when was space travel first thought of

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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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.

Yuri Gagarin in his space shuttle - the first man in space

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 the first woman in space

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.

Neil Armstrong standing next to the American flag 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”.

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.

Image shows the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding

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.

Helen Sharman the first British woman in space

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.

Mars Rover robot on computer-generated martial land

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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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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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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A Brief History of Space Exploration

Humans have always looked up into the night sky and dreamed about space.

In the latter half of the 20th century, rockets were developed that were powerful enough to overcome the force of gravity to reach orbital velocities, paving the way for space exploration to become a reality.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Nazi Germany saw the possibilities of using long-distance rockets as weapons. Late in World War II, London was attacked by 200-mile-range V-2 missiles, which arched 60 miles high over the English Channel at more than 3,500 miles per hour. After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union created their own missile programs.

On Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviets launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into space. Four years later on April 12, 1961, Russian Lt. Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth in Vostok 1. His flight lasted 108 minutes, and Gagarin reached an altitude of 327 kilometers (about 202 miles).

The first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, went into orbit on Jan. 31, 1958. In 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to fly into space. On Feb. 20, 1962, John Glenn’s historic flight made him the first American to orbit Earth.

Landing On The Moon

“Landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth within a decade” was a national goal set by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. On July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong took “one giant leap for mankind” as he stepped onto the Moon. Six Apollo missions were made to explore the Moon between 1969 and 1972.

During the 1960s, unmanned spacecraft photographed and probed the Moon before astronauts ever landed. By the early 1970s, orbiting communications and navigation satellites were in everyday use, and the Mariner spacecraft was orbiting and mapping the surface of Mars. By the end of the decade, the Voyager spacecraft had sent back detailed images of Jupiter and Saturn, their rings, and their moons.

Skylab, America’s first space station, was a human-spaceflight highlight of the 1970s, as was the Apollo Soyuz Test Project, the world’s first internationally crewed (American and Russian) space mission.

In the 1980s, satellite communications expanded to carry television programs, and people were able to pick up the satellite signals on their home dish antennas. Satellites discovered an ozone hole over Antarctica, pinpointed forest fires, and gave us photographs of the nuclear power plant disaster at Chernobyl in 1986. Astronomical satellites found new stars and gave us a new view of the center of our galaxy.

Space Shuttle

In April 1981, the launch of the space shuttle Columbia ushered in a period of reliance on the reusable shuttle for most civilian and military space missions. Twenty-four successful shuttle launches fulfilled many scientific and military requirements until Jan. 28,1986, when just 73 seconds after liftoff, the space shuttle Challenger exploded. The crew of seven was killed, including Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire who would have been the first civilian in space.

The Columbia disaster was the second shuttle tragedy. On Feb. 1, 2003, the shuttle broke apart while reentering the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. The disaster occurred over Texas, and only minutes before it was scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center. An investigation determined the catastrophe was caused by a piece of foam insulation that broke off the shuttle’s propellant tank and damaged the edge of the shuttle’s left wing. It was the second loss of a shuttle in 113 shuttle flights. After each of the disasters, space shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two years.

Discovery was the first of the three active space shuttles to be retired, completing its final mission on March 9, 2011; Endeavour did so on June 1. The final shuttle mission was completed with the landing of Atlantis on July 21, 2011, closing the 30-year space shuttle program.

The Gulf War proved the value of satellites in modern conflicts. During this war, allied forces were able to use their control of the “high ground” of space to achieve a decisive advantage. Satellites were used to provide information on enemy troop formations and movements, early warning of enemy missile attacks, and precise navigation in the featureless desert terrain. The advantages of satellites allowed the coalition forces to quickly bring the war to a conclusion, saving many lives.

Space systems continue to become more and more integral to homeland defense, weather surveillance, communication, navigation, imaging, and remote sensing for chemicals, fires, and other disasters.

International Space Station

The International Space Station is a research laboratory in low Earth orbit. With many different partners contributing to its design and construction, this high-flying laboratory has become a symbol of cooperation in space exploration, with former competitors now working together.

The station has been continuously occupied since the arrival of Expedition 1 in November of 2000. The station is serviced by a variety of visiting spacecraft: the Russian Soyuz and Progress; the American Dragon and Cygnus; the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle; and formerly the Space Shuttle and the European Automated Transfer Vehicle. It has been visited by astronauts, cosmonauts, and space tourists from 17 different nations.

Space launch systems have been designed to reduce costs and improve dependability, safety, and reliability. Most U.S. military and scientific satellites are launched into orbit by a family of expendable launch vehicles designed for a variety of missions. Other nations have their own launch systems, and there is strong competition in the commercial launch market to develop the next generation of launch systems.

The Future Of Space Exploration

Modern space exploration is reaching areas once only dreamed about. Mars is focal point of modern space exploration, and manned Mars exploration is a long-term goal of the

United States. NASA is on a journey to Mars, with a goal of sending humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s.

NASA and its partners have sent orbiters, landers, and rovers, increasing our knowledge about the planet. The Curiosity Rover has gathered radiation data to protect astronauts, and the MARS 2020 Rover will study the availability of oxygen and other Martian resources.

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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.

( Subscriber exclusive: Explore 50 years of lunar visits with our newest moon map .)

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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The Evolution of Space Travel: Then and Now

The Education and Public Programs Team at the Nixon Library is pleased to remind you that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) continues to be an excellent source for entertaining and historical content! Simply follow the links below for additional information.

Replicas of the Apollo 11 Space Suit and the Apollo 16 EMU Space Suit. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives and Records Administration, Prop 1148, P.2015.6

President Dwight Eisenhower created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on July 29, 1958. Its mission was to coordinate the United States’ advancement in space and its context was direct competition between the two greatest antagonists of the Cold War: the United States and the Soviet Union. The space race would be "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.” Richard Nixon, elected into office in November 1968, inherited the Cold War and the tensions associated with it, both on earth and in space. A decade of “effort, expertise and coordination” helped propel the United States of America to victory in the “Space Race.” Ten years of planning and persistence culminated in all six lunar landings occurring during Richard Nixon’s presidency.

American lunar landings ended in 1972, but the advancement of space travel and exploration continues with NASA’s Artemis Program aiming to land on the moon once again in 2024. Privatized space exploration, pioneered by Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, is now dominating a domain once solely reserved for government agencies. The space race has evolved from competition between two powerful nations with warring ideologies to private companies and billionaire entrepreneurs vying for customers in the realm of space tourism in the final frontier.

