The History of Space Exploration: a Timeline

following on from centuries of direct observation  physical space exploration commenced during world war ii with verna von braun’s v2 military  rocket being the first man-made object to pass the 100 kilometer threshold the point at  which space was conventionally seen to begin it was this rocket that also provided the  very first pictures of earth from space taken at an altitude of 105 kilometers in 1949  the united states started to test the effects of space flight on mammals and albert the rhesus  monkey became the first vertebrate in space but sadly he perished during re-entry whilst  the u.s was experimenting with monkeys the soviet union was planning to send dogs  into space and two years later in 1951 saigon and desicc became the first mammal  successfully recovered after space flight but by far the most famous canine astronaut  of all time is undoubtedly like her who in 1957 became the first animal in orbit a stray  mongrel from the streets of moscow her trip was inevitably going to be her last as no de-orbiting  technology existed yet but she paved the way for human space flight in the subsequent years  before now little was known about the effects of space flight on living organisms and prior  to leica many scientists believed it would be impossible for humans to survive the launch  as well as the effects of 0g environments this was also the year that the ussr launched  sputnik 1 the first ever artificial satellite the 58 centimeter polished sphere broadcast  radio pulses that could be picked up on earth by radio amateurs it orbited for  three weeks until its batteries died and it drifted silently before falling  back into the atmosphere two months later today a new moon is in the sky a 23-inch  metal sphere placed in orbit by a russian rocket here an artist’s conception  of how the feat was accomplished a three-stage rocket number one the booster  in the class of an intercontinental missile its weight estimated at 50 tons the smaller  second stage took over at 5 000 miles an hour and carried on to the highest point reached  500 miles up the artificial moon is boosted to a speed counterbalancing the pull of gravity  and released you are hearing the actual signals transmitted by the earth circling satellite  one of the great scientific feats of the age sixty years ago this year in 1961 the  first ever human was launched into space the space capsule vostok one carried  soviet pilot and cosmonaut yuri gagarin for one full orbit of the planet  before returning him home safely foreign i believe that this nation should commit itself  to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and  returning him safely to the earth no single space project in this period will be  more impressive to mankind or more important for the long range exploration of space and none  will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish in 1963 engineer and cosmonaut valentina  tareshkova became the first woman in space she orbited the earth 48 times on the  vostok6 spent almost three days in space and she remains the only woman ever  to have been on a solo space mission 1966 luna 10 part of the year’s soviet lunar  program was the first spacecraft to go into orbit around the moon and the first human-made  object to orbit anybody beyond the earth 1968 was in the heart of the space race and it  was the turn of the usa to push the envelope of space exploration with their apollo missions  this was the year that apollo 8 launched it was the first ever manned  craft to leave low earth orbit and after reaching the moon it also  became the first manned craft to reach another astronomical object which it orbited  before returning astronauts frank bormann james lovell and william anders safely back  to earth these astronauts were also the first humans to experience an earthrise  as photographed here by william anders i’m gonna step off the lamb now the following year brought the hotly  anticipated launch of apollo 11 which was to perform arguably the most  iconic and greatest achievement mankind has ever fulfilled within the field of space  exploration to date to land on the moon liftoff we have a liftoff 32 minutes  past the hour lift up on apollo 11. tower cleared in july 1969 neil armstrong became  the first person to walk on the moon where he stayed for more than 21 hours with  fellow astronaut buzz aldrin leaving command module pilot michael collins orbiting the  moon alone in preparation for their return from the planet earth first set  foot upon the moon july 1969 50. in doing so collins became the first person  to orbit the far side of the moon alone and after the lunar surface mission  was complete the eagle luna module performed the first space  launch from a celestial body balance very quiet ride there’s that much crater  in 1971 the soviet union launched saliet 1 the first ever space station paving the way for  permanent low earth orbit domiciles that are still a very important part of space exploration today  in 1972 nasa launched the pioneer 10 space probe the first artificial object to achieve the escape  velocity required to leave the solar system the probe completed the first ever  mission to jupiter on its journey eventually with the probe at a  distance of 