Early space transportation
Engineers in Russia and the United States began designing suitable vehicles
for transporting human beings into space almost as soon as the Space Age
began in 1957. But the first manned spacecraft, such as Vostok, Mercury
and Gemini, were cramped, uncomfortable capsules. The next-generation Apollo
and Soyuz spacecraft had only marginally more room. But the Apollo craft
nevertheless supported crews of three astronauts on daring flights to the
Moon and back, not once but nine times. Not until 1981 did the modern era
of space travel begin, at least for the Americans, using the Space Shuttle,
the world's first reusable spaceship. The Russians launched a shuttle craft
in 1988.
On
12 April 1961 the USSR made the first human flight in space by launching
a 5-tonne spaceship Vostok 1. It was manned by the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
(1934-1968) who made a complete circuit of the Earth at a height of 303
km 8 miles). He orbited the Earth once in a Vostok 1 capsule and remained
in space for 1 hour and 29 minutes before landing by parachute after ejecting
safely in the USSR. He was hailed as a national hero and is seen here being
lauded by the Premier of the USSR, Nikita Khruschev.
The
Americans, racing to catch up, managed to launch Alan Shepard in a Mercury
capsule named Freedom 7 on a 15-minute suborbital flight into space on
5 May 1961. Not until 20 February 1962 did John Glenn become the first
American in orbit, circling the Earth three times in the Mercury capsule
Friendship 7. They both splashed down at sea.
Virgil Grissom in the Mercury capsule Liberty Bell 7 (left) blasts off
the pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 21 July 1961 to begin a 15-minute
suborbital flight.
The Russians launched the first multiple crew into space in a modified
Vostok craft called Voshkod 1 in October 1964. The second-generation US
spacecraft was the Gemini. It was named after the constellation of the
zodiac, whose English name is the Twins. It was an apt name because the
Gemini craft carried a crew of two. Twelve highly-successful Gemini flights
took place in 1965 and 1966, during which the astronauts practised spacewalking,
manoeuvring in orbit, and other techniques that would be needed on the
Apollo missions to the Moon.
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