Symbols of NASA-Designed in 1959, the "meatball" as it is affectionately called, was the agency's logo for 16 years until it was replaced in 1975 by the more modern looking "worm" design. The "meatball" was resurrected in 1992 and is the most recognized symbol of the organization. “Symbols of NASA,” NASA, last modified September 30, 2019, https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/symbols-of-nasa.html

NASA, and its creation of the Apollo Program in 1961, thrived due to support and generous government funding from President John F. Kennedy. In a joint message to Congress on May 25, 1961, Kennedy stated, “I believe the nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." Lyndon Johnson's administration continued to support increased agency funding, reaching an all-time high of 4.4% of the national budget in 1966. During the Nixon administration, eight years after the program began, on July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 space mission touched down on the surface of the Moon. American astronaut Neil Armstrong uttered his famous phrase, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong and fellow astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin planted the American flag into the surface of the Moon, and the United States reigned victorious.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin re-creates his moonwalk at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda on June 12, 2013. Photographs Courtesy of the Richard Nixon Foundation.

NASA achieved what many thought impossible, landing humans on the Moon and bringing them safely back to Earth , ultimately winning the Space Race during the Cold War. History was also made when the two astronauts received an interplanetary congratulatory phone call from President Nixon, the longest distance phone call ever made, on July 20, 1969 at 11:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

Split-screen of President Richard Nixon and the Apollo 11 astronauts on a White House television, July 20, 1969. (NAID 66394157 ).

While in the White House Oval Office on July 20, 1969, President Nixon used this green telephone to talk to the Apollo 11 astronauts while they walked on the moon. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives and Records Administration, 1979.12

Four days later, the President welcomed home the Apollo 11 crew in person aboard the USS Hornet in the Pacific Ocean. The final lunar landing, Apollo 17, occurred in December of 1972.

"President Nixon - Welcome - Apollo XI Astronauts - USS Hornet." Photograph. NASA. From JSC, July 24, 1969. https://images.nasa.gov/details-S69-21365 (accessed July 14, 2021).

Man's exploration of the Moon was challenging, expensive, wondrous, tragic, and breathtaking. NASA’s almost five billion dollar budget in 1969 prompted the President to reevaluate the space program's importance in comparison to the many national issues needing attention and funding. On March 7, 1970, President Nixon changed the trajectory of the space program stating, “We must think of [space activities] as part of a continuing process and not as a series of separate leaps, each requiring a massive concentration of energy. Space expenditures must take their proper place within a rigorous system of national priorities.” By January 1972, Nixon had outlined a vision to revolutionize space travel that would take away the astronomical costs and make space more accessible for all Americans. These decisions reined in budget expenditure, “ promoted increased international participation in U.S. human spaceflight programs , and prompted the expansion of privatized space exploration happening today.

On May 22, 1972, Nixon became the first United States President to visit Moscow. Subsequent meetings brought diplomacy in space through the Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes . This agreement laid the foundation for the 1975 linking of an Apollo spacecraft with a Soviet Soyuz command module during the Ford administration. Its mission, a nine-day space flight, tested the “ compatibility of rendezvous and docking systems and the possibility of an international space rescue. ” President Nixon’s space diplomacy set the groundwork for the current International Space Station in orbit by promoting technological growth and easing the financial burden of space exploration through pooled resources.

President Nixon and Alexei Kosygin signing the Space Agreement titled "The Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes." 5/24/1972, Moscow, Russia, USSR, Grand Kremlin Palace, St. Vladimir Hall. (WHPO-9179-06)

Space race 2.0.

A Virgin Galactic spacecraft flew into space, a first for the space tourism company, during a flight on Thursday high above the Mojave Desert in California. Hartman, Matt, Photographer. “Virgin Galactic Rocket Ship Reaches Space, a Milestone in Space Tourism,” Photograph, Associated Press. From New York Times , December 13, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/science/virgin-galactic-spaceship.html (accessed July 14, 2021).

On September 21, 2020, NASA published an update to its newest mission, the Artemis Plan , stating, “In its formal plan, NASA captures Artemis progress to date, identifying the key science, technology, and human missions, as well as the commercial and international partnerships that will ensure we continue to lead in exploration and achieve our ambitious goal to land astronauts on the Moon.”

The astronauts chosen will include the first woman and the first person of color to walk on the moon in the year 2024. To become an astronaut with NASA, potential candidates must be U.S. citizens, earn a master's degree in biological science, physical science, computer science, engineering, or math, have 1,000 hours as a pilot in command of an aircraft, and pass the flight astronaut physical exam. The budding industry of space tourism spearheaded by billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos will help bypass NASA’s stringent regulations. The current price tag: $250,000 . After his landmark flight this month, Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Galactic stated, “We’re here to make space more accessible to all.” The Space Race - albeit reimagined in the 21st Century to include commercial partnerships and space tourism - continues thanks to the legacies of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford.

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Everything you need to know about space travel (almost)

We're a long way from home...

Paul Parsons

When did we first start exploring space?

The first human-made object to go into space was a German V2 missile , launched on a test flight in 1942. Although uncrewed, it reached an altitude of 189km (117 miles).

Former Nazi rocket scientists were later recruited by both America and Russia (often at gunpoint in the latter case), where they were instrumental in developing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) – rockets capable of carrying nuclear weapons from one side of the planet to the other.

A captured German V-2 rocket, the world’s first guided missile, launched at the US Army testing base at White Sands, in New Mexico © Getty Images

It was these super-missiles that formed the basis for the space programmes of both post-war superpowers. As it happened, Russia was the first to reach Earth orbit, when it launched the uncrewed Sputnik 1 in October 1957, followed a month later by Sputnik 2, carrying the dog Laika – the first live animal in space.

The USA sent its first uncrewed satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit soon after, in January 1958. A slew of robotic spaceflights followed, from both sides of the Atlantic, before Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin piloted Vostok 1 into orbit on 12 April 1961, to become the first human being in space . And from there the space race proper began, culminating in Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin becoming the first people to walk on the Moon as part of NASA's Apollo programme .

Why is space travel important?

Space exploration is the future. It satisfies the human urge to explore and to travel, and in the years and decades to come it could even provide our species with new places to call home – especially relevant now, as Earth becomes increasingly crowded .

Extending our reach into space is also necessary for the advancement of science. Space telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope and probes to the distant worlds of the Solar System are continually updating, and occasionally revolutionising, our understanding of astronomy and physics.

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But there are also some very practical reasons, such as mining asteroids for materials that are extremely rare here on Earth.

One example is the huge reserve of the chemical isotope helium-3 thought to be locked away in the soil on the surface of the Moon . This isotope is a potential fuel for future nuclear fusion reactors – power stations that tap into the same source of energy as the Sun. Unlike other fusion fuels, helium-3 gives off no hard-to-contain and deadly neutron radiation.

However, for this to happen the first challenge to overcome is how to build a base on the Moon. In 2019, China's Chang’e 4 mission marked the beginning of a new space race to conquer the Moon, signalling their intent to build a permanent lunar base , while the NASA Artemis mission plans to build a space station, called Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway , providing a platform to ferry astronauts to the Moon's surface.

Could humans travel into interstellar space and how would we get there?

It’s entirely feasible that human explorers will visit the furthest reaches of our Solar System. The stars, however, are another matter. Interstellar space is so vast that it takes light – the fastest thing we know of in the Universe – years, centuries and millennia to traverse it. Faster-than-light travel may be possible one day, but is unlikely to become a reality in our lifetimes.

