We have come a long way from the earliest discoveries made by ancient astronomers, and space technology is improving at an incredible rate. Although some of the more famous space missions, Sputnik, Vostok 1, the Apollo 11 project, and Voyager are undoubtedly significant, there are several less-known missions that also made use of some of the most sophisticated technology.
A collection of case studies gives you a better understanding of just how evolved space exploration technology has become. The Galileo Mission helped us understand how the sun and planets were formed. The X-20A Dynamic Soarer (Dyna-Soar) was a single-pilot manned reusable spaceship. Although the mission never materialized due to funding issues, the Dyna-Soar was very important in the building of future space vehicles. Future spacecrafts adopted many of its useful features. The Apollo 17 – EVA 3 mission was the most recent lunar landing and EVA 3 remains the last Extravehicular activity mission conducted since.