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Originally starting his NASA career in 1930, he served as a navy pilot for a few years before going back to school. After completing his aeronautical engineering degree in 1955, Armstrong almost immediately gets a job at the NACA(later NASA)as a civilian research pilot. Little did he know he would be the first man on the moon just over 14 years later. -
In October of 1957, the Soviet Union launched a baseball-sized satellite called Sputnik 1. This launch surprised Americans so we attempted to compete with them by launching Vanguard. It went well until it exploded just after takeoff. -
Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States. The mission followed the first two satellites the previous year; the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 and 2.
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The original launch date for Big Joe was July 4, 1959, but the launch date was postponed by the Air Force due to the fact that one of the boosters did not work out perfectly at first. Finally, the count picked up on September 8, 1959, when the Atlas 10-D stood on the launch pad with a Mercury capsule. Liftoff occurred at 3:19 a.m. EST.
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Alan Shepard was the first American man in space. He piloted the Freedom 7 Mercury capsule for a 15-minute flight with no communication glitches. -
NASA's Ranger 4 space probe was the first spacecraft to impact the far side of the Moon. It did, although, fail to return any scientific data before its impact. -
This speech's purpose was to explain to Americans why the Apollo program needed to be a high priority, allowing for a “boost” in funds, in which Kennedy succeeded. The Rice University speech wasn't the first time Kennedy had publicly said he wanted to reach the Moon within a decade.
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Neil Armstrong and his crew of three, including Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, were the first to land on the moon. Armstrong was the person first to walk on the moon where he said his famous "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind".
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Apollo 13 was the third meant to land on the Moon and one of the first crewed missions in the Apollo space program. The spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center but two days later the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank failed. Thankfully all 3 team members survived, leading to this mission being called a successful failure. -
The "Einstein Observatory" was the 1st fully imaging X-ray telescope launched into space and was 2nd of 3 Astrophysical Observatories by NASA. Named HEAO B before its 1970 launch, its name was changed upon its successful orbit. -
NASA's Mariner 9 beat the Soviet's Mars 2 (even though it had an 11-day head start) to Mars, making it the first spacecraft to successfully orbit another planet. The orbiter mapped a good percentage of the Martian surface and sent back more than 7,000 pictures. -
Pioneer 10 was the fastest human-made object as it traveled at more than 32,000 miles per hour after leaving Earth, passing the orbit of the Moon in less than 11 hours. Just four months after launch, it left the inner solar system, becoming the first spacecraft to enter the asteroid belt. -
Space shuttle Columbia was the first reusable shuttle to reach space when it was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The craft reached many milestones, carrying dozens of astronauts into space during the next two decades. -
Sally K. Ride is the first American woman in space. Although Ride was one of six women selected to enter the astronaut corps, she was the first to actually make it to space. -
Bruce McCandless II was the first person to do an untethered spacewalk while on the Challenger team in 1984. He ventured more than 300 ft. Two different astronauts completed this task during this mission. -
As a part of NASA's "Teachers in Space" program, Christa McAuliffe was selected out of thousands of teachers. As she was a teacher, students from schools across America witnessed the beloved "First teacher in space" and the crew of the challenger get blown up mid-flight.
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Named in honor of Edwin Hubble, Hubble Space Telescope is a large in-space telescope that has revolutionized astronomy since its launch in 1990. With Hubble’s availability to see ultraviolet through what we can see and into near-infrared color light. This range has allowed Hubble to show us stunning stars, galaxies, and other astronomical objects that have inspired people around the world and have helped change our understanding of the universe. -
Magellan used radar to pierce the planet's clouds, providing the first clear views of most of the planet’s surface over the four years. It found volcanoes, long lava channels, domes, and evidence of hot mantle plumes at depth, similar to the ones responsible for creating the Hawaiian islands. -
Galileo became the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter after arriving at Jupiter in December 1995. It carried a probe that was dropped into the planet's atmosphere to study that environment. -
This comet was first discovered in 1995. Since then, it continues to paint our sky, being the brightest in late-march and early-april. -
After being in orbit for close to a year the mission "Near Shoemaker", which was remained while in orbit in honor of Eugene Shoemaker, carried out humanity's first asteroid landing. Eros was 196 million miles (315 million kilometers) from Earth at the time. -
Stardust was the first spacecraft to return a sample from a comet, the first material from outside the orbit of the moon to Earth. The samples showed that outer regions of the early Solar System weren't isolated and not a refuge where interstellar materials could commonly survive. -
Huygens was a probe built by ESA. Its atmospheric entry robotic space probe landed successfully on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005. -
The Kepler space telescope, a now-retired space telescope, was launched by NASA in 2009 to discover Earth-size planets orbiting other stars. It was named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. -
NASA's Messenger spacecraft successfully orbited around Mercury. This marks the first time a spacecraft has accomplished this scientific milestone at the planet closest to the sun. -
Voyager 1 entered interstellar space, making it the first known human-made object to explore this territory. The Voyagers have approximately enough electrical power and thruster fuel to keep going until 2025. -
Astronauts harvested Japanese mustard greens, aboard the International Space Station brightening the future of humans growing their own food in space. In 2015, astronauts aboard the space station munched on a crop of red lettuce — one of the first veggies grown in space.
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Arrokoth was discovered in 2014 and it became the farthest object in the Solar System visited by a spacecraft. The New Horizons spacecraft launched on January 19, 2006 - beginning its odyssey to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. -
In 2020 astronauts launched from American soil to the International Space Station for the first time since 2011. This is the first time we had done this in an American-made spaceship. -
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter has made the first powered flight on another planet, more than 117 years after the Wright brothers' historic flight on this planet. The flight itself was modest. The 4-pound helicopter rose 10 feet in the air, hovered briefly and returned to the Martian surface. -
After years of delay, on Christmas day NASA finally launches its James Webb Telescope to take over Hubble's place. It has the capabilities to take pictures and go farther than we have ever explored.
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NASA hopes to send new science instruments and technology demonstrations to study the Moon. They also want to send astronauts to its surface beginning in 2024 and at least a year afterward to establish sustainable lunar exploration with its partners.
