Understanding the History of Spaceflight
How humanity reached space and explored the Solar System — the eras, the milestone firsts, and the records, from Sputnik to Artemis. Built on real dated events; nothing is fabricated.
- 1.1The story of spaceflightEras, events, milestones, and records — the whole arc of the space age.
- 1.2The eras of spaceflightFrom the Space Race to the Artemis era.
- 1.3Sputnik opens the space ageThe first artificial satellite, 1957.
- 1.4The first Moon landingApollo 11, and the first footsteps on another world.
Related entities
- Spaceflight era
The Space Race
The Cold-War contest between the Soviet Union and the United States that carried the first humans into orbit and on to the Moon, culminating in the Apollo landings and the détente of Apollo–Soyuz.
- Timeline event
Apollo 11 Lands the First Humans on the Moon
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the Moon while Michael Collins orbits above — the first humans to set foot on another world.
- Mission milestone
First Human in Space
Yuri Gagarin was the first person to travel into space and orbit the Earth, aboard Vostok 1.
- Record
Most Distant Human-Made Object
Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object from Earth, over 24 billion kilometres away and still receding, having crossed into interstellar space in 2012.