It’s not impossible that humans might one day cross this cosmic gulf, though it won’t be easy. The combustion-powered rocket engines of today certainly aren’t up to the job – they just don’t use fuel efficiently enough. Instead, interstellar spacecraft may create a rocket-like propulsion jet using electric and magnetic fields. This so-called ‘ ion drive ’ technology has already been tested aboard uncrewed Solar System probes.

Star Trek's USS Enterprise, the iconic warp-capable ship © Alamy

Another possibility is to push spacecraft off towards the stars using the light from a high-powered laser . A consortium of scientists calling themselves Breakthrough Starshot is already planning to send a flotilla of tiny robotic probes to our nearest star, Proxima Centauri, using just this method.

Though whether human astronauts could survive such punishing acceleration, or the decades-long journey through deep space, remains to be seen.

How do we benefit from space exploration?

Pushing forward the frontiers of science is the stated goal of many space missions . But even the development of space travel technology itself can lead to unintended yet beneficial ‘spin-off’ technologies with some very down-to-earth applications.

Notable spin-offs from the US space programme, NASA, include memory foam mattresses, artificial hearts, and the lubricant spray WD-40. Doubtless, there are many more to come.

Is space travel dangerous?

In short, yes – very. Reaching orbit means accelerating up to around 28,000kph (17,000mph, or 22 times the speed of sound ). If anything goes wrong at that speed, it’s seldom good news.

Then there’s the growing cloud of space junk to contend with in Earth's orbit – defunct satellites, discarded rocket stages and other detritus – all moving just as fast. A five-gram bolt hitting at orbital speed packs as much energy as a 200kg weight dropped from the top of an 18-storey building.

Sandra Bullock repairs the Hubble Telescope with George Clooney in Gravity © Warner Brothers

And getting to space is just the start of the danger. The principal hazard once there is cancer-producing radiation – the typical dose from one day in space is equivalent to what you’d receive over an entire year back on Earth, thanks to the planet’s atmosphere and protective magnetic field.

Add to that the icy cold airless vacuum , the need to bring all your own food and water, plus the effects of long-duration weightlessness on bone density, the brain and muscular condition – including that of the heart – and it soon becomes clear that venturing into space really isn’t for the faint-hearted.

When will space travel be available to everyone?

It’s already happening – that is, assuming your pockets are deep enough. The first self-funded ‘space tourist’ was US businessman Dennis Tito, who in 2001 spent a week aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for the cool sum of $20m (£15m).

Virgin Galactic has long been promising to take customers on short sub-orbital hops into space – where passengers get to experience rocket propulsion and several minutes of weightlessness, before gliding back to a runway landing on Earth, all for $250k (£190k). In late July 2020, the company unveiled the finished cabin in its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, suggesting that commercial spaceflights may begin shortly.

SpaceX expect that one day their Starship could carry passengers to the Moon © SpaceX/Flickr

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s SpaceX , which in May 2020 became the first private company to launch a human crew to Earth orbit aboard the Crew Dragon , plans to offer stays on the ISS for $35k (£27k) per night. SpaceX is now prototyping its huge Starship vehicle , which is designed to take 100 passengers from Earth to as far afield as Mars for around $20k (£15k) per head. Musk stated in January that he hoped to be operating 1,000 Starships by 2050.

10 Short Lessons in Space Travel by Paul Parsons is out now (£9.99, Michael O'Mara)

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The History of Space Exploration

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

Apollo 11 Astronauts on Moon

NASA photograph

Humans have been venturing into space for over 60 years. The era of space travel officially began October 4, 1957, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), or Soviet Union, launched Sputnik. It was the first human-made satellite launched into orbit Earth. The launch happened during the period of political hostility between the U.S.S.R. and the United States known as the Cold War. For several years, these two superpowers competed to develop missiles, called intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). These missiles were designed to carry nuclear weapons between continents. In the U.S.S.R., the rocket designer Sergei Korolev developed the first ICBM, a rocket called the R7. This began the space race. The competition reached its height with the launch of Sputnik. Carried on top of an R7 rocket, the Sputnik satellite sent out beeps from a radio transmitter. Sputnik orbited Earth once every 96 minutes. Its radio beeps could be detected on the ground as the satellite passed overhead, so people around the world knew Sputnik was really in orbit . NASA Is Born The United States realized that the U.S.S.R. had capabilities that exceeded U.S. technologies. Officials worried these technologies could put Americans in danger. A month after Sputnik's launch, on November 3, 1957, the USSR achieved an even more impressive accomplishment. This was Sputnik II, a satellite that carried the first living creature into space. Its passenger was a dog named Laika. Before the launch of Sputnik, the United States made two failed attempts to launch a satellite into space. Then, on January 31, 1958, the United States successfully launched its first satellite , the Explorer. Explorer rode into space on top of a powerful rocket called Jupiter C, which was designed by the rocket engineer Wernher von Braun. The satellite carried several instruments for conducting science experiments in space. They included a Geiger counter for detecting cosmic rays. These high-energy rays rain down on our solar system from space. In 1958, the supervision of space exploration activities in the United States was assembled under a new government agency, called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Soviets Have Many Firsts in Space Soviet successes in space continued. The first human in space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who made one orbit around Earth on April 12, 1961. This flight lasted 108 minutes. About three weeks later, NASA launched astronaut Alan Shepard into space on a sub orbital flight. This flight went into space but did not fully orbit the planet. Shepard's flight lasted about 15 minutes. Three weeks later, President John F. Kennedy challenged the United States, 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." The Soviet Union achieved several space goals ahead of the United States. In addition to launching the first satellite , the first dog, and the first human in space, in 1959 the Soviets launched the first human-made object to hit the moon: Luna 2. Less than four months after Gagarin's 108-minute flight, a Soviet mission orbited a cosmonaut around Earth for an entire day. The U.S.S.R. achieved the first spacewalk, in which a human first took steps outside a spacecraft in outer space, in 1965. The Soviet Union also sent the first woman to space. The U.S. Space Program Takes Flight During the 1960s, NASA made progress toward President Kennedy's goal of landing a human on the moon. They did this with a program called Project Gemini. In this program, astronauts tested technology needed for future flights to the moon and their own ability to spend days in spaceflight. Project Gemini was followed by Project Apollo, which took astronauts into orbit around the moon and to the moon's surface between 1968 and 1972. In 1969, on Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon's surface. NASA had met President Kennedy's challenge and would eventually land a total of six missions on the moon. During these landed missions, astronauts collected samples of rocks and dust that scientists still study today. During the 1960s and 1970s, NASA also launched a series of space probes called Mariner, which studied the Venus, Mars, and Mercury. Probes are robotic spacecraft that fly without pilots on board. 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. This was 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 photographs, examined the chemistry of Mars' surface, and tested the dirt for microorganisms . New Technology Is Taking Up Space The Apollo Moon program ended in 1972. Since then space exploration has consisted largely of countries participating in research on the International Space Station. However, probes continue to travel throughout our solar system. In recent years, probes have made many discoveries. They have discovered oceans underneath the surface ice of a moon Jupiter and a moon of Saturn. Scientists think these oceans may contain life. Meanwhile, instruments such as the Kepler Space Telescope have discovered thousands of exoplanets . These are planets outside of our solar system that orbit other stars. Advances in technology allow these instruments to collect and record new information about the atmospheres of some of these exoplanets .

