At the height of the cold war, the world was captivated by a faint beeping sound emitting from space. The date was Oct. 4 1957, and those faint little beeps were radio signals from by the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1; the world’s first manmade satellite to orbit the earth. The launch of Sputnik 1 marked the start of the Space Age.
The cold war is over, the Soviet Union is no more but humankind’s exploration of space continues, our spacecrafts are now reaching the very edges of our solar system. This timeline represents the major milestones in space exploration, from the launch of Sputnik 1 to scheduled launch of the Ares 1-X rocket on Oct 19, 2009, NASA’s next generation spacecraft.
This timeline was created by the Agenda’s David Erwin and edited by Mike Miner. If you have any events that you think should be included in the timeline, please send an email to derwin@tvo.org.
Sources:
About.com
Absolute Astronomy
Astronautix
NASA
Space.com
The Canadian Space Agency
The European Space Agency
The New York Times
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The Russian Federal Space Agency
The New York Times
University of CalTech
University of Toronto
About.com
Absolute Astronomy
Wikipedia (Data sourcing)
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Time Line References:
BBC Space Exploration Timeline
NASA Space Exploration Timeline
The Space Race - Timeline of Space Exploration
Time Line of Space Exploration
Dipity
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