History of Space Exploration Timeline

NASA Pioneer 1

• October 11, 1958
• First NASA launch
• Failed by missing the Moon

NASA Mercury Project

• 1961-1963
• Put the first Americans in space and proved astronauts could fly in space
• Learned how to put spacecraft and their astronauts in orbit and how to live and work in space
• Budget: $277 million (in 1965 USD)

NASA Gemini Project

• 1965-1966
• Two-man missions
• Gave NASA the experience needed to know how to adapt and adjust their spacecraft
• Learned how to go into space with a space suit and how to connect two spacecraft

NASA Apollo Program

• 1968-1972
• Prepared for Moon landing and conducted scientific research once on the Moon
• July 20, 1969: Apollo 11 - NASA lands the first man on the Moon
• Apollo 13 - malfunctioned and NASA was forced to return it to Earth

NASA Apollo Program

• Political pressures from both the president and other nations to be the first nation to land on the Moon
• Opposition from scientists, scholars, and many other citizens who didn't feel the need to travel into space and/or spend so much money on taxes for the space programs

NASA Viking

• 1970
• First manmade spacecraft to soft-land on Mars and sent the first color pictures back from Mars
• Prevailed after the failed attempt of Mariner 8 to Mars
• Budget: $1 billion

US-Russia Partership

• Officially signed in 1972
• After shaky ground of competing with one another in space exploration
• Includes the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, Shuttle-Mir Project, ISS, and Space Science Cooperation on Mars

NASA Hubble Space Telescope

• April 24, 1990
• An optical telescope that could view the many wonders of space and send pictures back to Earth; major success
• Budget: $4.7 billion

International Space Station

• Launched in 1998
• Includes the USA (NASA), Japan (JAXA), Europe (ESA), Canada (CSA), and Russia (Roscosmos)
• Visited by astronauts of 18 countries; brings together international pursuits in the common goal of space exploration and knowledge
• $150 billion (USD)

NASA Lethal Failures

• 1967: Apollo 1 ground test resulted in the deaths of three astronauts
• 1986: Space Shuttle Challenger led to deaths after O-rings failed in cold temperatures
• 2003: Columbia mission led to death of entire crew because of a gouge in the spacecraft's left wing

NASA Juno

• August 5, 2011
• Now orbits Jupiter (since 2016)
• To report on Jupiter's formation and evolution by studying its atmospheric conditions, gravity, magnetic fields, and composition