The dreams of space travel were around for hundreds of years, from Greek scientists looking through telescopes to now, where we're in space studying and doing experiments.
Timeline of space travel history
October 4, 1957
-
The first man-made object to orbit the Earth
was called Sputnik 1. It was launched
by the USSR and stayed in orbit until January 4, 1958.
October 1, 1958 - NASA is founded, taking over the existing National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics.
September 12, 1959 - Luna 2 is the first
man-made object to hit the moon on September 13 carrying the Soviet coat of arms.
April 1, 1960 - The first weather satellite is launched by the US. It was called Tiros1.
February 20, 1962 - The first American in orbit, John H. Glenn Jr. aboard Mercury Friendship 7 orbits the earth three times.
June 3, 1965
-
The first U.S. space walk is made by Edward White II from Gemini 4 which
lasted 22 minutes.
April 23, 1967
- The Soviet Soyuz 1 is launched, carrying
Vladimir M. Komarov. It crashed on April 24, killing Komarov and making him the
first space flight death.
July 20, 1969 - American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin Jr. make the first manned soft landing on the moon, and the first moonwalk, during the Apollo 11 mission.
June 19, 1983 - Sally K. Ride becomes the first American woman to travel in space on Challenger mission STS-7.
March 22, 1995 - Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov broke the record by staying in space aboard Mir Space Station for 438 days.
January 6, 1998 -
NASA launches the Lunar Prospector spacecraft to survey the moon's surface. It
returned data which says there are anywhere from one billion to ten billion tons
of ice crystals in the moon's polar craters. This increases possibilities for
future existence on the moon.
October 29, 1998 -
American astronaut John Glenn, 77, returns to space aboard Space Shuttle
Discovery as part of a study on the effects of space travel on the human body
and the aging process. He becomes the oldest person to travel in space. Also
aboard is Pedro Duque, the first Spanish astronaut and a member of the European
Space Agency.
May 27, 1999 - Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-96 launches successfully to become the first mission to dock to the International Space Station.
Feb 26, 2004
- All the crew members aboard the International Space Station for the first time
will go on a space walk.