1. The History of Space Exploration

2. The first living things in space
were fruit flies. In 1946, they were sent to high altitude to study the effects of radiation.

3. 1951
All animals sent to high altitude died until The second test that year resulted in the first successful launch and recovery of animals. The launch held a monkey and 11 mice.

4. Laika inside USSR’s (Soviet) Sputnik 2 in 1957.

5. Project Mercury (1958 – 1963) Goals/Objectives:
Place a manned spacecraft in orbital flight around the earth.
Investigate man's performance capabilities and his ability to function in the environment of space.
Recover the man and the spacecraft safely.

6. Rhesus monkey suited up for Little Joe launch of Mercury capsule December 1959

7. Cats in Spacesuits

8. Mercury Astronauts

9. 1961
Yuri Gagarin from the Soviet Union was the first human being in space.

10. 1961- one month later
Alan Shepherd became the first American in space.

11. 1962
John Glenn was the first person to orbit Earth. He went around the Earth three times. (In 1998, he spent 9 days on the shuttle Discovery, making him the oldest person to go to space. He was 77 years old.)

12. Project Gemini (1965-1966) Consisted of 10 manned space flights
To subject man and equipment to space flight for up to two weeks
To perfect methods of entering the atmosphere and landing at a preselected point on land.

13. Return to Earth

14. The History of Space Travel
"I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."
John F. Kennedy Special Joint Session of Congress May 25, 1961

15. Apollo Program

16.
The Apollo program included a large number of uncrewed test missions and 11 crewed missions. The 11 crewed missions include two Earth orbiting missions, two lunar orbiting missions, a lunar swingby and six Moon landing missions.
The Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth. Six of the Apollo missions -- 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and achieved this goal.
Experiments on the surface of the moon took place.

18. Apollo Missions returned to the sea, not onto land.

19. 1973 Skylab
America's first experimental space station was launched into orbit in The program objectives were to prove that humans could live and work in space for extended periods, and to expand our knowledge of solar astronomy.

20. 1973
The Skylab crew carried a student experiment with Arabella, the orb weaving garden spider for 59.5 days. The spider, was able to weave in the near-zero-gravity environment but only with practice. Over 300 experiments were carried out on Skylab over 171 days.

21. 1979
Skylab was abandoned in 1974 and it fell from orbit in The empty spacecraft scattered debris over the Indian Ocean and the sparsely settled region of Western Australia.

22. 1981 USA begins Space Shuttle Program.
Officially called the Space Transportation System or STS.
A reusable spacecraft with wings for controlled descent in the atmosphere, designed to transport astronauts between Earth and an orbiting space station

23. Each shuttle is supposed to last for 10 years and be launched 100 times. The shuttles are: Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor. The Challenger was lost in 1986 and Columbia was lost in 2003.

24. 1998
The first two modules of the International Space Station were launched and joined together in orbit, 200 miles above Earth.
Other modules soon followed and the first crew arrived in 2000.
The space station travels at a speed of 5 miles per second!

25. International space station

26. March 12, 2008. Endeavor docks with the International Space Station

27. End of the Shuttle program
The final mission was July 8, 2011
Space Shuttle Atlantis was launched