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Space in our time: a brief history of space travel

October 1957: USSR launches Sputnik 1, the first man-made object to orbit the earth. November 1957 A dog called Laika orbits the earth for seven days in Sputnik 2.

January 1958: Explorer 1, the first US satellite, lifts off from Cape Canaveral and discovers the earth's radiation belt.

October 1958: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) is set up in the US. The US probe Pioneer 1 reaches a height of 70,700 miles.

January 1959: The USSR launches Luna 1, the first man-made satellite to orbit the sun.

March 1959: The US Pioneer 4 passes within 37,000 miles of the moon.

September 1959: Luna 2, carrying a copy of the Soviet coat of arms, becomes the first man-made object to hit the moon.

October 1959: Luna 3 photographs some 70% of the far side of the moon.

April 1960: The US launches Tiros 1, the first successful weather satellite, and Discoverer XIV, the first camera-equipped spy satellite.

April 1961: The USSR launches Vostok 1. It carries Yuri Gagarin, who becomes the first man in space when he orbits the earth once.

May 1961: Mercury Freedom 7 carries Alan Shepard into a sub-orbital space, making him the first American in space.

August 1961: Gherman Titov, aboard Vostok 2, undertakes the first day-long space flight.

February 1962: John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth.

July 1962: US satellite Telstar 1 beams the first live transatlantic telecast.

December 1962: US Mariner 2, the first successful planetary spacecraft, flies past Venus.

June 1963: Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space. She orbits the earth 48 times.

July 1964: US Ranger 7 relays the first close-up pictures of the moon.

March 1965: Soviet cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov undertakes the first space walk. It lasts 12 minutes.

June 1965: Edward White II makes the first US space walk - duration 22 minutes.

July 1965: US Mariner 4 returns the first close-range images from Mars.

November 1965: Launch of Soviet Venus 3. Four months later, it becomes the first craft to hit Venus.

December 1965: Frank Borman and James Lovell make 206 orbits around the earth, proving that a trip to the moon is possible. American astronauts make the first space rendezvous with another craft.

February 1966: Soviet Luna 9 is the first spacecraft to soft-land on the moon.

March 1966: Soviet Luna 10 is the first spacecraft to orbit the moon.

June 1966: Surveyor 1 is the first US spacecraft to soft-land on the moon.

August 1966: US Lunar Orbiter 1 enters moon orbit, and takes the first picture of the earth from such a distance.

April 1967: Vladimir Komarov is the first person to die in space.

September 1968: Launch of Soviet Zond 5, the first spacecraft to orbit the moon and return.

October 1968: Apollo 7 is the first manned Apollo mission. It orbits the earth once.

December 1968: Apollo 8, carrying Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, is the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon.

January 1969: Soyuz 4 and 5 perform the first Soviet spaceship docking, transferring cosmonauts between vehicles.

July 1969: Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin make the first manned soft-landing on the moon, and the first moonwalk, using Apollo 11. Mariner 6 returns to earth high-resolution images of the Martian surface.

April 1970: Apollo 13 is launched, but suffers an explosion. Its moon landing is aborted, and the crew return safely.

September 1970: Soviet Luna 16 is launched, conducting the first successful return of lunar soil samples by an automatic spacecraft.

November 1970: Luna 17 lands on the moon with the first automatic robot, Lunokhod 1, driven from controls on earth.

April 1971: The Salyut 1 space station is launched by the USSR.

June 1971: Soyuz 11 carries the first crew to occupy an orbital station. On June 29, they die on re-entry.

July 1971: David Scott and James Irwin drive the first moon rover.

March 1972: The US fires Pioneer 10 towards Jupiter with the intention of familiarising alien life with humans.

July 1972: The first probable black hole is discovered.

May 1973: Launch of US Skylab Workshop.

June 1974: USSR launches Salyut 3, its first military space station.

December 1974: USSR launches Salyut 4, its first civilian space station.

July 1975: The American Apollo 18 and Soviet Soyuz 19 dock - it is the first international spacecraft rendezvous.

September 1976: Viking 2 lands on Mars and finds ice.

December 1978: Two Pioneer spacecraft reach Venus.

September 1979: Pioneer 11 flies within 13,000 miles of Saturn.

March 1982: The USSR obtains the first Venusian soil analysis.

April 1982: The Soviet Salyut 7 space station is launched.

May 1982: Soviet cosmonauts begin a 211-day occupation of a space station, a new record.

August 1982: Voyager 2 completes its fly-by of Saturn.

November 1982: The space shuttle Columbia deploys two satellites, its first operational mission.

April 1983: The space shuttle Challenger lifts off for its first mission, which marks the first American space walk in nine years.

June 1983: Sally K Ride becomes the first American woman in space.

November 1983: The space shuttle Columbia carries the European Space Agency (ESA) Spacelab-1 into orbit. Its crew includes the German Ulf Merbold, the first ESA member in space.

January-November 1983: The Infrared Astronomical Satellite finds new comets, asteroids, galaxies and possible planets.

February 1984: Bruce McCandless takes the first untethered space walk.

December 1984: Soviet/International Vega 1 and 2 are launched, dropping probes into Venus's atmosphere before continuing to Halley's Comet.

January 1985: The Sakigake probe is launched by Japan's Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science, and makes a rendezvous with Halley's Comet.

April 1985: The space shuttle Challenger carries the ESA Spacelab-3 into orbit.

July 1985: The ESA launches the Giotto spacecraft from an Ariane rocket.

October 1985: Spacelab D1 becomes the first joint German/ESA mission.

January 1986: Voyager 2 flies past Uranus. The space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after liftoff.

February 1986: The core unit of the Soviet space station Mir is launched.

May 1989: The space shuttle Atlantis is launched, deploying the spacecraft Magellan, bound for Venus.

October 1989: The US Galileo spacecraft sets off for Venus and Jupiter.

April 1990: The space shuttle Discovery deploys the Edwin P Hubble Space Telescope.

August 1990: Magellan arrives at Venus.

February 1992: The US spacecraft Ulysses flies around Jupiter on its way to the sun.

February 1994: A Russian cosmonaut flies on a US space shuttle for the first time.

February 1995: The US space shuttle Discovery prepares to dock with the Russian space station Mir. It is the first shuttle mission to be flown by a female pilot.

March 1995: Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov returns to earth after a 438-day mission aboard Mir, setting a new space endurance record.

December 1995: Galileo reaches Jupiter.

March 1996: Shannon Lucid becomes the first female astronaut to crew a space station.

