Jackson's Awesome Space Timeline

By 7d12009

  • Launches Sputnik 1

    Soviet Union launches Sputnik I.

  • Freedom 7

    With the launch of Freedom 7, Alan Shepard becomes the first American man in space. The suborbital flight, which was part of the Mercury Project, lasted 15 minutes, 28 seconds

  • Said to land on the Moon

    U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces the goal of sending astronauts to the moon before the end of the decade.

  • Launch of Gemini 5

    Launch of Gemini 5, carrying astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad on an eight-day mission to test rendezvous guidance and navigation systems, as well as study how humans could handle long-term exposure to a space environment. Gemini would be the critical link between the early Mercury Project and the Apollo missions.

  • Tragidy occurs

    Mission AS-204 is struck by tragedy when a flash fire breaks out during a launch pad test, killing three astronauts: Virgil Grissom, who had participated in Mercury and Gemini flights; Edward White, who conducted NASA's first extravehicular activity; and new astronaut Roger Chaffee. The mission, one of NASA's first major setbacks, was later renamed Apollo 1.

  • Launch of Apollo 11

    Launch of Apollo 11

  • First men on the moon

    Astronauts Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Neil Armstrong become the first men to walk on the moon.

  • Launch of Pionerr Venus

    Launch of the first of two spacecraft called Pioneer Venus, which would study the Venusian atmosphere.

  • Space Shuttle Atlantis Launches

    October 18, 1989--Space shuttle Atlantis launches Galileo to study Jupiter and its moons. It took Galileo six years to reach Jupiter, and it finally disintegrated in Jupiter's atmosphere in September of 2003, 14 years after it began its collision course toward the giant planet.

  • Launch of Genisis

    Launch of Genesis, which would collect samples of atoms from solar wind. Genesis would be the first attempt to return samples to Earth since the Apollo moon mission in 1972.