Milestones In Space
1957
Oct. 4 The Soviet Union launches the first artificial satellite,
the 184-lb. Sputnik 1
Nov. 3 Sputnik 2 carries a dog named Laika into orbit. She lives
for seven days, proving that animals (and presumably humans) can
survive in space
1958
JAN. 31 Launch of Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite
1961
April 12 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is the first person to
orbit Earth. His flight in Vostok 1 lasts less than 2 hr.
May 5 Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space, with a
15-min. 28-sec. suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7
May 25 President John F. Kennedy vows to send men to the moon and
back by the end of the decade
1962
Feb. 20 John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit Earth. He
circles the planet three times in 4 hr. 55 min.
1963
June 16 Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in
space
1965
March 18 Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov takes the first space walk, a
10-min. tethered excursion outside Voskhod 2
June 3 Edward White II is the first American to walk in space,
floating outside Gemini 4 for 22 min.
1966
March 16 Gemini 8 makes the first docking ever with another
space vehicle, an unmanned Agena rocket stage. Gemini 8 later
malfunctions, forcing America's first emergency landing
1967
Jan. 27 Flash fire in the Apollo 1 command module during a test
on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy, Fla., kills astronauts Virgil
("Gus") Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee
April 24 Soyuz 1 crashes on re-entry, killing Vladimir Komarov.
He is the first astronaut to die during a flight
1968
April 3 Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, based on
Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Sentinel, is released
Dec. 21 Launch of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to orbit the
moon
1969
July 20 "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for
mankind." Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin ("Buzz")
Aldrin walk on the moon
1970
April 13 Apollo 13 moon mission is aborted when an oxygen tank
in the service module ruptures. The crew returns safely to Earth
four days later
1971
April 19 The Soviet Union launches the first space station, an
orbiting laboratory named Salyut 1
June 30 Salyut 1's first crew is killed when the spacecraft
bringing them back to Earth becomes depressurized during re-entry
1973
May 14 Skylab 1, the first U.S. space station, is launched into
orbit 271 miles above Earth. The first of three crews arrives 11
days later for a 28-day stay
1975
July 17 The Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous, highlight of the first
international manned space mission
1976
July 20 Viking 1 lands on Mars and transmits the first pictures
from the planet's surface. Viking 2 will arrive in September 1976
1979
March 5 Voyager 1 makes its closest approach to Jupiter,
relaying images of the planet and its moons. Voyager 2 will
follow four months later
July 11 After losing altitude for nearly two years, Skylab falls
out of the sky and crashes, scattering debris from the
southeastern Indian Ocean to western Australia
September Publication of The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe's portrait of
the early days of America's manned space program
1981
April 12 Inaugural launch of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia, the
first reusable manned spacecraft
Aug. 25 Voyager 2 flies by Saturn, sending home spectacularly
detailed pictures of its rings and moons
1983
June 18 Sally Ride becomes the first U.S. woman in space
1984
Feb. 7 Using jet backpacks, astronauts Bruce McCandless and
Robert Stewart take the first untethered space walks
April 10-12 Two astronauts from the shuttle Challenger perform
the first in-orbit retrieval and repair mission, on the failing
Solar Max satellite
1986
Jan. 24 Voyager 2 arrives at Uranus
Jan. 28 Challenger explodes 73 sec. after lift-off, killing all
seven shuttle crew members, including teacher Christa McAuliffe
Feb. 20 Soviet space station Mir launched into Earth orbit
1987
Feb. 8 Mir becomes the first continuously inhabited space station
1988
Sept. 29 First U.S. manned space launch since the 1986 Challenger
explosion
1989
May 4 For the first time, a spacecraft is launched from the
shuttle, as Atlantis astronauts send the radar mapping probe
Magellan toward Venus
Aug. 25 Voyager 2 reaches Neptune
1990
April 25 Astronauts on the shuttle Discovery place the Hubble
Space Telescope into Earth orbit. Astronomers realize almost
immediately that its mirror has the wrong shape
Aug. 10 Magellan begins to orbit Venus and relay radar images of
its surface as well as other data
1993
Dec. 4-10 Astronauts capture the Hubble Space Telescope and
repair its optics. To everyone's surprise, the mission is a
complete success
1994
Feb. 3 Sergei Krikalev becomes the first Russian to fly on a U.S.