November 1996: A Russian spacecraft bound for Mars ignites prematurely and crashes into the ocean off Chile carrying 270g plutonium.

July 1997: Pathfinder lands on Mars, the first landing on the red planet since the Viking missions in 1976.

January 1998: Launch of joint ESA/Nasa Cassini mission to explore Saturnian system. Lunar Prospector arrives on moon in search of information that could one day help scientists plan a lunar base.

March 1998: Lunar Prospector discovers ice on the moon.

July 1998: Japan launches a probe to reach Mars in 2003.

October 1998: John Glenn, now a 77-year-old senator, returns to space aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

November 1998: Assembly work begins on the International Space Station.

May 1999: A shuttle docks with the International Space Station for the first time.

July 1999: Colonel Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to command a shuttle mission.

July 2000: Russia launches a living quarters module, its contribution to the International Space Station.

October 2000: A 10-day mission to the International Space Station marks the 100th shuttle flight.

November 2000: The first permanent crew sets up home aboard the International Space Station.

Destination Moon: The 350-Year History of Lunar Exploration (Infographic)

For centuries before Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the idea of going there stirred people's imaginations. <a href=http://www.space.com/26541-moon-exploration-350-year-history-infographic.html>See Space.com's complete look at humanity's love affair with the moon in this infographic</a>.

From ancient times, humans looked at the moon and wondered what it was, and if it were possible to go there. Prior to the invention of the telescope, people thought the moon was simply a glowing disc in the sky, and planets were moving points of light. Nothing else was known about them.

When 17th-century Italian astronomer Galileo first pointed a crude telescope at the moon, he noted that the orb had terrain including mountains, flat plains and craters. Therefore, the moon was solid, and its surface might be walked upon.

English mathematician Isaac Newton in the late 1600s reasoned that a cannon shell fired from a tall mountain would be pulled down to the Earth by gravity (diagram, above). A shell fired with a speed of 24,000 feet per second (7,300 meters per second) would fall continuously around the curve of the Earth . It would be in orbit. If the shell were fired even faster, it would leave the Earth and head into space. Such speed would require fuel with a great amount of propulsive energy that would not be available for about another 250 years.

Moon-Shots: Apollo Astronauts Remember

Early moon-voyage stories usually featured balloons, birds or dreams as the mode of travel. French novelist Jules Verne’s 1865 novel "From the Earth to the Moon" imagines travelers shot around the moon by a giant cannon. In reality, the acceleration from such a blast would kill the occupants, but at least the physics was correct.

By the start of the 20th century, technology had advanced to the point that space travel began to seem achievable. The Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1903 worked out his rocket equation, a mathematical basis for space propulsion . It was later realized that a British mathematician had discovered the same equation in 1813, while studying how artillery works.

The first film to show realistic scenes of space travel, Fritz Lang's "The Woman in the Moon" (1929), relied on the advice of Romanian rocket scientist Hermann Oberth. The spacecraft, called "Friede," anticipated real technologies such as multiple stages and liquid fuel. The design was so plausible, the German Gestapo confiscated the rocket blueprints in the 1930s.

In World War II, Nazi Germany developed rockets to bombard enemy cities. The country's rocket scientists, led by Wernher von Braun, used slave labor in concentration camps to build more than 3,000 A-4 rockets (also called V-2). Ultimately, more people died making the rockets than the weapons killed and wounded in the target cities.

After the war, German rocket scientists captured by the United States and Soviet Union worked to develop massive new rockets for those countries' nuclear weapons and space exploration programs. Wernher von Braun appeared in the media of the 1950s, popularizing nuclear-powered rockets, space stations and trips to the moon. His ideas heavily influenced entertainment of the day.

How the Apollo 11 Moon Landing Worked (Infographic)

Von Braun envisioned huge expeditions to the moon and Mars. His enormous moon lander would have been assembled in Earth orbit by a space station crew. The entire lunar expedition would consist of three such vehicles, and would have carried a crew of 50 to the moon in 1977.

By the late 1950s, both the United States and Soviet Union were developing ever more powerful rockets to loft the massive hydrogen bombs of that time. Of course, those rockets could also be used to put satellites in space .

In the early 1960s, to counter the spectacular space achievements of the Soviet Union, U.S. President John F. Kennedy asked what technological project would be so bold as to impress the entire world. In 1962, Kennedy announced that America would choose to go to the moon within the decade.

NASA's Mighty Saturn V Moon Rocket Explained (Infographic)

In 1960, the Apollo spacecraft was planned as a follow-up to the one-man Mercury capsule . For lunar exploration, the entire 66-foot-tall (20 m) Apollo would be launched directly to the moon and would have to land vertically.

Because of the problems of landing such a huge vehicle and storing the large amount of fuel required, some at NASA considered other options. John C. Houbolt (below) championed the lunar orbit rendezvous concept. Apollo would be split in two: a command module, which would not land, and a separate lunar excursion vehicle, or "bug." The vehicles would link up in lunar orbit once the surface exploration was done.

NASA's Historic Apollo 11 Moon Landing in Pictures

NASA's 17 Apollo Moon Missions in Pictures

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Karl's association with Space.com goes back to 2000, when he was hired to produce interactive Flash graphics. From 2010 to 2016, Karl worked as an infographics specialist across all editorial properties of Purch (formerly known as TechMediaNetwork). Before joining Space.com, Karl spent 11 years at the New York headquarters of The Associated Press, creating news graphics for use around the world in newspapers and on the web. He has a degree in graphic design from Louisiana State University and now works as a freelance graphic designer in New York City.

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Space First: From Space Dogs to a Tesla

NASA / Newsmakers / Getty Images

An Introduction to Astronomy
Important Astronomers
Solar System
Stars, Planets, and Galaxies
Space Exploration
Weather & Climate

Even though space exploration has been a "thing" since the late 1950s, astronomers and astronauts continue to explore the "firsts." For example, on February 6, 2018, Elon Musk and SpaceX launched the first Tesla into space. The company did this as part of the first test flight of its Falcon Heavy rocket.

Both SpaceX and rival company Blue Origins have been developing reusable rockets to lift people and payloads to space. Blue Origins made the first launch of a reusable on November 23, 2015. Since that time, reusables have proven themselves to be stalwart members of the launch inventory.

In the not-too-distant future, other first-time space events will happen, ranging from missions to the Moon to missions to Mars. Each time a mission flies, there's a first time for something. That was especially true back in the 1950s and '60s when the rush to the Moon was heating up between the United States and the then-Soviet Union. Ever since then, the space agencies of the world have been lofting people, animals, plants, and more into space.

The First Canine Astronaut in Space

Before people could go to space, space agencies tested animals. Monkeys, fish, and small animals were sent first. America had Ham the Chimp. Russia had the famous dog Laika , the first canine astronaut. She was launched into space on the Sputnik 2 in 1957. She survived for a time in space. However, after a week, the air ran out and Laika died. The following year, as its orbit deteriorated, the craft left space and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and, without heat shields, burned up, along with Laika's body.

