at the Rocket Lab. 1955  –  Neil Armstrong  begins his NASA career as a test pilot at Lewis. Silverstein co-authors  report on the potential use  of liquid hydrogen as a jet fuel. 1956  – The NACA  breaks ground  for the Plum Brook Reactor facility. The 10-by 10-Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel is dedicated and conducts testing of the inlet system  for the world’s first supersonic bomber. 1957  – Lewis conducts first flights of a hydrogen-powered aircraft. Lewis staff discusses rocket work and space missions at the  NACA’s 1957 Inspection . Lewis staff make recommendations for the NACA’s role in the space program.  Rocket Engine Test Facility  begins operation. 1958  – Laboratory incorporated into the new NASA space agency  as the Lewis Research Center . NASA leases additional acreage at Plum Brook Station to construct the Rocket Systems Area  facilities. Lewis acquires the West Area property and the  Guerin House . 1959  – The center assembled and tested the Big Joe  capsule for Project Mercury. President Eisenhower approves  official NASA seal  designed by James Modarelli.

1960s – The Space Program

The center contributes to the space program with a series of tests for Project Mercury, an intensive study into the storage and handling of liquid hydrogen, and management of the Centaur upper-stage rocket. By the late 1960s, the center was again shifting back toward aeronautics. 

1960  – Mercury 7 astronauts, including John Glenn, train in Lewis’  Multiple Axis Space Test Inertia Facility (MASTIF).  Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO) created with  Lewis responsible for engine technology . Retirement of Center Director Raymond Sharp. 1961  –  Abe Silverstein  is named Center Director.  Electric Propulsion Laboratory  begins operation. Plum Brook Reactor Facility  goes critical for first time . 1962  – Transfer of the  Centaur  upper stage rocket program to Lewis. Center hosts NASA’s  largest public exhibition  to date at Public Hall. 1963  – Transfer of the Agena upper stage rocket program to Lewis. Lewis manages first successful Centaur rocket launch (AC-2).  NASA formally acquires Plum Brook  Station from the Army. 1964  –   Space Electric Rocket Test  (SERT I) conducts the first in-space ion thruster test.  Stephen Papell  invents magnetic fluids, leading to the creation of a ferrofluids industry. Opening of the  Development Engineering Building  in the North Area. 1965  – Cryogenic Tank Facility (K Site) begins operation at Plum Brook. 1966  – Atlas Centaur-8 becomes the first successful two-burn Centaur. Atlas-Centaur-10  launches the Surveyor  spacecraft to the Moon. Center celebrates its 25 th  anniversary and  hosts an Inspection  for 2000 invited guests. Zero Gravity Facility  begins operation . 1967  –  Irving Pinkel  participates in the Apollo 1 fire investigation 1968  –  9-by 15-Foot  Low Speed Wind Tunnel begins operation. 1969  – Atlas Centaur rockets launch Mariner 6 and 7 flyby missions to Mars.  Bruce Lundin  becomes Lewis’ third center director. Completion of the Space Power Facility and Space Propulsion Research Facility.

1970s  –  Quiet Engines and Loud Rockets

Cutbacks to traditional aerospace programs spurred the center to explore new areas of research such as renewable energy and communication satellites. Aeropropulsion work concentrated on noise and emissions reductions. The center’s most high-profile successes during the 1970s were the Titan-Centaur launches of Viking and Voyager spacecraft.

1970  – Launch of the second Space Electric Rocket Test (SERT II). Lewis  performs combustion testing  to support the Apollo 13 investigation. 1971  – YF-12 Blackbird  inlet testing  conducted in the 10-by 10-foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel. NASA establishes the  Aerospace Safety Research and Data Institute  at Lewis. 1972  – Launch (AC-27) of Pioneer 10, the first man-made object to leave the solar system. The Propulsion Systems Laboratory No. 3 and 4  begins operation . 1973  – NASA cancels its nuclear programs, resulting in layoffs of hundreds of Lewis employees.  Shutdown of Plum Brook Station  begins with the closure of the reactor facility. Lewis’  Wind Energy Conversion Workshop  spurs wind turbine development program.

1974  – First  successful launch  Titan-Centaur launch sends Helios 1 on mission to the sun. 1975  – Titan-Centaur  launches the Viking  1 and 2 spacecraft to Mars.  Dedication of the Mod-0A  wind turbine at Plum Brook Station. 1976  – Launch of the Lewis-managed Communications Technology Satellite (CTS).  Prop testing  for the Advanced Turboprop Program begins in the 8-by-6 Wind Tunnel. 1977  – Titan-Centaur  launches Voyager 1 and 2  on missions to explore the outer solar system. The Cleveland Clinic begins  using the Lewis Cyclotron  for its Neutron Therapy Program. 1978  –  John McCarthy  becomes the fourth Lewis center director. Lewis activates the world’s  first solar electric village  in Schuchuli, Arizona. Dedication of the Lewis Visitors Information Center. 1979  – Peak of Lewis’ wind energy research efforts.

1980s – The Shuttle Era Begins

NASA Lewis becomes responsible for several new, mainstream agency programs, including the space station power system, the Shuttle/Centaur upper-stage vehicle, and the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS).

