From the dawn of the space race to an era of international cooperation, the exploration of outer space has pushed both the limits of human imagination and humankind's technological capability. Explore the rich history of space exploration below, along with where we may go in the future.
Hours of research by our editors, distilled into minutes of clarity.
In addition to being the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin was a charismatic propaganda icon and a diplomatic headache for the West. This article examines why his image—and legacy—endured long after he died in 1968.
On Sept. 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy set forth this argument for the effort to land humans on the moon’s surface, casting the Apollo mission in terms of historic human ambitions.
Before humans flew into space, early missions sent animals—including dogs, monkeys, and chimpanzees—into orbit. These experiments tested survival, movement, and task performance in microgravity, providing critical data that made human spaceflight possible.
While the Soviet space program is famous for launching the first satellite and human into orbit, its most extraordinary feat was the Venera missions—probes that captured data, images, and audio from Venus’s brutal surface. No other nation has repeated the achievement.
Soviet scientists launched the first satellite, sent the first human into orbit, and carried out early spacewalks—milestones that gave the USSR a decisive early lead in the Space Race and reshaped global competition in science and technology.
Despite Apollo 11 starting as a 3,000-ton spacecraft, the only part of it that returned to Earth was the small command module, which splashed down in the Pacific Ocean carrying three astronauts and moon rocks.
On the night of July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped down the lunar module's ladder onto the moon's surface. The broadcast was watched by an estimated 650 million people—about a fifth of the then global population.
Despite the US starting the Space Race behind the Soviet Union, which had put a cosmonaut into space in 1961, the successful landing of Apollo 11 on the moon in 1969 was seen as a defining victory for America.
Spacecraft have been taking pictures of Mars from space since 1965, when the Mariner 4 probe became the first to beam back an image of a planet other than our own. The technology has significantly evolved since then, with ultra-high definition resolutions revealing previously unseen surface features.
The 2022 documentary, narrated by Angela Bassett, tells the story of NASA's Opportunity rover, which launched in 2003 to explore Mars. The film was named Best Documentary Feature at the 7th Critics' Choice Documentary Awards.
From roughly 60 miles above the Earth's surface to farther than light has traveled during the entire age of the universe, space has captured human imagination for millennia. Explore the final frontier with the best resources curated from across the internet.