The First Human in Space

The flight of Yuri Gagarin , a cosmonaut from the USSR, came as a complete surprise to the world, much to the pride and joy of the former Soviet Union. He was launched into space on April 12, 1961, aboard the Vostok 1. It was a short flight, only an hour and 45 minutes. During his single orbit of Earth, Gagarin admired our planet and radioed home, "It has a very beautiful sort of halo, a rainbow."

The First American in Space

Not to be outdone, the United States worked to get their astronaut into space. The first American to fly was Alan Shepard, and he took his ride aboard Mercury 3 on May 5, 1961. Unlike Gagarin, however, his craft did not achieve orbit. Instead, Shepard took a suborbital trip, rising to a height of 116 miles and traveling 303 miles "down range" before parachuting safely into the Atlantic Ocean.

The First American to Orbit Earth

NASA took its time with its manned space program, making baby steps along the way. For example, the first American to orbit Earth didn't fly until 1962. On February 20, the Friendship 7 capsule carried astronaut John Glenn around our planet three times on a five-hour space flight. He was the first American to orbit our planet and subsequently became the oldest person to fly in space when he roared to orbit aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

The First Women's Achievements in Space

The early space programs were heavily male-oriented, and women were prevented from flying to space aboard U.S. missions until 1983. The honor of being the first woman to achieve orbit belongs to the Russian Valentina Tereshkova . She flew to space aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963. Tereshkova was followed 19 years later by the second woman in space, aviator Svetlana Savitskaya, who blasted off to space aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982. At the time of Sally Ride's trip aboard the U.S. space shuttle Challenger on June 18, 1983, she was also the youngest American to go to space. In 1993, Commander Eileen Collins became the first woman to fly a mission as pilot aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

The First African-Americans in Space

It took a long time for space to begin to integrate. Just as women had to wait a while to fly, so did qualified Black astronauts. On August 30, 1983, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off with Guion "Guy" Bluford Jr. , who became the first African-American in space. Nine years later, Dr. Mae Jemison lifted off in the space shuttle Endeavour on September 12, 1992. She became the first African-American woman astronaut to fly.

The First Space Walks

Once people get to space, they have to perform a variety of tasks onboard their craft. For some missions, space-walking is important, so both the U.S. and Soviet Union set out to train their astronauts in working outside the capsules. Alexei Leonov, a Soviet cosmonaut, was the first person to step outside of his spacecraft while in space, on March 18, 1965. He spent 12 minutes floating as far as 17.5 feet from his Voskhod 2 craft, enjoying the first spacewalk ever. Ed White made a 21-minute EVA (Extra-Vehicular Activity) during his Gemini 4 mission, becoming the first U.S. astronaut to float out the door of a spacecraft.

The First Human on the Moon

Most people who were alive at the time remember where they were when they heard astronaut Neil Armstrong utter the famous words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." He, Buzz Aldrin , and Michael Collins flew to the Moon on the Apollo 11 mission. He was the first to step out onto the lunar surface, on July 20, 1969. His crewmate, Buzz Aldrin, was the second one. Buzz now boasts of the event by telling people, "I was the second man on the moon, Neil before me."

Edited and updated by Carolyn Collins Petersen.

Valentina Tereshkova: The First Woman in Space
Women in Space - Timeline
History of the Apollo 11 Mission, "One Giant Leap for Mankind"
The Space Race of the 1960s
Project Gemini: NASA's Early Steps to Space
16 Black Americans in Astronomy and Space
Space Chimps and their Flight Histories
The Evolution of the Space Suit
Alan Shepard: First American in Space
Who Was Yuri Gagarin?
The History of Space Shuttle Challenger
The Future of Human Space Exploration
Apollo 8 Brought 1968 to a Hopeful End
The History and Legacy of Project Mercury
Women Astronauts

Space Facts

Firsts of Space Exploration

With the passing of Neil Armstrong on Saturday, I thought it would be a good to remember to other pioneers who were the first to achieve the landmark milestones of space exploration.

First person in space and in orbit – 12th April 1961 – Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1
First to splashdown after reaching space – 5 th May 1961 – Alan Shepard (first American in space) in Freedom 7
First person to spend more than 24 hours in space – 6 th – 7 th August 1961 – Gherman Titov in Vostok 2
First woman in space – 16 th June 1963 – Valentina Tereshkova in Vostok 6
First person to conduct a spacewalk – 18 th March 1965 – Alexei Leonov from Voskhod 2
First persons to spend a week in space – 21 st – 29 th August 1965 – Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad in Gemini 5
First space rendezvous – 15 th December 1965 – Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford between Gemini 7 and Gemina 6A

First space docking – 16 th March 1966 – Neil Armstrong and David Scott between Gemini 8 and an Agena Target Vehicle
First persons to orbit the moon – 24 th – 25 th December 1968 – Bill Anders, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell in Apollo 8
First man on the moon – 20 th July 1969 – Neil Armstrong from Apollo 11

First persons to spend four weeks in space – 25 th May – 22 nd June 1973 – Pete Conrad, Joseph Kerwin and Paul Weitz in Skylab 2
First American woman in space – June 18 th 1983 – Sally Ride in Space Shuttle Challenger
First untethered spacewalk – 7 th February 1984 – Bruce McCandless from Space Shuttle Challenger

Persons in space for a year in space – 21 st December 1987 – 1988 – Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov on the space station Mir

If you think any important firsts are missing let me know and I can add them. Images from NASA.gov .

Related space facts:

Those images were so cool! Thanks, really helped me on my project.

Thank you very much for helping me refresh my long-lost memory from learning about historic space feats in school and TV. I would like for you to please also add the following facts: the first living thing to venture out into space which was a Soviet female dog named Laika riding aboard Sputnik 2, and also the only space walk ever accomplished outside of Low Earth Orbit, which occured aftr a repair was needed on the trip home from the moon to the Earth on the return vehicle used after the main lunar mission was completed in one of America’s several manned lunnar expeditions under the Apollo space program’s supervision in NASA several main histroric programs.

as we saw in the 2nd last pic that the man is on the moon and the flag of the united states of america is some what waving. since there is no gravity on the moon how the man can be standing there and we’ve also read that there is no atmosphere on moon so how can the flag be waving and how is flag attached to the moon ?????

Hi Dev, interestingly there is gravity on the Moon it is just 1/10 that of the Earth’s not zero gravity as you claim (this would change the fundamental laws of physics if a body the size and mass of the Moon had no gravity), the flag is not actually waving it has a metal tube holding it in position so it doesn’t look limp (this is actually visible in the image).

I’m answering to DEV who apparently doesn’t know that because there is no atmosphere on the moon that there is less air resistance so the flag flaps.

From: An eleven year old boy named Jake who is in 5th grade

i want to land on the moon

I love the earth now and the moons dark side is a myth

85 Inspiring Space Quotes for All Mankind

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These space quotes offer inspiration from the final frontier.

