Timeline of Space Exploration

By jtpearl
  • First Patented Telescope

    First to hold a patent for the telescope was Hans Lippershey
  • First Telescopic Space Observation

    Galileo was the first to use the telescope design to observe the Moon and the Milky Way
  • Isaac Newton Invented the Reflecting Telescope

    Newton suggested that using mirrors would yield better enhancement results than optic lenses
  • Yerkes Observatory

    Yerkes Observatory held the largest refracting telescope of the time in Williams Bay, WI
  • WWI (Start)

  • NACA

    the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was established
  • Mount Wilson Observatory

    Mount Wilson Observatory housed the Hooker Telescope on the Los Angeles hills of California. The Hooker became the new largest telescope in the world, manned by Edwin Hubble, who could see past the Milky Way to the Andromeda Nebula
  • Langley Research Center

    The Langley Research Center (LaRC), formerly known as the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, was the first of three main research facilities that studied space travel
  • WWI (End)

  • WWII (Start)

  • The Manhattan Project

    America attempts to build the first atomic weapon
  • USA Enters The War

    The United States entered WWII after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor
  • Atom Bombs

    the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, and the second on Nagasaki and officiated Japan's surrender
  • WWII (End)

    Japan formerly surrenders
  • Sputnik

    the Russians launched the first orbiting satellite into space
  • Explorer I

    the US launches their first satellite into orbit
  • NASA

    NASA takes over NACA, ending its 43-year run
  • Tsar Bomb

    Tested in Northern Russia, the shock wave traveled as far as Norway and Finland. Three times larger than Hiroshima
  • First Man in Space

    Russia's Yuri Gagarin was the first man to orbit Earth (108 mins)
  • Second Man In Space

    the United State's Alan Shepard was launched into space, but did not orbit
  • US Orbit

    John Glen of the USA orbits the Earth
  • Kennedy Assassinated

  • Man On The Moon

    Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon
  • Launching of Skylab

    the US launched its first space station
  • Launching of the Hubble Telescope

  • End of the 2nd Millennium