12 Questions About the History of Space Exploration Answered

Explosive chemical reactions are what send spacecraft into space. A rocket burns fuel to produce a jet of hot, expanding gas. The specific fuel used varies, but whatever the mixture, it causes the explosive chemical reaction. Because a rocket needs thrust to escape Earth’s gravity, the explosive chemical reaction takes place in a confined chamber and releases gases into a cone-shaped nozzle out the back end of the rocket. The cone shape accelerates the gases, and they blast out of the engine at up to 9,941 miles (15,998 kilometers) per hour.

The Soviet satellite Sputnik 1, which was launched into space on October 4, 1957, was the first spacecraft to go into orbit around Earth. It had no crew members or animals aboard, but it instead contained machines that sent information back to Earth via radio. The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik prompted the United States to get its first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit quickly, igniting the so-called space race. This was the two countries rivalry over being the “first” in many areas of space exploration. Explorer 1's test run in December 1957 burned on the ground, but the satellite was successfully launched into orbit around Earth on January 31, 1958.

NASA’s space shuttles were partially reusable spacecraft that took off from Earth like rockets but landed like aircraft. The space shuttle’s formal name was the Space Transportation System (STS). It was used to orbit Earth, where its crew could do scientific work, place satellites in orbit, and visit space stations. Usually five to seven crew members rode the space shuttles, which were launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Six shuttles were built. The first orbiter, Enterprise, was built in 1974 for testing purposes. Five others went into space: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. The space shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after launch in 1986, and Endeavour was built as a replacement. Columbia broke apart during re-entry in 2003. The first crewed flight of NASA’s space shuttle program occurred in 1981; the program continued until 2011, when the Atlantis carried out its final mission.

Space suits come in different sizes, and the various body parts, such as the arms and legs, attach together for a customized fit. Traditionally, the inner suit includes a layer of tubing, which is filled with a cool liquid; the outer suit is made of multiple layers of materials such as Dacron, nylon, and aluminum (Mylar). The boots come attached to the legs, and the middle part of the spacesuit, which covers the torso, is made of inflexible fiberglass. In all, the modern space suit is like a modern-day suit of arms, which is put over the head. Built-in backpacks hold life-support systems, cameras, and other items useful for space exploration.

According to NASA, the Hubble Space Telescope transmits about 120 gigabytes of science data every week. Among its many discoveries, the HST has revealed the age of the universe to be about 13 to 14 billion years. The telescope also played a key role in the discovery of dark energy, a force that causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. The HST has shown scientists galaxies in “toddler” stages of growth, helping them understand how galaxies form. It found protoplanetary disks, clumps of gas and dust around young stars that likely function as birthing grounds for new planets. It also discovered that gamma-ray bursts—incredibly powerful explosions of energy—occur in far-distant galaxies when massive stars collapse.

A space probe is an uncrewed spacecraft that flies into outer space. It may land on the Moon, planets, or other astronomical bodies, go into orbit around them, or fly past them. Its purpose is to conduct research. It contains cameras and advanced equipment so that it can send pictures back to Earth by radio. The first successful space probe took place in 1959 with the Soviet Luna 1, which passed within 3,725 miles (5,995 kilometers) of the Moon’s surface after 83 hours of flight. It then went into orbit around the Sun, between the orbits of Earth and Mars. In 1977 the United States launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 from rockets. These space probes explored all the giant planets of our outer solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), 48 of their moons, and the unique system of rings and magnetic fields for each of those planets. Since then, numerous countries have sent many probes into the solar system on a variety of different missions.

The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space when he made a full orbit of Earth in Vostok I on April 12, 1961. He was in space less than two hours, and he became an international hero. The United States launched the first American into orbit on February 20, 1962: astronaut John Glenn completed three orbits of Earth in Friendship 7, traveling about 81,000 miles (130,329 kilometers).

Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut, was the first woman in space. She spent three days circling Earth, completing 48 orbits aboard Vostok 6, which launched on June 16, 1963. The United States put a woman in space 20 years later, on June 18, 1983, when astronaut Sally Ride flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger mission STS-7.

Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly in space during the space shuttle Challenger mission STS-8, which took place from August 30 to September 5, 1983. He returned to space again in 1985 aboard the Challenger. Mae C. Jemison became the first African American woman in space on September 12, 1992, when she flew aboard the space shuttle Endeavour.

During nine Apollo missions, 24 astronauts (all Americans) have gone to the Moon, and 12 of them walked on it. As part of the Artemis space program, launched in 2017, NASA aims to return humans to the Moon by 2025, with the goal of establishing a sustainable presence there and on other planets. The program also seeks to land the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon, and that woman may be Jessica Meir.

The Apollo flights landing astronauts on the moon took place between 1969 and 1972, and each had a crew of three. However, since one crew member remained in orbit in the command service module, the other two actually stepped onto the Moon. When Neil Armstrong became the first astronaut in history to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969, he said, “That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

In 1957 the first animal, a small female dog named Laika, was launched aboard the Soviet Sputnik 2. Laika was placed in a pressurized compartment within a capsule that weighed 1,103 pounds (500 kilograms), and she died after a few days in orbit. The United States send a squirrel monkey named Old Reliable into space aboard the December 12, 1958, Jupiter flight, but it drowned during recovery. The next year, on another Jupiter flight, NASA sent two female monkeys into space and both were recovered alive.

A space station is an orbiting satellite that allows astronauts to live in space for weeks or months at a time. The first U.S. space station, called Skylab, was launched on May 14, 1973. In 1973 and 1974, three more crewed missions followed, during which astronauts observed Earth, solar flares, and the comet Kohoutek. Skylab included a solar observatory, a laboratory for studying the effects of microgravity, and a refrigerator that held prime rib, German potato salad, and ice cream. Skylab orbited Earth 2,476 times during the 171 days and 13 hours of its three crewed missions. Assembly of the International Space Station began in 1998, and its first resident crew arrived in 2000.