On July 20th, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins manned the Saturn V rocket, departing the Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 a.m EDT, and landing the moon module (the Eagle ) at 4:18 p.m EDT.

With more than half a billion people watching live on television, Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder and proclaimed: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Aldrin joined him shortly afterwards, offering the people at home a simple but powerful description of the surface of the moon: “magnificent desolation.” The astronauts explored the lunar surface for two and a half hours, taking photos and collecting samples.

Before heading back to Earth, the crew left behind an American flag, a patch honoring the fallen crew of Apollo 1, and a plaque on one of the Eagle’s legs. It reads, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”

Their successful mission was the culmination of both big dreams and hard work, as the world responded to President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to America to “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.” (May 25th, 1961).

2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the incredible moon landing . In honor of all those who dared to dream of seeing a world beyond this one, we’ve collected the very best quotes about space together in one place.

Page Contents

Quotes about Space Travel and Exploration

In 1961, when Kennedy challenged the United States to put a man on the moon and bring him home again, our fascination with space and space exploration was already evident.

The incredible leaps in engineering and technology that made the Apollo missions possible, as well as the courage of the men who went into space, were fueled by the desire to see and know more than ever before.

Today, we are still fascinated by space and the idea of space travel. Space continues to represent a new frontier for mankind, fascinating and scaring us in equal measure. We continue to push the boundaries of our knowledge, awaiting the day when travel into space is as open and accessible as air travel.

A space quote between the earth and moon shot from the International Space Station

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it–we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. John F. Kennedy

I believe that space travel will one day become as common as airline travel is today. I’m convinced, however, that the true future of space travel does not lie with government agencies — NASA is still obsessed with the idea that the primary purpose of the space program is science — but real progress will come from private companies competing to provide the ultimate adventure ride, and NASA will receive the trickle-down benefits. Buzz Aldrin

The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

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. John F. Kennedy

Space is for everybody. It’s not just for a few people in science or math, or for a select group of astronauts. That’s our new frontier out there, and it’s everybody’s business to know about space. Christa McAuliffe

A Carl Sagan quote against a Hubble Telescope image of a distant galaxy

Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national spirit. So let us continue the journey. George W. Bush

The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space. John F. Kennedy

On one side are those who believe space travel is difficult work, but who go for it anyway. On the other are those who believe caring for a goldfish is, and who don’t go after much of anything. Where we choose to seed ourselves on the spectrum of what’s possible is what will ultimately define the size of our lives. Mary-Jo Dionne

Human exploration and colonization of Mars will keep us busy for hundreds, even thousands, of years. During that time, there will be advances in nanotechnology, space sailing, robotics, biomolecular engineering, and artificial intelligence. These advances are occurring even now, affecting our outlook about what it means to be human and engage in human activity. Those technologies will not merely allow us to stay home on Earth and Mars, but our minds will extend our presence throughout the universe so that we will not need or want to extend our bodies there — even if we could, which I think is doubtful. Louis Friedman

The Columbia Space Shuttle taking off from Cape Canaveral, Florida

Quotes from Astronauts

It’s incredible to think that there are people who have spent time in Space, looking at the Earth, the stars, and the other planets, walking among us and living ordinary lives. These quotes reveal what motivates them to take flight, what our planet looks like from Space, and what space travel has taught them about life here on Earth.

Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination. Mae Jemison

I know the sky is not the limit because there are footprints on the Moon — and I made some of them! Buzz Aldrin

Gene Cernan standing on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 17 Mission

To some this may look like a sunset. But it’s a new dawn. Chris Hadfield

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’ Edgar Mitchell

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. Neil Armstrong

Earth is a small town with many neighborhoods in a very big universe. Ron Garan

I looked and looked but I didn’t see God. Yuri Gagarin, speaking in 1961 about being the first human in space

Gene Cernan quote about curiosity over a picture of him walking in space

I am also planning to leave a lot of things undone. Part of life’s mystery depends on future possibilities, and mystery is an elusive quality which evaporates when sampled frequently, to be followed by boredom. For example, catching various types of fish is on my list of good things to do, but I would be reluctant to rush into it, even if i had the time. I want no part of destroying fishing as a mysterious sport. Michael Collins

Gravity hurts. Viktor Alexandrov

In the van, we can see the rocket in the distance, lit up and shining, an obelisk. In reality, of course, it’s a 4.5-megaton bomb loaded with explosive fuel, which is why everyone else is driving away from it. Chris Hadfield

I find it curious that I never heard any astronaut say that he wanted to go to the Moon so he would be able to look back and see the Earth. We all wanted to see what the Moon looked like close up. Yet, for most of us, the most memorable sight was not of the Moon but of our beautiful blue and white home, moving majestically around the sun, all alone and infinite black space. Alan Bean

We are limited only by our imagination and our will to act. Ron Garan

The view of the earth from the moon in a photo taken by Apollo Astronauts

I thought the attractions of being an astronaut were actually, not so much the moon, but flying in a completely new medium. Neil Armstrong

When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried. Alan Shepherd

Anyone who sits on top of the largest hydrogen-oxygen fueled system in the world, knowing they’re going to light the bottom, and doesn’t get a little worried, does not fully understand the situation. John Young

The scenery was very beautiful. But I did not see The Great Wall. Yang Liwei

The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic. The Earth was absolutely round. I believe I never knew what the word round meant until I saw Earth from space. Alexi Leonov

Mars has been flown by, orbited, smacked into, radar examined, and rocketed onto, as well as bounced upon, rolled over, shoveled, drilled into, baked and even blasted. Still to come: Mars being stepped on. Buzz Aldrin

A clear night sky blanketed with bright stars over the Utah desert

The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally, it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. James Irwin

Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth… home. Edgar Mitchell

What everyone in the astronaut corps shares in common is not gender or ethnic background, but motivation, perseverance , and desire — the desire to participate in a voyage of discovery. Ellen Ochoa

To become an astronaut is not a question of being the best at something or things coming easy to you, but it’s being a person that can work with others and not give up . And, for me, that was part of it too. Michael J. Massimino

Astronaut Allan Shepard by the lunar module on thew moon during Apollo 14

It’s easy to sleep floating around — it’s very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don’t float into somebody or something! James Irwin

Any astronaut can tell you you’ve got to do everything you can to learn about your life support system and then do everything you can to take care of it. Sylvia Earle

Astronauts are inherently insane. And really noble. Andy Weir

I don’t know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets. John Glenn

Of course risk is part of spaceflight. We accept some of that to achieve greater goals in exploration and find out more about ourselves and the universe. Lisa Nowak

An astronaut in an orange space suit in a training simulator at NASA in Houston

Space Quotes from Astrophysicists

From the observations of a heliocentric solar system by Galileo Galilei in the early 17th century, to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time , space is the question that has intrigued some of the greatest minds in every generation.

The best and brightest of those who study space have disseminated their knowledge in ways that have been approachable to anyone who wants to find out more about the universe. They have brought together the “big questions” about science, the way the universe works, the role of our solar system, and our place within it. These are some of their best and most intriguing quotes!

