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The Soviet Union's Vostok I carries Yuri Gagarin into a 108 minute rotation of the Earth, the first human flight into space.
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Alan Shepard is the first American in space, launched up in Freedom 7.
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The X=15 high-speed rocket plane qualifies pilots for the astronaut license.
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Valentina Tereshkova, aboard Vostok 6, becames the first woman in space.
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Apollo I's crew is killed when starts erupts in their capsule during testing.
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Apollo 8, the first manned mission around the moon, holds a live broadcast from space.
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Saturn V clears the launch pad and starts on a historic journey towards the moon, carrying Apollo II.
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The Apollo 13 crew survives an in-space explosion, barely having enough food to sustain themselves.
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The Apollo 17 lunar module, Challenger, lifts off from the moon.
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The Soviet Union's Salyut 7, viewed in this photo after the docking of the Soyuz T-13 mission, is the last in a series of Salyut space stations.
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Saturn IB lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center, carrying three astronauts to a rendevous with the Soviet station.
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Space shuttle Columbia lifts off, beggining a new era in space transportation.
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The space shuttle Columbia replaces "touchdown" for "splashdown", making the first wheeled landing.
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Due to a ruptured O-ring in the right SRB, Challenger and her crew are lost in an explosion soon after launch.
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The Challenger and its crew is lost as it returns to Earth on mission STS-107.
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China's Shenzhou space capsule, the first Chinese manned spacecraft, makes 9 orbits of the Earth with Yang Liwei aboard.
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SpaceSipOne is the first privately designed and built spacecraft.
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The Atlantis' STS-135 mission, in the summer of 2011, is the final planned mission for this year.
