Humans, up until less than one hundred years ago, have been restricted to life on Earth, as space seemed like a dream. It is only within the last hundred years that the emergence of manned flights and rocket ships that has made space attainable. In that time, the world has now sent people to the moon, rovers to Mars, and space probes into our solar system. Also, advanced telescopes that orbit Earth are exploring even the most remote edges of the universe and bringing more information about what is beyond Earth as we know it (Space Exploration). The technology and knowledge has come a long way as many countries have dedicated research to space, and have gained lots of ground in a short amount of time, now having the ability to commercially …show more content…
Then, in 1947, the first animals were launched into space. Fruit flies were used to study the effects of space travel on animals, and were chosen because they are similar to humans. Albert II, a monkey from Asia, was the first monkey in space. Albert went into space on June 14, 1949 in an American V2 rocket that flew to a height of 83 miles from Earth (History of Space Exploration). On October 4, 1957, Russia launched the first satellite into space, Sputnik 1, officially beginning the point of the space age. Sputnik was the first satellite in orbit around Earth, and today there are over five hundred working satellites in space. In November 1957, a Russian dog named Laika became the first animal to orbit Earth. Laika travelled in a spacecraft known as Sputnik, and her mission helped scientists understand whether people could survive in space (History of Space …show more content…
Kennedy promised the world that the US would land men on the moon before 1970. Before risking people's lives, NASA sent a robot spaceship, to make sure they could land safely. Once it had landed on the moon, the robotic spaceship Surveyor 1 started taking photographs of the moon's surface. Scientists used this vital information about the terrain to work out how they might land people on the moon safely (History of Space Timeline). On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin took “one small step” and became the first men on the moon. Their spaceship flew them 250,000 miles to the moon, and brought them all the way back to Earth. In 1973, Russian space probe Mars 2 explored Mars as one part of it stayed in orbit for a year, sending pictures of Mars back to Earth, while the other was supposed to land and explore the surface of Mars, but it was destroyed when its parachute failed to open (Space Exploration). In 2000, the first permanent crew moved into the International Space Station, where crews of astronauts have been living ever since. The ISS is a space station for research and space exploration that began construction in 1986, with the final major module arriving in