12 billion kilometers radio communications were lost in 2003 following a  loss of electrical power to its radio transmitter on february 5th 1974 nasa’s mariner 10 mission  took this first ever close-up photo of venus made using an ultraviolet filter in its imaging  system the photo has been color enhanced to bring out venus’s cloudy atmosphere as the human eye  would see it but it wasn’t until the following year that mankind would obtain its first  photograph from the surface of another planet the soviet union’s venera 9 was able  to send back this panoramic photo and survive the 900 degree fahrenheit heat and  intense pressure of venus’s surface for 53 minutes before it would succumb to the hellish  conditions of the planet’s atmosphere venus continued to be of interest to the soviet  union and in 1982 they sent another probe vanira 13 to once again land on its surface as well as  a colour camera this probe was also equipped with microphones and was thus able to beam back the  first ever sounds recorded on another planet two years later in 1984 nasa astronaut  bruce mccandless performed the first ever untethered space walk navigating via  the use of the specially designed manned maneuvering unit which he had helped to develop tragedy struck in 1986 when nasa’s space shuttle  challenger exploded shortly after liftoff killing all seven crew members including  high school teacher christa mcauliffe the cause of the incident was an external gas  tank explosion caused by a faulty o ring seal engine’s throttling up three inches  now 104 challenger go at throttle one up 15 seconds velocity 2900 feet per second  altitude 9 nautical miles downrange distance it was in 1990 that nasa launched  the hubble space telescope the hst has undoubtedly been the richest source  of space photography that mankind has seen to date allowing us to peer deeper  into space than ever before it has provided us with stunning vistas for over  30 years and could be in operation until forty hubble’s main successor the james webb space  telescope is due to launch in late 2021 in 1997 nasa’s mars pathfinder  landed on the red planet carrying a robotic rover sojourner which  became the first rover to operate outside the earth moon system to this day rovers  continued to operate on the surface of mars the first multinational space station  was launched the following year a collaborative project involving  five participating space agencies united states russia japan europe and canada the  international space station continues to operate to this day and is used as a microgravity  and space environment research laboratory the iss orbits earth every 90 minutes  and can be seen with the naked eye in 2004 we got closer than ever to the jewel  of the solar system and nasa’s cassini probe beamed back the most astonishing pictures  of saturn that the world had ever seen the kepler mission in 2009 launched the  first ever space telescope designed to search for earth-like exoplanets the  nasa telescope trails earth’s orbit and continues to perform some of the most important  research in the search for extraterrestrial life it wasn’t until 2011 that the first orbit of  mercury was completed via nasa’s messenger space probe the probe according to nasa has  since managed to image 100 of the planet visible from space and it has taken the clearest  photographs of the sun’s nearest neighbor to date nasa’s voyager 1 spacecraft hit the  headlines in 2012 when it became the first man-made object ever to enter  interstellar space this photograph of earth the pale blue dot was taken 12 years  earlier from a distance of 6 billion kilometers and remains one of space  exploration’s most iconic images ever in 2014 the european space agency successfully  maneuvered its rosetta spacecraft into orbit around comet 67p becoming the first  ever spacecraft to orbit a comet this image was taken during  approach three months later its lander module phili performed the  first successful landing on a comet in 2015 nasa’s spacecraft dawn became the  first ever to orbit two celestial bodies and was able to send back the best images of  two of the asteroid belts protoplanets to date dwarf planetvester in 2011 and  dwarf planet series in 2015 the dwarf planet love continued in the same  year when nasa’s new horizons spacecraft performed the first ever flyby of pluto  sending back some incredible photographs before the mission this was the  clearest shot of pluto that we had the event horizon telescope or eht  is a telescopic array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes  in 2019 the international collaboration announced its first results in six  simultaneous press conferences worldwide during which they revealed this image the  first ever direct image of a black hole which brings us to the present day what is  planned for the future of space exploration through its artemis program nasa intends to return  humans to the moon within the next five years as well as putting the first  woman on the lunar surface the moon’s enceladus and europa continue to be of  interest in the search for potential alien life and a human mission to mars is one of the next  inevitable great frontiers of space exploration this has been a space junkies  production thanks so much for watching