Space exploration - Race, Moon, Astronauts

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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In the immediate aftermath of Gagarin’s orbital flight, President Kennedy was advised by NASA and by his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, of Braun’s belief that the Soviet Union, using Korolyov’s existing R-7 launcher, could well succeed in sending a multiperson spacecraft into Earth orbit and perhaps even around the Moon before the United States. The first competition that the United States had a good chance of winning would be that of a crewed lunar landing, because it would require each country to develop a new, more-powerful rocket. On those technical grounds and because a lunar landing would be a ...(100 of 22189 words)

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