One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist…..Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist. Stephen Hawking

I don’t think the human race will survive the next 1,000 years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist . We will reach out to the stars. Stephen Hawking

Photo of the moon against a pure black background of space

Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the Universe exist. Be curious . And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Stephen Hawking

When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. Albert Einstein

In the context of general relativity, space almost is a substance. It can bend and twist and stretch, and probably the best way to think about space is to just kind of imagine a big piece of rubber that you can pull and twist and bend. Alan Guth

However we select from nature a complex [of phenomena] using the criterion of simplicity, in no case will its theoretical treatment turn out to be forever appropriate (sufficient)…. I do not doubt that the day will come when [general relativity], too, will have to yield to another one, for reasons which at present we do not yet surmise. I believe that this process of deepening theory has no limits. Albert Einstein

Most of what Einstein said and did has no direct impact on what anybody reads in the Bible. Special relativity, his work in quantum mechanics, nobody even knows or cares. Where Einstein really affects the Bible is the fact that general relativity is the organizing principle for the Big Bang. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Albert Einstein writing on a board wile lecturing on the Theory of Relativity

For every one billion particles of antimatter there were one billion and one particles of matter. And when the mutual annihilation was complete, one billionth remained – and that’s our present universe. Albert Einstein

Einstein was searching for String Theory. It not only reconciles General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics, but it reconciles Science and the Bible as well. Roy H. Williams

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Carl Sagan

I speak now not as a planetary scientist but as someone who has colleagues who are planetary scientists and this is what they told me. Who doesn’t want to go to Europa? The problem is the technology to enable that is not yet available. And so if you direct monies to go to Europa prematurely and you find out that it fails, for whatever reason, it would not have been an effective investment of your money. So you say, “Well, we can try to go to Europa, but it might fail, or maybe the technology won’t come for yet another decade or we know how to get to Mars. We know how to do air bags and drop rovers and those sort of things, so let’s do that.” So we’re prioritizing not so much the science but we’re prioritizing what’s doable. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Carl Sagan quote over the Milky Way galaxy in the Cosmos

By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox. Galileo Galilei

In my studies of astronomy and philosophy I hold this opinion about the universe, that the Sun remains fixed in the centre of the circle of heavenly bodies, without changing its place; and the Earth, turning upon itself, moves round the Sun. Galileo Galilei

The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. Carl Sagan

To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit. Stephen Hawking

Cosmology does, I think, affect the way that we perceive humanity’s role in nature. One thing we’ve learnt from astronomy is that the future lying ahead is more prolonged than the past. Even our sun is less than halfway through its life. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved? Carl Sagan

Neil Degrasse Tyson standing under the night sky admiring the bright stars

His conflict with the Catholic Church arose because deep in his heart Galileo was a believer. There was for him no path of compromise, no way to have separate secular and theological cosmologies. If the Copernican system was true as he believed, what else could Galileo do but fight with every weapon he had in his arsenal of logic, rhetoric, scientific observation, mathematical theory, and cunning insight, to make his Church accept a new system of the universe? Bernard Cohen

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all. Stephen Hawking

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy. Albert Einstein

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. Carl Sagan

Galileo quote over a picture of the great central sun at the galactic core

Space in Popular Culture

Our fascination with space, the universe, and our place in it, isn’t just limited to real-life knowledge and proven fact. It has crossed into writing, music, TV, and movies; offering up new perspectives on old space missions, pictures of new worlds, and visions of a future beyond our solar system.

From the novels of Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke, to the Doctor Who series, and David Bowie’s unforgettable Space Oddity , popular culture gives us a window on what we hope, and fear, to find beyond the stars.

A view of the bright lights of cities on the Easter Seaboard at night from space

I’m sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It’s just been too intelligent to come here. Arthur C. Clarke

It’s a fixer-upper of a planet but we could make it work.” Elon Musk on Inhabiting Mars

Space travels in my blood / There ain’t nothing I can do about it / Long journeys wear me out / But I know I can’t live without it, oh no The Only Ones, Another Girl Another Planet

Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time. Doris Lessing

In the past, it was only in science fiction novels that you could read about ordinary people being able to go to space… But you laid the foundation for space tourism. Nursultan Nazarbayev

900 years of time and space and I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important. Doctor Who

In science fiction, we dream. In order to colonize in space, to rebuild our cities, which are so far out of whack, to tackle any number of problems, we must imagine the future, including the new technologies that are required. Ray Bradbury

A starry night sky with a green hue over rolling hills in Monatana

We cannot predict the new forces, powers, and discoveries that will be disclosed to us when we reach the other planets and set up new laboratories in space. They are as much beyond our vision today as fire or electricity would be beyond the imagination of a fish. Arthur C. Clarke

The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future, but sometimes to prevent it. Frank Herbert

Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity – distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. Douglas Adams, A Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy

I’m floating in a most peculiar way / And the stars look very different today / For here Am I sitting in a tin can / Far above the world / Planet Earth is blue / And there’s nothing I can do. David Bowie, Space Oddity

A view of the sun peeking around the Earth from Russian Space Station Mir

We hope you’ve enjoyed this collection of Space Quotes! As we continue to search the stars, let’s hope that 50 years from now we have an achievement as monumental as the 1969 Moon Landing to celebrate. Stay inspired!

Natalie Seale

3 thoughts on “85 Inspiring Space Quotes for All Mankind”

Great article! These quotes surely can relate to anyone. “It’s a fixer-upper of a planet but we could make it work.” Elon musk. I like this quote because I am tech person and it resonates with how humans were able to innovate and create the planet we have today.

I believe that in the future man will be having two houses, one on earth and one in space, closely connected.

Space & it’s horizon is endless. We can not even imagine it’s limitations & boundaries.

when was space travel first thought of

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Replicas of the Apollo 11 Space Suit and the Apollo ﻿16 EMU Space Suit. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives and Records Administration, Prop 1148, P.2015.6

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin re-creates his moonwalk at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda on June 12, 2013. Photographs Courtesy of the Richard Nixon Foundation.

Split-screen of President Richard Nixon and the Apollo 11 astronauts on a White House television, July 20, 1969. (NAID 66394157 ).

While in the White House Oval Office on July 20, 1969, President Nixon used this green telephone to talk to the Apollo 11 astronauts while they walked on the moon. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives and Records Administration, 1979.12

"President Nixon - Welcome - Apollo XI Astronauts - USS Hornet." Photograph. NASA. From JSC, July 24, 1969. https://images.nasa.gov/details-S69-21365 (accessed July 14, 2021).

President Nixon and Alexei Kosygin signing the Space Agreement titled "The Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes." 5/24/1972, Moscow, Russia, USSR, Grand Kremlin Palace, St. Vladimir Hall. (WHPO-9179-06)

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Replicas of the Apollo 11 Space Suit and the Apollo 16 EMU Space Suit. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives and Records Administration, Prop 1148, P.2015.6