Space – The Final Frontier

 Just as light has a finite speed, so does sound. It depends on temperature and altitude, but the average speed of sound on earth is about 760mph (340m/s). Once humans began to fly, our first milestone was to have a pilot fly faster than the speed of sound – called Mach 1. Chuck Yeager was born and raised in WV. In 1947, Chuck Yeager drove the first plane to break the sound barrier. In this first checkpoint, the US was ahead of rest of the world in the space race. Today, the fastest planes regularly break Mach 2 (1550mph), though they have to get permission to do so – it creates a sonic boom! Breaking the sound barrier

 Just as light has a finite speed, so does sound. It depends on temperature and altitude, but the average speed of sound on earth is about 760mph (340m/s). Once humans began to fly, our first milestone was to have a pilot fly faster than the speed of sound – called Mach 1. Chuck Yeager was born and raised in WV. In 1947, Chuck Yeager drove the first plane to break the sound barrier. In this first checkpoint, the US was ahead of rest of the world in the space race. Today, the fastest planes regularly break Mach 2 (1550mph), though they have to get permission to do so – it creates a sonic boom!

Space Race Begins  Though the Americans were traveling fast, the Soviets were travelling far. In August of 1957, the Soviets launched the first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a basketball, weighed only 183 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. One month later, they launched Sputnik 2 (Sputnik means traveler), and on this satellite, there was a dog named Laika. These events marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race.

Spacecraft  In 1958, the USSR began construction on the first space craft called Vostok. The Americans created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to begin to compete. By 1961, President John F. Kennedy decided to “bring it”: he made a speech in which he pledged the US would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Meanwhile, Yuri Alekseyevich Gargarin, a Soviet, was the first to orbit Earth in Vostok 1. Three weeks later, American Alan Shepherd was the first American in space. This jockeying in the race continued throughout the 60’s.

Mariner Project  The Mariner Project was a series of US space probes build to provide information on the inner planets – Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Mariner 2 launched in Many embarrassing disasters on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. Due to the bad press, the final phase of the Mariner Project was renamed Voyager and its mission changed. Voyager 1 launched from Kennedy Space Center September In 1980 it approached Saturn. Voyager 2 also launched from Cape Canaveral in The purpose of the Voyagers was to study the outer solar system and, eventually, interstellar space.

Space Probes (Satellites)  There were several other programs designed to study our space neighborhood. Viking 1 and 2 (launched in 1976) were the first successful landings on Mars. Voyager 2 has seen Neptune and Uranus up close. Both Voyagers have passed Pluto and are in the heliopause. Galileo(1989) was the 1 st probe to orbit Jupiter. Other famous probes are the Cassini (to Saturn in 1997), Magellan (US) and Vanera 9 (USSR) (to Venus in 1989 and 1975), Spirit and Opportunity (rovers on Mars, 2003). NEAR – the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous landed on the asteroid Eros in 2001, and the ESA landed Philae on a comet in 2014.

ShepherdYeagerGergarin ICBMSputnikLaika VostokMarinerVoyager CassiniMagellanNASA VaneraSpiritOpportunity NEARPhilaeHeliopause Mach 2Sonic BoomMach 1