This part of our virtual gallery will show you some of the major events that took place in the context of space travel. It includes a timeline showing how far we have came from the first few space flights that took place shortly after the Second World War, you will also find links to various resources if you would like to know more about a specific topic. The list is in no way complete, here is a more in depth timeline, showing many of humanity's achievements in space exploration.
During the end years of WW2, Nazi Germany developed the V-2 Rocket, which its
intended purpose was to bomb Allied cities, it become the first artificial object to
cross what would later be defined the "Kármán
line", which made it the first spaceflight
in history.
In a captured V-2 Rocket, the United States
sent
up Albert II, a rhesus monkey,
which became the first primate and first mammal in space.
The onset of the Cold War also brought the Space Race, and in 1957 there were a few
major accomplishments for the Soviet Union, creating the first ICBM, sending up the first satellite
and
creating
the first man-made signals from space. They even sent up a dog named Laika,
who became the first mammal in orbit.
1961 was a big year for space exploration, as the first human spaceflight was performed
by Yuri Gagarin from the Soviet Union, it
was
also the first
human-crewed orbital flight. The first human-piloted space flight from Alan Shepard from the United States also
occured in the same year. There was also the first planetary flyby, the Venura 1, which passed within 100,000 km of
Venus.
In 1965, the first spacewalk was performed by Alexei
Leonov in the Voskhod 2 mission, in the same
year, Ed White became the first American
to
perform a spacewalk during the Gemini 4 mission.
In 1968, Apollo 8 became the first human-crewed
orbital mission to another world (Moon),
the 3 crew onboard were the first to personally witness the dark side of the Moon and an Earthrise.
In 1969, perhaps the most famous space event in history, the first humans set foot onto the Moon's
surface in the mission
Apollo 11, making Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin some of
the most important people in hsitory, especially in space exploration.
This mission also became the first space launch from another celestial body other than Earth, along
with
the first sample return from the Moon.
One of the most recent events regarding space travel as of October 25th 2022, is the recent DART mission, which
was the first attempt to deflect an asteroid, along with the first spacescraft to impact an asteroid
moon (Dimorphos).
