Spacecraft

picture : The Space Shuttle courtesy of NASA

Rocketry

The first records of the use of rockets go back hundreds of years. The Chinese have been using gunpowder for more than two millenia, and rockets were certainly used for purposes of war by the thirteenth century, if not much earlier. Rockets had certainly made their way into European military tactics by the fourteenth century, and throughout the next few hundred years, their use became more and more commonplace. It was not, however, until the second world war until they started to resemble the space rockets still used today.

Under Hitler's wartime government there were many advances in military technology, especially in the field of rocketry. Wernher von Braun, a famous German physicist, and his colleagues produced a number of different long ballistic missiles, the most famous of which was the V-2. For its time the V-2 had devastating accuracy and destructive power, but fortunately it came too late for the Nazis, and the Allies won the war. Von Braun and his team were recruited by the United States, joining up with such eminent figures as Robert Goddard. At this time the Soviet Union and the United States were both developing rockets. The V-2 was used as the basis for most rockets over the next few years, and soon developments from the V-2 were being used to put a man and his inventions into space.

The Race Into Space

The Soviet Union launced Earth's first artificial satellite, called Sputnik, into space on October 4th 1957 as part of the International Geophysical year. This was followed by many other Soviet 'firsts', not least of which was making cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin the first man in space on April 12th 1961. The Soviets also placed the first animal in space, sent the first woman into space and conducted the first space walk. (See the Astronauts and Cosmonauts page.)

The Race to the Moon

In the early 1960s the US government announced its intention to put man on the Moon. This marked the beginning of the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. In the US all previous programmes were put on hold for Project Apollo. On July 16th, 1969, after numerous manned and unmanned flights, Apollo 11 with it's crew of 3, Neil Armstrong, Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin and Michael Collins, achieved the first lunar landing. Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of another planetary body: possibly the greatest moment of space exploration history to date. (Image courtesy of NASA).