1980  –  Dedication  of the Research Analysis Center (RAC). Isidore Warshawsky becomes the first NASA employee with 50 years of service. 1981  – Center is assigned responsibility for the Shuttle-Centaur program. 1982  –  Andy Stofan  becomes Lewis’ fifth center director. The Center’s first strategic plan is issued. 1983  – Lewis makes first significant staffing increase in nearly 20 years. 1984  – Center is assigned responsibility for the space station power system. 1985  – Lewis holds first  Simulated Shuttle Program  for local students.  1986  – Cancellation of the Shuttle-Centaur program. Reactivation of the Space Power Facility begins at Plum Brook Station. 1987  – The Icing Research Tunnel is designated an  ASME Historic Engineering Landmark  .  John Klineberg  becomes Center Director. NASA  wins Emmy  for developing the Communications Technology Satellite. 1988  – Advanced Turboprop team receives  Robert J. Collier Trophy  on May 13. 1989  – Space Electric Rocket Test (SERT II) is reactivated nearly 20 years after its launch. Dedication of the  Power Systems Facility  to support the space station program. Atlas-Centaur 68 is the last Lewis-managed commercial Centaur launch.

1990s – A New Name

The Center continues its leading aeropropulsion, space power and space propulsion work. Lewis becomes program manager for Fluid Physics and Combustion Microgravity Research.

1990  –  Larry Ross  becomes Lewis Center Director. 1991  – Center celebrates its  50th anniversary . Dedication of new Edward R. Sharp Employee Center. 1992  – 1-by 1-Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel reaches 5,000 hours of run time. Joseph Nieberding travels to Moscow to explore the use of Russian spacecraft for the space station. Dedication of the Ohio Aerospace Institute. 1993  – Center given responsibility for propulsion system for the new  High Speed Research  program. Lewis staff help transition Space Station Freedom into the International Space Station. STS-51 deploys the  Advanced Communications Technology Satellite  (ACTS). 1994  –  Donald Campbell  is appointed Center Director. 1995  – Delivery of Lewis-managed Mir Cooperative Solar Array to Russian space station Mir. Lewis rolls out DC-9 aircraft modified for microgravity research. 1996  – Deployment of Lewis-managed Mir Cooperative Solar Array on Mir. 1997  – Mars Pathfinder lands on the Martian surface with  Lewis experiments . Last Lewis-managed Centaur launch  sends the Cassini spacecraft  toward Saturn. 1998  –  Launch of Deep Space I  powered by Lewis’ NSTAR ion thruster. 1999  – The  center is renamed  the John H. Glenn Research Center.

2000s – The 21 st  Century 

The center makes key contributions to the Columbia Accident Investigation and Constellation Project. The campus also undergoes transformation with the addition of the Mission Integration Center and the removal of several historic facilities.

2000  – Dedication of the  Ballistics Lab  in the Materials and Structures Building. Glenn-designed  solar arrays are delivered  to the International Space Station. 2001  – STS-107  crew visits Glenn  to train on the Combustion Module-2. 2002  – Graphics and Visualization (GRUVE) Lab and Telescience Support Center facilities open. 2003  –  Julian Earls  becomes Center Director. Ballistics Lab performs  impact testing  for the  Columbia  accident investigation. 2004  – Center formally acquires the  S-3 Viking  aircraft. 2005  –  Woodrow Whitlow  becomes Glenn Center Director. 2006  – NASA assigns Glenn responsibility for  Orion service module . 2007  –  Rededication  of the Space Power Facility (SPF). Launch of the  NSTAR  thruster-powered Dawn asteroid mission 2008  –  Demolition  of the Altitude Wind Tunnel commences. Assembled Ares I-X segments  leave Glenn  for delivery to Kennedy Space Center. 2009  – Commercial Aviation Safety Team  Robert J. Collier Trophy . Glenn-designed  Ares I-X Upper Stage Simulator  is successfully launched. 2010  – NASA Glenn Visitor Center moves to  Great Lakes Science Center .  Ramon Lugo  becomes center director. 2011  – Dedication of the new main gate and security building. 2012  –  Space Communications and Navigation  (SCaN) sent to the ISS. 2013  –  Jim Free  becomes Glenn Center Director. NEXT thruster completes record-setting  5 1/2-year duration test . 2014  – Glenn dedicates new  Mission Integration Center  building. 2015  – The center inducts first class into the  Glenn Hall of Fame . 2016  –  Janet Kavandi  becomes Center Director. Orion Crew Module  acoustics testing conducted  at the Space Power Facility. 2017  – Glenn celebrates its 75 th  anniversary. 2018  – Orion spacecraft for Artemis I  is tested at the Space Power Facility  Groundbreaking for the  Research Support Building . 2019  – Software Defined Radio team  inducted into Space Technology Hall of Fame . 2020  –  Dr. Marla E. Pérez-Davis  becomes center director. Plum Brook Station is renamed the  Neil Armstrong Test Facility .

2022 – Research Support Building opens . James Kenyon becomes Center Director.

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