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The Soviet Union launches the first satelite to orbit the earth beeping radio signals, demonstrating that the soviets have rockets that could send warheads anywhere on Earth. This is beggening of the space race between the United States and the Soviet union.
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The Soviet Union sends the first femal dog into space on sputnik II. The dogs name is Laika which means barker in Russian. They send her up their to prove that animals and maybe humans can go to space.
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Yuri Gagarin who is riding in the Soviet Vostok 1, is the first man in space. The controls were locked just incase he started to have strange beavior. Onboard there was a key in a envelope to unlock the controls. Vostok 1 shook crazy during entry, so when Yuri was low enough he deployed his parachute.
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The United states sends the astronaut Alan Shepard on a 15 minute and 28 seconds sub-orbital flight onboard Freedom 7. Three weeks later, on May 15, 1961, president John F. Kennedy promises to send men to the moon and back before teh decade
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John Glenn Circles the Earth three times in 4 hours and 56 minutes. In 1988 John Glenn at seventy-seven years old becomes the oldest person to fly in space, as part of the STS-95 space shuttle crew.
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The soviet Union launches the the first wom in space on Vostok 6. Her name is Valentina Teresh kova. She spends three days in space Here spacecraft comes within 3 miles of Valeria Bykovsky In Vostok 5. This is the first time in history that two spacecraft pass close together while in orbit.
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Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov takes the first space walk for ten minutes. It was a tehered excursion outside Voshkod 2. On June 3, 1965, Edward White II is the first american to walk in space on Germini 4 and stays for 22 minutes.
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During a test on the launchpad, a fire kills Apollo 1 Astronauts Virgul Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. Then, on April 2, 1967, The Soviet Craft Soyuz 2 crashes on re-entry, killing Vladimir Komarov.
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On the flight of Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon. Buzz Aldrin is the second. Armstrong says, " That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind".
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Aboard Apollo 13 a oxygen tak explodes. With help from mission control, the crew Jim lovell, Fred Haise and John Swigert return to earth 4 days later.
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The Soviet Union launches the first orbiting space station called Salyut 1. Salyut's 1 original crew died on re-entry to Earth on June 30, 1971. Georgi Boboroeolski, Vladislav Volkov, and Victor Patsayev had spent a record 23 days in space.
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The first American space station launched is called Skylab and is damaged during launch. The first of three crews arrive 11 days later for a 28 day stay. They make repairs on the station and made record for most time spent in space.
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American and Soviet spacecraft dock together in space to show peaceful cooperation druing the Apollo-Soyuz mission.
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Viking 1, a scientific probe controlled by scientists on Earth, transmits the first pictures from the surface of Mars. Viking 2 arrived in September 1976
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The space shuttle Columbia is the first reusable space vehicle in space with John Young and Robert Crippen. The vehicle launches like a rocket and lands like a airplace.
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Sally Ride is the first American woman in space. She is part of the crew of the seventh space shuttle flight, STS-7. The first African-American astronaut, Guion Bloford, follows on the next flight on August 30.
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Svetlana Savitskaya is the first woman to do a space walk. She goes with her partner Vladimir Dzhanibekov, She does welding experiments for three hours outside the soviet space station Salyut 7. Savitskaya had become the second woman to fly in space during a soviet mission in 1982.
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The space shuttle "Challenger" explodes, killing all seven crew members. Includin the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe. The other crew members were Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Judy Resnik, Ron McNair, Ellison Onizuka, and Gregory Jarvis
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Musa Manarov and Vladimir Titov complete 366 days on the Russian space station, Mir. This record is broken on march March 22, 1995 when cosmonaut Valery Poyakov returns to Earth after spending 437 days and 18 hours in orbit.
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The crew of space shuttle mission STS-31 deployed the Hubble Space Telescope. Later they find that the telescopes mirror is damaged. The Hubble Space Telescope then provides the first images of close galaxies and planets outside of our solar system.
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Pineer 10 launched on March 2 1972 and reached a distance 50 times farther from the sun than the Earth, becoming the first spacecraft to leave the solar system. Earlier in its mission the first spacecraft was the first to cross the asteroid belt and reach Jupiter. Currently, it is 6.5 billion miles away, heading toward the constellation Taurus.
