Space Age

This article is about the era. For the fire protection company, see Space Age Electronics.

The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite marked the start of the Space Age.

The signals of Sputnik 1 continued for 22 days.

The Space Shuttle lifts off on a manned mission to space.

The Space Age is a time period encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events. The Space Age is generally considered to have begun with Sputnik (1957).

Beginning

The Space Age began with the development of several technologies that culminated on October 4, 1957, with the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union. This was the world's first artificial satellite, orbiting the Earth in 98.1 minutes and weighing 83 kg (183 lb). The launch of Sputnik 1 ushered a new era of political, scientific and technological achievements that became known as the Space Age.

The Space Age was characterized by rapid development of new technology in a close race mostly between the US and the Soviet Union. Rapid advances were made in rocketry, materials science, computers and other areas. Much of the technology originally developed for space applications has been spun off and found additional uses.

The Space Age reached its peak with the Apollo program, that captured the imagination of much of the world's population. The landing of Apollo 11 was watched by over 500 million people around the world and is widely recognized as one of the defining moments of the 20th century. Since then, public attention has largely moved to other areas.

During the 1990s funding for space related programs fell sharply as the remaining structures of the Soviet Union disintegrated and NASA no longer had any direct competition.

Since then participation in space launches has increasingly widened to more governments and commercial interests. Since the 1990s, space exploration and space-related technologies gained a perception by many people of being commonplace.

Current period

In the early 21st century, the Ansari X Prize competition was set up to help jump start private spaceflight, which was won by Space Ship One in 2004, becoming the first spaceship not funded by a government agency.

Several countries now have space programs; from related technology ventures to full-fledged space programs with launch facilities. There are many scientific and commercial satellites in use today, with thousands of satellites in orbit, and several countries have plans to send humans into space.

Chronology

See also: Timeline of space exploration

Date	First ...	Mission	Person(s)	Country
June 20, 1944	Artificial object in outer space, i.e. beyond the Kármán line	V-2 rocket, test flight	– N/A	Germany
October 24, 1946	Pictures from space (105km)	U.S.-launched V-2 rocket from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.	– N/A	United States
February 20, 1947	Animals in space	U.S.-launched V-2 rocket on 20 February 1947 from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.	- fruit flies	United States
October 4, 1957	Artificial satellite	Sputnik 1	– N/A	Soviet Union
November 3, 1957	Animal in orbit	Sputnik 2	Laika the dog	Soviet Union
January 2, 1959	Lunar flyby, and first spacecraft to achieve a heliocentric orbit	Luna 1	– N/A	Soviet Union
September 12, 1959	Impacted on the Lunar surface; thereby becoming the first human object to reach another celestial body	Luna 2	– N/A	Soviet Union
October 7, 1959	Pictures of the far side of the Moon	Luna 3	– N/A	Soviet Union
April 12, 1961	Human in space	Vostok 1	Yuri Gagarin	Soviet Union
May 5, 1961	Manual orientation of manned spacecraft and first human space mission that landed with pilot still in spacecraft, thereby technically achieving the first complete human spaceflight by FAI definitions	Freedom 7	Alan Shepard	United States
December 14, 1962	Successful flyby of another planet (Venus closest approach 34,773 kilometers)	Mariner 2	– N/A	United States
March 18, 1965	Spacewalk	Voskhod 2	Alexey Leonov	Soviet Union
December 15, 1965	Space rendezvous	Gemini 6A & Gemini 7	Schirra, Stafford, Borman, Lovell	United States
March 16, 1966	Orbital docking between two spacecraft	Gemini 8 & Agena Target Vehicle	Neil Armstrong, David Scott	United States
April 3, 1966	Artificial satellite of another celestial body (other than the Sun)	Luna 10	– N/A	Soviet Union
December 21–27, 1968	Humans to leave the Earth's influence, orbiting the Moon	Apollo 8	Borman, Lovell, Anders	United States
July 20, 1969	Humans land and walk on another celestial body (Moon)	Apollo 11	Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin	United States
April 19, 1971	Operational space station	Salyut 1	– N/A	Soviet Union
June 7, 1971	Resident crew	Soyuz 11 (Salyut 1)	Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Patsayev	Soviet Union
July 20, 1976	Pictures from the surface of Mars	Viking 1	– N/A	United States
April 12, 1981	Reusable orbital spaceship	STS-1	Young, Crippen	United States
February 19, 1986	Long-duration space station	Mir	– N/A	Soviet Union
February 14, 1990	Photograph of the whole Solar System	Voyager 1	– N/A	United States
August 25, 2012	Man-made space probe in interstellar space	Voyager 1	– N/A	United States
November 12, 2014	Man-made probe to make a planned and soft landing on a comet (67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko)	Rosetta	– N/A	European Union
July 14, 2015	Nation to have its space probes to explore all of the nine major planets recognized in 1981	New Horizons	– N/A	United States

Earlier spaceflights

The Space Age might also be considered to have begun much earlier than October 4, 1957, because in June 1944, a German V-2 rocket became the first man-made object to enter space, albeit only briefly. Some even considered that the Space Age started in March 1926, when American rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard launched the world's first liquid fuel rocket, though his rocket did not reach the outer space.

Since the aforementioned V-2 rocket flight was undertaken in secrecy, it was not public knowledge for many years afterward. Further, the German launches, as well as the subsequent sounding rocket tests performed in both the United States and the Soviet Union during the late 1940s and early 1950s, were not considered significant enough to start a new age because they did not reach orbit. Having a rocket powerful enough to reach orbit meant that a nation had the ability to place a payload anywhere on the planet, or to use another term, possessed an inter-continental ballistic missile. The fact that after such a development nowhere on the planet was safe from a nuclear warhead is why the orbit standard is used to define when the space age started.

Arts and architecture

Saturn V and Cadillac DeVille (1959)

TWA Moonliner II replica atop the restored TWA Corporate Headquarters building in Kansas City, MO, 2007.

The Space Age is considered to have influenced:

• Automotive design
• Amusement park attraction including TWA Moonliner and Mission to Mars.
• Cold War playground equipment

See also

• Space exploration
• Space Race
• Spacecraft
• Human spaceflight
• Space probe
• Information Age
• Jet Age
• Atomic Age
• Googie architecture (space age design movement)
• Space tourism

External links

Interactive media

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