spacecraft
1995
March 22 Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov returns to Earth after
spending a record 437 days 18 hrs. in space aboard Mir
June 29 As part of America's 100th manned space mission, the
shuttle Atlantis docks with Russia's Mir
Dec. 7 After a six-year journey, the Galileo probe reaches
Jupiter to begin an extended visit
1997
July 4 In a culmination of the Pathfinder mission, the Sojourner
rover lands on Mars and begins to explore. The spacecraft will
fall silent 83 days later
Oct. 15 Nuclear-powered Cassini probe heads to Saturn
1998
Oct. 29 John Glenn, now a 77-year-old Senator from Ohio, is
scheduled to go into space a second time, aboard the shuttle
Discovery
Nov. 20 First piece of the International Space Station due to be
launched
Dec. 10 Planned launch of the Mars Climate Orbiter, which will
arrive at its destination in September 1999. It will be followed
by the Mars Polar Lander, scheduled to be launched in January
1999
1999
June Mir expected to fall out of orbit and crash to Earth
2001
Planned launches of the Mars Surveyor 2001 orbiter (March 7) and
lander and rover (April 3), which will study the planet's
climate and geology and search for evidence of life
2003
Planned launch of Europa Orbiter to investigate the existence of
water on Jupiter's fourth largest moon
2004
Tentatively scheduled launch of the Pluto-Kuiper Express. The
lightweight probe will take at least eight years to reach the
last unexplored planet
2007
Proposed launch of the Next Generation Space Telescope, a much
larger, more powerful successor to the Hubble
1962 Although he was the third American in space, Glenn was the
first to orbit Earth. Here are some statistics about the man and
the flight:
The Astronaut
HEIGHT 5 ft. 10 in. (1.8 m)
HAIR COLOR Red
AGE 40
SALARY $12,000+
DAILY WORKOUT 2-mile (3.2-km) run
The Spacecraft
NAME Friendship 7
CREW SIZE 1
CREW AREA 36 cu. ft. (1 cu m)
WINDOWS 1
COMPUTERS 0
TOGGLE SWITCHES 56
LIFT-OFF THRUST 360,000 lbs. (163,000 kg)
WEIGHT 4,256 lbs. (1,930 kg)
The Mission
NAME Mercury 6
LAUNCH DATE Feb. 20, 1962
LAUNCH TIME 9:47:39 a.m. E.T.
DURATION 4 hr. 55 min. 23 sec.
ORBITAL VELOCITY 17,544 m.p.h. (28,234 km/h)
MAXIMUM Gs 7.7
TIME PER ORBIT 88 min. 29 sec.
DISTANCE FLOWN 75,679 miles (121,794 km)
LANDING SITE Atlantic Ocean, 800 miles (1,300 km) southeast of Bermuda
RECOVERY Navy destroyer picked up capsule after splashdown
1998 This fall U.S. Senator Glenn returns to orbit as a crew
member on the space shuttle. As these statistics show, many
things--though not all things--have changed:
The Astronaut
HEIGHT 5 ft. 10 in. (1.8 m)
HAIR COLOR White
AGE 77
SALARY $136,673
DAILY WORKOUT 2-mile (3.2-km) fast walk
The Spacecraft
NAME Discovery
CREW SIZE 7
CREW AREA 2,325 cu. ft. (66 cu m)
WINDOWS 10
COMPUTERS 5
TOGGLE SWITCHES 856
LIFT-OFF THRUST 7,000,000 lbs. (3,175,000 kg)
WEIGHT 153,819 lbs. (69,770 kg)
The Mission
NAME STS-95
SCHED. LAUNCH DATE Oct. 29, 1998
LAUNCH TIME 2 p.m. E.T.
DURATION Approximately 8 days 20 hr.
ORBITAL VELOCITY 17,500 m.p.h. (28,164 km/h)
MAXIMUM Gs 3
TIME PER ORBIT 90 min.
DISTANCE FLOWN 3,600,000 miles (5,800,000 km)
LANDING SITE Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
RECOVERY None necessary
GLENN'S CAREER
1943 Joins U.S. Marine Corps; serves as a fighter pilot in World
War II and the Korean War
1959 Joins astronaut corps
1962 First American in orbit
1964 Retires from astronaut corps and briefly runs for a U.S.
Senate nomination, but drops out after being hurt in a fall
1965 Retires from Marine Corps. Later joins Royal Crown Cola
company as an executive
1970 Loses Ohio Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate to
Howard Metzenbaum
1974 Defeats Metzenbaum in the primary; elected to U.S. Senate
1997 Announces his retirement from the Senate
1998 Named as a payload specialist on space shuttle
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