Space exploration - History, Technology, Benefits

space exploration

Table of Contents

Introduction
Overview of recent space achievements
- Motivations for space activity
- Major milestones
- Significant milestones in space exploration
History of space exploration
- Prelude to spaceflight
  - Precursors in fiction and fact
    - Tsiolkovsky
    - Goddard
    - Oberth
    - Other space pioneers
  - Early rocket development
    - Germany
    - United States
    - Soviet Union
  - Preparing for spaceflight
- From Sputnik to Apollo
  - The first satellites
  - Development of space organizations
    - United States
    - Soviet Union
    - Europe
    - Japan
    - China
    - International participation
    - Involvement of industry
  - The first human spaceflights
    - Vostok
    - Mercury
    - Gemini and Voskhod
    - Soyuz
  - The race to the Moon
    - The American commitment
    - The Soviet response
    - Interim developments
    - The Apollo lunar landings and Apollo-Soyuz
- Orbiting space platforms
  - Space stations
  - International space endurance records
  - Summary of space stations launched since 1971
  - The space shuttle
Human beings in space: debate and consequences
- Risks and benefits
- Selecting people for spaceflights
- Biomedical, psychological, and sociological aspects
Science in space
- Solar and space physics
- Solar system exploration
- Exploring the universe
- Microgravity research
- Observing Earth
Space applications
- Meteorology
- Positioning, navigation, and timing
- Military and national security uses of space
- Satellite telecommunications
- Remote sensing
- Commercial space transportation
- New commercial applications
Issues for the future
Chronology of crewed spaceflights
- Crewed spaceflights, 1960–69
- Crewed spaceflights, 1970–79
- Crewed spaceflights, 1980–89
- Crewed spaceflights, 1990–99
- Crewed spaceflights, 2000–09
- Crewed spaceflights, 2010–2019
- Crewed spaceflights, 2020–

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Since ancient times, people around the world have studied the heavens and used their observations and explanations of astronomical phenomena for both religious and practical purposes. Some dreamed of leaving Earth to explore other worlds. For example, the French satirist Cyrano de Bergerac in the 17th century wrote Histoire comique des états et empires de la lune (1656) and Histoire comique des états et empires du soleil (1662; together in English as A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Solar World, 1754), describing fictional journeys to the Moon and the Sun. Two centuries later the French author ...(100 of 22189 words)

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